Vs. of The Go

[Guardman]

Today I have gathered some of the greatest mind's from across the universe for the ultimate test of knowledge, a Go tournament. So which one of these geniuses will be the winner of this tournament of a life time. (Assume that each participant knows how to play Go and has an understanding of Go strategy {See I'm covering all my bases this time.})

Albert Einstein: Named Time Magazine's Person of the 20th Century and for good reason. Widely considered one of the most influential person in human history, his genius has become legendary. His name has become synonymous with the term Genius.

Leonardo da Vinci: A polymath without peers, he is widely considered to be one of the most ingenious and smartest men to ever live. He was hugely successful in just about every field that he entered and his ideas are still revolutionary to this day.

Marilyn vos Savant: Her name says it all. vos Savant is widely considered to have the highest IQ in the world and is known to be able to solve even the hardest logic problems.

Bobby Fischer: Widely considered to be one of the Greatest Chess Players of All Time. He is known for being a tenatious player, that is able to read the board and see a winning combination if it exists.

Go Seigen: Considered the best player of Go in the 20th century and quite possibly the greatest Go player of all time. Able to quickly read the board he is known for his fast pace style of play and ability to quickly and accurately read the board.

So who will win this tournament? Will Einstein's genius, be able to beat da Vinci's inginuity, can Bobby Fischer's great Chess playing ability translate and dominate of Go Seigen's ability to play go, or will vos Savant's logical ability trump all?

For those that care: The tournament is round-robin with best record winning, and in case of a tie, there will be a playoff. Color is choosen normally at the beginning of the game. Each player is given three hours to move, with the Komi is 6.5 points. The board is a standard 19 x 19. The rules that I am using are the ones used by The Nihon Ki-in, except where otherwise noted.

[zeustehgreat]

Chess is a lot like go strategically so I vote Bobby Fischer. They are all smart just at different things that is why I give him the nod

[Oni kadaki]

Experience in a specific field beats raw intelligence, so Go wins at Go (not to say he isn't very intelligent, mind you).

[yakusoku]

I would have chosen (Isaac) Newton over da Vinci and I have issues with your statement that these are the greatest minds over the universe, when they're at best the greatest minds from throughout human history. (It is still conceivable that there are minds far greater than any of these five, but we would never know about them, unless their planets exploded, and their spaceships crashed here - not that I'm suggesting that Gordon Shumway could even beat any of these five at Go.) It's the same problem when promos try to hype American or North American sports finals as the World Championships.

However, between these five, I have to give the nod to Go Seigen. The other non-game-playing individuals on your lists are noted for their accomplishments outside of strategical thinking. Einstein understood math and physics and clearly had a brilliant analytical mind that understood abstract concepts to the extreme, but put into another context, and that kind of genius won't necessarily translate. Musical savants aren't necessarily the best artists, artistic savants aren't necessarily the best debaters, and mathematical geniuses aren't necessarily the cream of the crop when it comes to strategy. One need only note that in colleges, there are computer scientists who aren't great with mathematics, physicists who don't understand chemistry well, and biologists who struggle with physics.

In Magic, there are constructed players who fare poorly in the limited world, and vice versa. Da Vinci may do well when it comes to engineering problems, but I doubt that he can literally beat a master in his own game.

Vos Savant is clearly very intelligent, but it's been shown that there are certainly limits to her genius and certain gaps when it comes to fields outside of her expertise. I would wager that she could play Go better than the average person, but probably not at the same level as top players.

Fischer (or Kasparov - another point of contention I have with your list) would probably present the best challenge, but again, the two board games are different animals and I have to concede that the man who made his name in Go (no pun intended) would triumph here. If the two men played Shogi instead of Go or Chess, that would make a more interesting challenge, and I might have to change my winner of choice.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Oni kadaki

Experience in a specific field beats raw intelligence, so Go wins at Go (not to say he isn't very intelligent, mind you).

Normally I would go with this reasoning.... but Leonardo da Vinci? COME'ON!
"raw" intelligence? His intelligence was still on the ****ing cow!

I am voting for him.

[Oni kadaki]

Originally Posted by SoronTheBeast

Normally I would go with this reasoning.... but Leonardo da Vinci? COME'ON!
"raw" intelligence? His intelligence was still on the ****ing cow!

I am voting for him.

He wasn't that brilliant, none of his inventions would have actually worked and likely were there to impress potential patrons more than anything else. He was doubtlessly very intelligent, but he's been a bit overhyped a bit.

[Darjarri]

I voted for Go



His name IS Go, anyway.

[Blinking Spirit]

An "understanding of Go strategy"? Not nearly enough. Unless the other players are brilliant enough to singlehandedly recreate and internalize centuries of Go theory, Go Seigen wins. Even if each player is given exactly the same amount of Go knowledge and experience as Go Seigen, Go Seigen probably still wins - after all, there are many different kinds of intelligence, and he's the only one of the players who's proven his genius-level aptitude at this particular game.

[JollyTheOctopuss]

I'm gonna GO with Go Seigen. Simply because his genius would be most focused on Go specifically and he'd likely have the best understanding of exactly what to do, as opposed to sort of translating or carrying over his genius and trying to apply it to an idea that might be new to him.

[mondu_the_fat]

How fair would it be to ask Einstein to paint the Mona Lisa? He's a genius, right? We can teach him color theory and how to hold a brush and let him loose on a canvas. If Leonardo can do it, so can Einstein.

No, not really.

The example is extreme, but perfectly illustrates this point:

Experience in a specific field beats raw intelligence, so Go wins at Go (not to say he isn't very intelligent, mind you).

[PriestsofGix]

I would have to go with Go as well. Imagine putting one of those individuals into MtG Worlds will full knowledge of the rules of the game, but no experience - how likely will they beat the pros? This is the same issue.

[aurorasparrow]

Go Seigen. No amount of talent cannot overcome talent AND experience.

And seriously, Go is NOTHING like Chess.

[Zith]

Go definitely takes it on standard Go boards (19x19 and 13x13, even 9x9 or 17x17), but I think Einstein could take it on an n-x-n board, where n is sufficiently large, as he's displayed a natural ability to understand the abstract more than the others.

As for other possible contestants, I'd think that Carl Gauss deserves mention even more than da Vinci due to depth of understanding, and I wonder about Pythagoras.

[Qetu]

Go is about patter recognition. I would put my money on Go, but i think von Savant has the adequate frame of mind for finding strategies. I don't think Einstein or Fischer would be specialy good at it. I don't really know where to put Leonardo, he was a genius.

[Ahasver]

Da Vinci would win for a simple reason: his erratic mind would baffle any of the others. Vos Savant maybe could see some of his movements, but probably not all of them.

You're talking about a man whose entire scientific research is yet to be discovered, and whose artowrk is so strange that they cannot figure out how he made his brushstrokes (though I have heard that they figured out he used his fingers). While strategies and expirience mean something, a strange playstyle that is still effective makes a large impact.

While Go knows everything about the game, da Vinci would make moves that he would think are stupid or crazy and then all of the sudden he would lose.

*edit*

And how is Newton not on the list? These are certainly great minds, but only two of them mean anything. If your going on IQ I beat out Einstein, if your going by strategy game ability then the IQ doesn't matter, if your going by accomplishments then only two have careers worth more than a grain of salt.