Pattern Knowledge for Proof-Number Search in Computer Go

Over the years, proof-number search has successfully been applied to many game domains. This article proposes two new pattern-based heuristics for move ordering in proof-number search. One heuristic applies patterns directly, the other heuristic uses patterns to control Monte-Carlo sampling. The test domain is the Life-and-Death problem in the game of Go. Experimentally, we found some advantages in memory consumption indicating that the pattern heuristics are promising. Future research will prove the patterns' quality for proof-number- search applications.