karaklis wrote:
I doubt GnuGo is 7-8k. I can beat it easily with three stones and I am only around 6-7k myself.
GnuGo is much stronger tactically than it is strategically. If you keep your distance and avoid complicated fights it's maybe 8k, but if you actively engage it and try to kill its groups, etc. it's more like a 6k (KGS ranks, maybe +/- 1 stone).
As a relatively recent milestone, I went back to GnuGo and was finally able to win an even game against it through tactical brute force instead of strategic trickery (that is, I out-read it locally in a number of places). Before that, I was able to win against GnuGo by surrounding its groups from a distance and forcing it to live small or just dying from carelessness, but it usually got the upper hand in any local fighting, so I had to play pretty passively in local fights and rely on GnuGo running out of eyes.
...
Though if you're DDK, gnugo might as well be God for how effectively it will stomp you
Even when it makes a mistake it's not at all clear that it wasn't just part of its grand master plan. I think it's a good low-stress way to gauge progress and try out ideas when you're just starting out.