Four Centuries of Go

The game of 'Go' presented Bret A. Beheim with an opportunity.

Here was a game that has not changed in a long time, where we have records of plays going back more than a hundred years.

Turning both plays and playstyles into a dataset, Beheim was able to show that diversity of strategies peaked during the Japanese Imperial Era.

As global popularity of Go rose, the diversity of openings lowered.

A resurgence came with the internet, and then an even lower drop of diversity- culminating in AlphaGo.