HKD Infinity Go-1: It don't matter if it's black or white

Abstract

This paper presents a tournament-oriented framework for analyzing HKDGoInfinity-1, a Go engine tested on the Computer Go Server (CGOS). The intended audience ranges from a reader meeting atari for the first time to strong dan players interested in forcing order, ko risk, and endgame conversion. We introduce three locally checkable tactical certificates: capture safety, liberty-monotone forc ing, and area-safe conversion. Each certificate is modest by design: it does not "solve Go," but identifies a position in which a claimed local conclusion follows from explicit assumptions. Custom Python code reconstructs board diagrams from CGOS/SGF records and audits Chinese area scores. In the author's current tournament sample, the engine's observed win rate is approximately 56%; this figure and the comparison with the player prefix kg_ are provisional until the underlying server export is archived with this paper. The larger lesson is that strong play be comes more intelligible when a spectacular move arrives with a small, inspectable proof.