The final result was:
| 1st | 6 wins | Handtalk | Chen Zhi Xing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2nd | 5 wins | Go Intellect | Ken Chen |
| 3rd | 4 wins | Stone | Kao Kuo Yuan |
| 4th | 3 wins | Go4++ | Michael Reiss |
| 5th | 3 wins | Many Faces of Go | David Fotland |
| 6th | 3 wins | Go Master | Jee Wonho |
| 7th | 3 wins | Jimmy | Yan Shi-jim |
| 8th | 3 wins | Wulu | Chen Guo Bao, Lei Xue Ru, and Fan Jin Chao |
| 9th | 2 wins | Sason | Ha Youngkyun |
| 10th | 2 wins | DFGO | Chen Tie Jun |
| 11th | 1 win | WQ | Wang Sheng Jun |
| 12th | 1 win | Wu | Wu Tong Kuan |
This year Handtalk was clearly superior, easily winning all its games. The closest was a 21 point win over Go4++. Kao has completely rewritten Stone, working 10 hours a day since June. This is his first finish in the top 3 places. His new program focuses on fighting well, and reading life and death accurately. WuLu is another good new program. It had bad luck in losing one game on time, but had a very close game against Go4++, so it is stronger than it appears from this result. It is written by Prof Chen's assistants and is only 2 years old.
Go Intellect has been ported to windows-95 on a PC, and is stronger than last year.
The closest game was between Many Faces of Go and Go4++, which Many Faces won by only 1 point, playing black.
Go4++ has a territory oriented style, while the other top programs all depend on fighting strength. Last year Go4++ did very well, but the other programs have had a year to get used to playing against this style, so it was not as effective this year. Go4++ has a stylized opening, always taking 2 adjacent 3-3 points and splitting the other side on its first 3 moves. Handtalk prepared a counter fuseki that prevented Go4++ from starting a moyo anywhere.
This year the human players were quite strong, and won all 3 games against Handtalk with an 11 play handicap.
The full tournament grid (not in order of final result):
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Wins | SDS | SOS-SDS | Place | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Handtalk | +2 | +4 | +7 | +10 | +11 | +6 | 6 | 1 | ||
| 2 | Sason | -1 | +3 | -4 | -6 | -7 | +5 | 2 | 3 | 9 | |
| 3 | DFGO | -4 | -2 | +5 | +12 | -6 | -9 | 2 | 2 | 10 | |
| 4 | Many Faces | +3 | -1 | +2 | +7 | -10 | -11 | 3 | 7 | 5 | |
| 5 | Wu | -6 | -8 | -3 | -9 | +12 | -2 | 1 | 1 | 12 | |
| 6 | Jimmy | +5 | -7 | -8 | +2 | +3 | -1 | 3 | 5 | 12 | 7 |
| 7 | Go4++ | +8 | +6 | -1 | -4 | +2 | -10 | 3 | 8 | 4 | |
| 8 | WuLu | -7 | +5 | +6 | -11 | -9 | +12 | 3 | 5 | 10 | 8 |
| 9 | Go Master | -10 | -12 | -11 | +5 | +8 | +3 | 3 | 6 | 6 | |
| 10 | Go Intellect | +9 | +11 | +12 | -1 | +4 | +7 | 5 | 2 | ||
| 11 | Stone | +12 | -10 | +9 | +8 | -1 | +4 | 4 | 3 | ||
| 12 | WQ | -11 | +9 | -10 | -3 | -5 | -8 | 3 | 11 |
This entire report was written by David Fotland.