Perhaps relevant (but I doubt it) is this. Gunnar Farneback has been testing how many handicap stones a "random player" needs to win versus a sensible go-playing program. I'm not sure of his precise definition of "random player," but he provides a program so there is one. Gnugo ~=~ random+(20 to 22) stones; the strongest program GF's tried ~=~ random+(29-to-32); these all are on a 9x9 board. Assuming scaleup linearly with area, the strongest programs versus a random player on a 19x19 board would play even if random were given about 134 handicap stones.