Of course it was. If your explanation of AlphaGo somehow involves saying it was different from chess programs you can stop right now - you're just entirely wron

Of course it was. If your explanation of AlphaGo somehow involves saying it was different from chess programs you can stop right now - you're just entirely wrong. Whether chess engines and go engine are brute force or not just depends on how you define brute force: * If you cut variations where you have heuristical indications they don't affect the result, is that still brute force? * If you cut variations where you have mathematical, provable evidence they don't affect the result, is that still brute force?