In message <4ab82c2e.9933%hideki_ka...@ybb.ne.jp>, Hideki Kato
<hideki_ka...@ybb.ne.jp> writes
Nick Wedd: <b0h5qxcry7tkf...@maproom.demon.co.uk>:
Congratulations to MoGoTW, winner of yesterday's KGS bot tournament.
My report is at http://www.weddslist.com/kgs/past/51/index.html. It is
longer than usual - perhaps because I found this event, with a very
strong entry and a fast format, particularly interesting.
As usual, I am sure there are errors, and I look forward to receiving
your corrections.
Thank you for the tournament, Nick. It's quite interesting and
exciting with many strong programs.
Correction: In the picture of round 14 (bottom left of the page), it's
not White turn but Black.
Thanks - fixed.
Below is the text of an email I plan to send to William Shubert. I know
he wants to spend very little time on changes to the server now, but I
am hoping what I am proposing will be a very simple change.
Nick
Dear Bill,
Thank you for the support KGS continues to give to bot tournaments. We
had a particularly successful one last Sunday, with a strong attendance:
you can read my report at
http://www.weddslist.com/kgs/past/51/index.html
Some of the results in the tournament, involving the bots 'housebot' and
'EricaBot', reminded me that there is a small change you could make to
the server code, to make its support for bot/bot games even better. The
problem arises when a bot does not support the clean-up protocol at the
game end. The intention was that a bot not supporting this protocol
would have a fair chance of winning a game, unless there was a status
dispute at the game end. But this is not what happens the way things
are: such a bot loses many of its games undeservedly, as described
below.
Here is what happens at present. Suppose White is a strong player that
does not support clean-up, and Black is a weak player that does support
clean-up. White secures more than half the territory; and as it knows
it does not support clean-up, it tidily captures all the black stones
inside its territory before passing. There is a dead white stone inside
Black's territory.
After both players pass, Black submits a dead-stone list listing the one
dead stone. White does not know how to submit a dead-stone list, and
does nothing. The server then acts on White's behalf and marks the dead
white stone as alive. The resumption starts. Black captures the dead
stone. White does not know what it is meant to be doing, does nothing,
times out, and loses.
I have two proposals to make the clean-up give fairer results than this,
and allow White to win the game described above.
PROPOSAL 1.
If the server receives a dead-stone list from only one player, then the
server believes that player, and counts, with no resumption. (If it
receives a dead-stone list from neither player, then the server treats
all stones as alive, and counts with no resumption).
PROPOSAL 2.
If, during the clean-up phase, a player times out, then the server
treats that player as passing for the rest of the clean-up.
I hope that one of these changes to the server will be simple to make.
No change to the user interface is involved. It is sad to see a strong
bot like EricaBot lose won games just because it does not support
clean-up, when such support was meant to be voluntary.
Best wishes,
Nick
--
Nick Wedd n...@maproom.co.uk
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