Re: [computer-go] Strongest 9x9 programm?
Are we to assume that Size is starting to get good at 9x9 and can beat Gnugo consistently? - Don On Mon, 2007-01-01 at 13:14 +0100, Chrilly wrote: For testing Suzie on 9x9 we (Peter Woitke and Chrilly) use Gnu-Go Level 16. Is there something stronger around /available? Y ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Strongest 9x9 programm?
- Original Message - From: alain Baeckeroot [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: computer-go computer-go@computer-go.org Sent: Monday, January 01, 2007 2:33 PM Subject: Re: [computer-go] Strongest 9x9 programm? Having various opponents is the best way for improvement. Yes, I fully agree. I believe Sluggo is an extreme example of this, it is by design especially strong against GNU http://files.gokgs.com/games/2006/12/20/GNU-slugGo.sgf but it is not clear that it is stronger against other opponents: Yes, a well known effect. Very similar to Gnu-Go, but slightly stronger. This has a big impact. But GNU seems significantly stronger than Mogo19 (rated 2k higher on kgs) http://files.gokgs.com/games/2006/12/18/MoGoBot19-GNU.sgf For 19x19 Gnu-Go is also no good sparring partner for Suzie. Its too strong. The ideal sparring partner is slightly stronger. I think that any kind of search works quite well on 9x9. Search works too at 19x19, but the hardware is at the moment not fast enough. The INTEL engineers have to work a little bit harder for 19x19. Ok, crazystone 9X9 is available for download at Remi's page, but i see no license, so i suppose using it for testing is ok. Thanks for the information. Chrilly ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Strongest 9x9 programm?
Are we to assume that Size is starting to get good at 9x9 and can beat Gnugo consistently? - Don Peter Woitke has done a great job in the last month. He deserves the Hero of the Suzie work medal. Especially he fixed a lot of bugs. But on 19x19 its still not satisfactory, so Peter gave it a try on 9x9. To his surprise its much stronger than Peters own programm GoAhead. On 19x19 GoAhead is still clearly better. So he started to play with Gnu-Go. But thats still a little bit too weak. Suzie does not win all the time but she is already better. Peter does his experiments with a fixed depth 7 ply search. I want to improve the search in the next time. E.g. introducing time control, permanent brain, rote-learning Some basic things every chess programm has. But if the opponent is already beaten 70% of the time, its difficult to measure the effects. Therefore I am looking for an opponent which is at least as good. Attached is best of Suzie (or worst of Gnu-Go). But its not always like this. Yes, I forgot to mention that. KGS tournaments are only played once a month but there is nothing like the stress of a tournament to bring out bugs,and poblems. This is a very good rate of playing. Playing constantly is pointless, because one has always already something new. But one can make every month a stable version and look how it plays. Very stupid question: Were to I get a fool-proof description how to join the tournament? You know I am from the generation, were one travelled to tournament, shake hand with the programmer of the opponent, entered the moves by hand These internet tournaments are also a cultural shock. Chrilly GnuGo-Suzie_02_43.sgf Description: Binary data ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Sho-Dan-level at 9x9
On 1/1/07, Łukasz Lew [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I believe that MoGo is already stronger than 1d on KGS. I'm 3d KGS and it's hard to win. Mogo has almost no loses KGS. Lukasz I made a quick and dirty update to my old php-script to half-heartedly support cgoban3 ( not the online script, it's still permanently killed. Thank you Lukasz for providing the server-space, you can remove my login if you like. ). Being my worst piece of code ever, I don't trust the numbers 100%.. maybe 80%. ;) Anyway, MoGoBot is showing a rating of approximately 3 dan. This may be a bit high, I'm quite sure it lingers around the shodan level. Most will lose the first games played by underestimating the program.. by their third or fourth game they will start winning. :) //Christian ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Sho-Dan-level at 9x9
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Chrilly [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes For Suzie I try for 9x9 to establish a Dan-ranking at the next European Championship in Villach/Austria. Do you mean that you are planning to enter it for a regular human Go event? Have you checked that the organisers will allow this? I once entered Professor Chen's HandTalk for a human Go tournament which I was organising, in Oxford. I received no complaints from its opponents, but several from stronger players, and from British Go Association officials, who asked me never to do this again. Nick -- Nick Wedd[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Strongest 9x9 programm?
Yes, where is Suzie? Seriously, CGOS tries to be programmer friendly and will be improved to be more so. Unfortunately you will not always get a tough opponent, but this is impossible with an open server. However CGOS tries hard to keep the opponents paired up fairly closely and you will get your fair share of tough matches. In fact this is what CGOS is designed to do, no elitism or refusal to play certain opponents because they weaker. But this cuts both ways, stronger opponents cannot look down on Suzie and refuse to play her either. The only program not guaranteed tough matches is Mogo, because there isn't anything on CGOS that can challenge Mogo.That's why you need to get on CGOS and try to change the status quo :-) - Don On Mon, 2007-01-01 at 17:23 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, To generate this pain one needs a slightly stronger opponent. The pain-level of Gnu-Go is for Suzie on 9x9 already too low. What you can do is to limit your program. For MoGo I test with 3k or 10k simulations per move. Of course it is not in the real games conditions, but at least this is fast :). Then when you want to really test, play on CGOS, I don't see any Suzie on CGOS... ;). Sylvain ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Sho-Dan-level at 9x9
For Suzie I try for 9x9 to establish a Dan-ranking at the next European Championship in Villach/Austria. Do you mean that you are planning to enter it for a regular human Go event? Have you checked that the organisers will allow this? I once entered Professor Chen's HandTalk for a human Go tournament which I was organising, in Oxford. I received no complaints from its opponents, but several from stronger players, and from British Go Association officials, who asked me never to do this again. Nick I am in touch with the organizers. They have asked me to give a lecture about computer-go. Maybe one can organize around this a 9x9 match humans against Suzie. Some sort of practical lecture. One has to give the humans some (small) incentive to take the match serious. E.g. at the Vienna chess open I played once with Nimzo Blitz. Every player had to pay 1$. The money was put in a pot and the first winner of a game got the pot. This was extremly popular and some players even went away during their games to hit the jack-pot. I do not plan to play in the official part of the tournament. There is up to my knowledge anyway no 9x9 tournament and if it is, an EC is for humans and not for computers. Chrilly ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Sho-Dan-level at 9x9
Hi Chrilly, I find it pretty amazing that even a little money will inspire people to play a computer who wouldn't otherwise. Many years ago my old chess programs were welcome at tournaments, but as soon as players started losing, the program wore out it's welcome! The change was like night and day. We came to one tournament and almost everyone signed the refuse to play a computer list. So I offered 5 dollars for a draw and 10 dollars for a win. This tiny incentive caused almost all the players to agree to play the computer and in fact many players begged to play it. What was ironic, was that didn't pay out a single penny but everyone was happy! - Don On Mon, 2007-01-01 at 18:53 +0100, Chrilly wrote: For Suzie I try for 9x9 to establish a Dan-ranking at the next European Championship in Villach/Austria. Do you mean that you are planning to enter it for a regular human Go event? Have you checked that the organisers will allow this? I once entered Professor Chen's HandTalk for a human Go tournament which I was organising, in Oxford. I received no complaints from its opponents, but several from stronger players, and from British Go Association officials, who asked me never to do this again. Nick I am in touch with the organizers. They have asked me to give a lecture about computer-go. Maybe one can organize around this a 9x9 match humans against Suzie. Some sort of practical lecture. One has to give the humans some (small) incentive to take the match serious. E.g. at the Vienna chess open I played once with Nimzo Blitz. Every player had to pay 1$. The money was put in a pot and the first winner of a game got the pot. This was extremly popular and some players even went away during their games to hit the jack-pot. I do not plan to play in the official part of the tournament. There is up to my knowledge anyway no 9x9 tournament and if it is, an EC is for humans and not for computers. Chrilly ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Time handling on CGOS
On Mon, 2007-01-01 at 19:06 +0100, Urban Hafner wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hej, I figured I'd ask my question about CGOS here as the documentation is said to be out of date. My question is: Does CGOS do the time handling like KGS, i.e. send a time_left command before every gen_move command? Yes, it's sends this information via the client just like KGS does. In the near future I'm going to silently add in a fudge factor to each move. It's been brought to my attention that even if a program plays instantly, it will lose a significant amount of time on each move, perhaps 1/2 second or so. So it will probably be 1/4 or 1/2 second I add but your program won't need to know about this. I won't allow time to accumulate. You won't have more time left than you did the move before. - Don Thanks, Urban - -- http://bettong.net - Urban's Blog -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (Darwin) iD8DBQFFmU26ggNuVCIrEyURAu7TAJ9IkUeWYNc9eoXZFSer4NztRyENDwCgrbf+ x5ryCVBN0FEP+cFqaxtr0Mo= =wrgM -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
RE: [computer-go] UCT vs MC
Thanks. So it seems that doing as many random games as possible is not the ideal approach. In UCT, I suppose the equivalent of the principal variation would be the path from the root that always visits the child with the highest number of simulations. When you make a move with 70,000 simulations, how deep is this UCT_principal variation? I expect that after this many simulations the UCT tree will include every position in some number of ply from the root. Deeper in the tree it will not visit every child. Typically, how many ply in the UCT tree is full width? I'm curious about the full width depth and the principal variation depth to compare UCT wilth alpha-beta. It's great to see a new approach to computer go that works so well. Thanks for sharing your work. David -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 01, 2007 3:56 AM To: computer-go Subject: Re: [computer-go] UCT vs MC Hello and happy new year! I have some questions about your paper... Whouah that's a lot of questions :). I'll try to answer well. I thought that the Monte Carlo evaluation of a position is done by making many random games from that position, and averaging the win/loss result. So the evaluation of a position would be a number between 0 and 1. I thought several thousand random games would be used for one evaluation. No, we consider one evaluation as one simulation, so the evaluation function is a bernoulli random variable. Now you are mainly interested in its expectation, and it is why you can think making a lot of simulations and averaging, trying to approximate the expectation by the empirical average. In your paper, say that each UCT leaf node is evaluated by exactly one random game (simulation), with a result of 0 or 1. Is this true? Yes it is true. We try having more that one simulation per leaf node, and: -with the same number of nodes, the improvement is very small; -with the same number of total simulations the level is much weaker. This seems counter intuitive, but in fact it is not. At each simulation we add a node. So a node often visited will have a lot of descendants, so will average a lot of simulations. The key idea of UCT is that the value in a node is the average of its children's values weigthed by the frequency of visits for its children. I think you say Mogo does 70,000 random games per move. Does this mean that the UCT tree for a move has 70,000 nodes? When you say 70,000 games per move, does that mean total game move made, or game per node evaluation? That means per MoGo's move. So yes, UCT tree for a move has 7 nodes. It is the total number of simulations. I use the same count for the CGOS versions of MoGo. MoGo_xxx_10k uses 1 simulations for each move, or if you prefer, 1 nodes in its tree. That means that if the CGOS game finished after 40 MoGo moves, then MoGo has computed 400 000 random simulations for the complete game. (There is also a 5000 simulations per move version on CGOS). How many simulations (random games with patterns) does Mogo do per second? On a P4 3.4Ghz, 4500 in 9x9, 1000 in 19x19. How do you back up values in the UCT tree? There are values in the example tree, but I can't see how they are calculated. As in the UCT algorithm. For each node for the root to the leaf of the current sequence you simply add the 0/1 result to a variable, and 1 to the count of the number of simulations. Your code says that the value is backed up by sum and negation (line 26, value := -value). But I don't see any negative values in your sample tree, or values greater than one. How do you actually back up values to the root? Sorry, it is value := 1-value. Thank you for pointing out the mistake. on page 5 you say that UCB1-TUNED performs better and you use that formula. In the code for the algorithm, you use UCB (line 16). Which is correct? Since the beginning we used UCB1-TUNED and it performed better. Now with all other improvements, and with a fine parameters tuning the difference is very small. UCB1-TUNED has the advantage that it does not need a parameters tuning to performs well in Go (the famous sqrt(1/10) constant Remi Coulom posted in this list). In your paper you show win rates against GnuGo of about 50%, depending on the parameters. The current Mogo beats GnuGo over 90%. What changed? Are you doing more simulations, or do you have more go knowledge in your patterns? The results near 50% was with the uniform random simulations. The 80% is with the improved simulations. In the current MoGo there are new improvements not yet published. Currently, against gnugo 3.6 level 8 with 7 simulations, the result is 92.5%. MoGo which plays on tournaments makes more than
Re: [computer-go] Time handling on CGOS
I want to point out that this is not an attempt to be fair about network lag - if you have a more reliable network your program will always have an advantage. What it tries to do is make it so that the time your bot spends thinking as reckoned by your local clock is an upper bound on the time the server thinks you spent. - Don On Mon, 2007-01-01 at 13:18 -0500, Don Dailey wrote: In the near future I'm going to silently add in a fudge factor to each move. It's been brought to my attention that even if a program plays instantly, it will lose a significant amount of time on each move, perhaps 1/2 second or so. ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Time Zones (was Re: [computer-go] KGS Slow tournament)
An interesting report. I have a question about a line near the end where you address the two meanings of UCT: UCT as applied to times stands for Universal Coordinate Time. It is the same, for most practical purposes including ours, as GMT, Greenwich Mean Time, the time zone based on London, England. I had an experience where I set a Mac OS X Dashboard Widget clock to London time, and it was an hour off from UCT. I could only get the correct time by using Dakar as the city. Does London use something like Daylight Savings Time, making London time the same as GMT/UCT only part of the year? Peter Drake Assistant Professor of Computer Science Lewis Clark College http://www.lclark.edu/~drake/ On Dec 23, 2006, at 10:58 AM, Nick Wedd wrote: I have written up the week's Slow KGS bot tournament. My report, which is fuller than usual, is at http://www.weddslist.com/kgs/past/s1/index.html I think that, despite various accidents, the event was a success. I plan to hold another one, but only after the next release of the KGS server fixes the five minute rule bug. Congratulations to the winner, MoGoBot19! Nick -- Nick Wedd[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Interesting problem
On 31-dec-06, at 15:34, David Fotland wrote: A strong chinese player using chinese rules will pick up a point or two during the dame filling stage when playing a strong japanese player. The Chiense player will choose earlier moves that gain a later dame point that the japanese player will think have no benefit over other moves. I'm rather late to the discussion, having been on vacation, but the above seems strange. Choosing a move that will gain a later dame point is equivalent to making a point. Therefore by definition the move the chinese player made was not a dame point. As long as both players fill in dame, the Chinese player will never gain a point. The only case where I've seen strong Chinese players gain a point very late in the game against other strong players is by winning the last half-point ko but instead of filling it he fills another dame-point. Provided he has many more ko-threats so he can wait filling the ko until all dame are filled he gains either zero or two points (depending on whether the number of remaining dame was even or uneven.). Mark ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] UCT vs MC
I seem to remember someone on this group a couple of years ago or so saying that there won't be a 1 Dan 9x9 player anytime soon. I don't remember the exact quote or who said it. I'm looking through the archives but I can't find it. I would not name the person even when I do, but it gives me a strong feeling of Deja Vue. Chrilly probably remembers when the strongest chess computers were about beginner strength despite furious attempts to make them play strongly. - Don On Mon, 2007-01-01 at 01:33 +0100, John Tromp wrote: On 1/1/07, David Fotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In your paper you show win rates against GnuGo of about 50%, depending on the parameters. The current Mogo beats GnuGo over 90%. What changed? Are you doing more simulations, or do you have more go knowledge in your patterns? Does Mogo have an opening book? I spent most of yesterday on KGS playtesting MoGo on 9x9 with 30 min total thinking time. The experience was quite unlike any other program I've played on 9x9 in the past. As I wrote to Sylvain in a private email: I had a lot of fun playing MoGo today. In the first game, it played some nonsensical moves and I got a totally won position, but MoGo turned out to be very inventive and led me into a trap:( That was not the last game I was to lose to MoGo. I found it much more challenging than any other program I played. It is quite resourceful. And in one game you'll see it play a beautiful tesuji. This really makes me feel like it's only a matter of time till MC programs can challenge professionals on 9x9. I enclose 2 of the games I played. In the first, MoGo is quite enterprising in the opening, with moves like e6. It would be very hard for an evaluation function to appreciate the potential w has for territory after black c8. But MoGo correctly assesses that w will control the right half of the board. Furthermore, it very nicely punishes blacks mistake of playing f5 prematurely with a beautiful tesuji at d3. In the other game, Mogo plays a different atari on the 6th move, leading to a very different game. It shows good timing in playing b7 when the right group can fend for itself and plays a nice probe at e3 to determine its followup. Apparently it sees that g2 is sente on the d2 group, preventing black from a killing attempt at h5. It makes a mistakeat move 30 with f7 though. Playing a4 c4 a2 b3 a3 d4 a6 b3 e8 instead would have given it a win. Later testing with MoGo showed that it indeed was unlucky to choose f7, and prefers e8 with a bit more search. I feel that the shodan level go 9x9 programs have arrived... regards, -John ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] UCT vs MC
On Mon, 2007-01-01 at 20:10 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm curious about the full width depth and the principal variation depth to compare UCT wilth alpha-beta. The comparison is not so easy to do I think, because using MC as an evaluation function for alpha beta, you have to do several simulations for one evaluation and take the average. So the question is how many simulations to do (tradeoff false alpha-beta cuts/depth)? The right should be the number which makes the stronger player. I did not made such experiments. Perhaps someone did? I did something similar. But it takes a huge amount of horsepower to zero in on the right value. What seems to be the case is that you need less simulations as you search deeper. Of course it's always better to do more simulations but the question is the trade-off of whether it's better to go 1 ply deeper doing less, or one ply less doing more. Unfortunately, to get the right answer requires a lot of work. There are other variables too such as how much cheating should you do. You can seriously reduce the number of simulations you do at end nodes by stopping early when it appears unlikely your score will fall within the alpha/beta window.You can do this by asking the question, what would be my score if the next N games were all wins or losses? I also discovered that it is not efficient doing too few simulations. If you are not doing enough, doubling the number of simulations only increases the search effort slightly, or in some cases it improves it. This is almost certainly because of move ordering issues, very difficult to get good move ordering with a fuzzy evaluator. I have a theory on how to make straight alpha beta work with monte carlo evaluations at end nodes. You want to use monte carlo as an evaluation function, but you want it applied to quiet positions. I think you need to take your end node positions before you apply monte carlo as an evaluation and do something similar to the following: 1. Identify clearly dead and live groups. 2. Create a proxy position that is similar to the position you want to evaluate, but has been fixed-up to be less confusing to the monte carlo simulations. This could involve placing stones so that living groups are not touched in the simulation. It might involve artificially killing dead groups so that monte carlo is not distracted killing them. A veto list involves identifying moves that cannot possibly help and telling the monte carlo simulation about these moves. Even if you know the move can't possible help in the next 4 or 5 moves, it might be a major boost of quality to simulation. It might involve move suggestions, veto-tables, etc. to help the monte carlo search.The idea is to do anything that makes the final position more quiet and monte carlo search more relevant and doing it safely - only what you can be sure of. 3. And your monte carlo search should have some intelligence built in like Mogo does, it's not 100 percent random. This is just an idea that hasn't been tried or tested as far as I know, something to be taken with a grain of salt! - Don ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
[computer-go] Re: Interesting problem
David Fotland wrote: Most of the world plays be Japanese rules, so any commercial program must implement Japanese rules. I totally agree. A strong chinese player using chinese rules will pick up a point or two during the dame filling stage when playing a strong japanese player. The Chiense player will choose earlier moves that gain a later dame point that the japanese player will think have no benefit over other moves. That's interesting. And it confirms my point: the difference is small, the strategy is the same, but using the ruleset in one's own benefit some extra points can be won. In either direction. Not more than that. And now remember how this discussion started: There was a proposal to penalize pass moves made by Lukasz Lew. If that proposal is implemented, Japanese programs will no longer loose one or two points against a better ruleset adapted bot, but they would loose dozens of points. They will frequently loose won games. Maybe some programs can easily switch from Chinese to Japanese, but some others may not. Anyway, outside computer go, people understands go as Japanese. Beginners find it more complicated, but when they understand, they see its just concentrating on the only interesting part. A natural evolution of the game. When they are 10kyu or better they normally agree what is alive and what is not. If they don't, its probably worth playing out. I still think Chinese rules are better today for computer tournaments! But, of course, without penalizing pass moves. I hope that the day when computers evolve to Japanese rules as humans did, is near, but that cannot be forced. It is required that all programs agree when scoring games. At least: *when* nothing more can be won and what is *alive* and what is not at that moment. When that happens, the credibility of computer-go will increase a lot. Jacques. ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Re: Interesting problem
Hi Jacques, I think Chinese should be universally adapted, but before you flame me I'll tell you why. I know of players who thought Go might be an interesting game, but gave up quickly when they realized they could never play by Japanese rules. Even though they eventually could have learned to play by Japanese rules, it's not possible for 2 beginners to correctly play and score a game by these rules. And when someone comes along to do it for them, they are horrified by what seems to their limited perception to be gross unfairness. By far, Chinese is more intuitive and natural. Japanese rules are based on some very non-intuitive concepts - that it really does come out the same as Chinese scoring (within a point or two) appears to be magic to the uninitiated. To strong players who are immersed in the Japanese rules, it may seem to be more intuitive and natural, but so is anything that you want to get used to - it's like indenting style in C, and why there is style jokingly referred to as the one true brace style. If it's not YOUR brace style it somehow seems inferior. I wonder how many GO players have been lost forever because of the Japanese rules? It may not matter to most casual players, you may not care one iota about this, but what's good for the majority is usually good for everyone. The issue of dead stones is a non-issue. I'm not advocating playing games out to the bitter end. CGOS of course does this because it's simple and creates the least amount of problems, which by itself should tell you something. But Chinese rules as played by good players doesn't involve this kind of tedium. I'm not advocating that games be played out to the bitter end and this isn't what the debate is about. Of course it can be argued that Chinese encourages a more extended game, because you get severely punished under Japanese rules for not knowing which groups are dead. But when all things are considered, Chinese rules is better for the game in general. I do feel there is significant snobbery the GO community about this, although I don't claim you are like this. It is as if the Japanese have an elitist attitude where they don't care if the peon's don't understand the rules, it's not for the feeble-minded anyway. I think the fact that Japanese rules is used more than Chinese must be a historical accident.It's been said that if Alien beings ever contacted us, it's likely they would be GO players due to the simplicity of the rules. My guess is that they would play by Chinese rules. Of course I don't expect the world to adapt Chinese rules because Japanese is ingrained. I want to tell you a little about Chess notation in the USA. In the 1970's US players used a different system for recording games called descriptive notation.You would record moves like N-Kb3 meaning Knight to kings bishop 3. In algebraic that is Nf3 or Nf6 if you are black. It reminds me somehow of Japanese rules in GO, I'm not sure why but maybe because it was traditional and entrenched. Or because it was less explicit, N-KB3 could mean different things depending on the context, like in Japanese you can't always tell who is winning by looking at the board. There was much resistance changing over to algebraic, and a lot of old timers complained loudly. I even heard some threaten to give up Chess. There was a huge emotional attachment and to them algebraic was just insane and crazy. Many seemed to believe it would ruin the game.But a lot of players didn't care - they knew it had nothing to do with the game itself. I was one who quickly embraced it - I just felt it was superior but I didn't care that much. My first chess program had an option to use either notational style. - Don On Mon, 2007-01-01 at 20:15 +, Jacques Basaldúa wrote: David Fotland wrote: Most of the world plays be Japanese rules, so any commercial program must implement Japanese rules. I totally agree. A strong chinese player using chinese rules will pick up a point or two during the dame filling stage when playing a strong japanese player. The Chiense player will choose earlier moves that gain a later dame point that the japanese player will think have no benefit over other moves. That's interesting. And it confirms my point: the difference is small, the strategy is the same, but using the ruleset in one's own benefit some extra points can be won. In either direction. Not more than that. And now remember how this discussion started: There was a proposal to penalize pass moves made by Lukasz Lew. If that proposal is implemented, Japanese programs will no longer loose one or two points against a better ruleset adapted bot, but they would loose dozens of points. They will frequently loose won games. Maybe some programs can easily switch from Chinese to Japanese, but some others may not. Anyway, outside computer go, people understands go as Japanese.
Re: [computer-go] Re: Interesting problem
one early habit that is good for new go players to learn is to always fill dame. sometimes groups get ataried this way that the newer player wouldn't have noticed. it can result in massive point loss if you're not careful about it, and it's a good teaching tool (from the japanese rules point of view) about being careful at the end of the game. under chinese rules, you also do this because it's worth points to you. bent-four, triple ko, seki 'points', etc., are all things that have to be dealt with by any scoring ruleset, but are things that you would be foolish to try to explain to someone during their first game. it would only complicate what is otherwise a very simple set of rules unnecessarily, and when such situations arise, the exceptional cases can be pointed out and explained (or the curious player will read about them elsewhere). i think that the fun of go is in the playing, and not the scoring, and that anyone who has played more than two games can tell (however late in the process) that they're getting destroyed (and thus that scoring is unnecessary) or that it's close (and thus that scoring is necessary). one thing to keep in mind about japanese scoring is that after you've done it ten or so times, there are a number of counting shortcuts that you can force onto the board after the game is finished that can make it incredibly efficient to determine the difference in score. my guess is that many chinese players who haven't seen this would be horrified to see these happen on their board, because they are based upon assumptions implicit in the japanese system of counting. after you've counted a few 19x19 boards the naive way, this is much easier to appreciate. the only place i've seen japanese rules cause confusion with players is in LD situations where one player thinks that a group is dead and the other doesn't. the practical reality is that if one of the two is a much stronger player, then they can patiently explain on the board what the situation is, with playout or otherwise. if, on the other hand, the two are of equivalent and of low strength, playing it out to prove the case one way or the other is more important as a learning tool than the actual and exact score of the game. in point of fact, weak players often beat each other by huge margins where counting may be amusing for the winner, but entirely unnecessary. (here i am assuming that strong players don't generally disagree about status, or if they do, can agree upon an effective measure for determining status and don't mind the need to. [since one player generally thinks that the other is a fool for not seeing what is 'obviously dead', they are often more than happy to attempt to prove it.]). all that being said, simply for end-of-game counting over the board, japanese rules get my vote. s. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Re: Interesting problem
Let's not confuse japanese counting with Japanese rules. It is quite feasible with Chinese rules and the use of pass stones to end up doing territory counting over the board which is equivalent to area scoring, On 1/1/07, steve uurtamo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: one early habit that is good for new go players to learn is to always fill dame. sometimes groups get ataried this way that the newer player wouldn't have noticed. it can result in massive point loss if you're not careful about it, and it's a good teaching tool (from the japanese rules point of view) about being careful at the end of the game. under chinese rules, you also do this because it's worth points to you. bent-four, triple ko, seki 'points', etc., are all things that have to be dealt with by any scoring ruleset, but are things that you would be foolish to try to explain to someone during their first game. it would only complicate what is otherwise a very simple set of rules unnecessarily, and when such situations arise, the exceptional cases can be pointed out and explained (or the curious player will read about them elsewhere). i think that the fun of go is in the playing, and not the scoring, and that anyone who has played more than two games can tell (however late in the process) that they're getting destroyed (and thus that scoring is unnecessary) or that it's close (and thus that scoring is necessary). one thing to keep in mind about japanese scoring is that after you've done it ten or so times, there are a number of counting shortcuts that you can force onto the board after the game is finished that can make it incredibly efficient to determine the difference in score. my guess is that many chinese players who haven't seen this would be horrified to see these happen on their board, because they are based upon assumptions implicit in the japanese system of counting. after you've counted a few 19x19 boards the naive way, this is much easier to appreciate. the only place i've seen japanese rules cause confusion with players is in LD situations where one player thinks that a group is dead and the other doesn't. the practical reality is that if one of the two is a much stronger player, then they can patiently explain on the board what the situation is, with playout or otherwise. if, on the other hand, the two are of equivalent and of low strength, playing it out to prove the case one way or the other is more important as a learning tool than the actual and exact score of the game. in point of fact, weak players often beat each other by huge margins where counting may be amusing for the winner, but entirely unnecessary. (here i am assuming that strong players don't generally disagree about status, or if they do, can agree upon an effective measure for determining status and don't mind the need to. [since one player generally thinks that the other is a fool for not seeing what is 'obviously dead', they are often more than happy to attempt to prove it.]). all that being said, simply for end-of-game counting over the board, japanese rules get my vote. s. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
