Re: [Computer-go] 9x9 is last frontier?

[David Doshay]

Go is hard.
Programming is hard.

Programming Go is hard squared. 
;^)

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com


> On 28, Feb 2018, at 5:43 PM, Hideki Kato  wrote:
> 
> Go is still hard for both human and computers :).

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Re: [Computer-go] Learning related stuff

[David Doshay]

In my experience people who are first taught variant a) and after a short while 
move on to b) remain overly fixated on capturing and are much slower to grasp 
the real game. So in this case I would argue that people really do have trouble 
unlearning when the games are too close … particularly when the first variant 
has such a simple and expected goal that must be deprecated to be able to move 
from b) to c).

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 22, Nov 2017, at 6:23 AM, Ingo Althöfer <3-hirn-ver...@gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> In teaching go, one possible path (even with 2 steps) is 
> to start with 
> (a) Atari-Go on 9x9 board
> then switch to
> (b) "true" Go on 9x9
> then switch to
> (c) Go on 19x19
> 
> What are optimal lengths for phases (a) und (b) in doing so?

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Re: [Computer-go] November KGS bot tournament

[David Doshay]

Hi Nick,

It is 10 years since my program SlugGo was participating in, and briefly 
winning, the KGS bot tournaments and I have admired your dedication over these 
years. Thank you for the effort.; it did bring us together as a community and 
helped us collectively push the state of the art forward. It seems a pity that 
one group’s success has let to so many dropping out.

Do you think that there is enough interest, or availability on your part, to 
run the KGS bot tournaments quarterly or semiannually?

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 26, Oct 2017, at 4:06 PM, Hiroshi Yamashita  wrote:
> 
> Hi Nick,
> 
>> this will be the last of the series of KGS bot tournaments.
> 
> Thank you for holding KGS tournament since 2005.
> On CGOS, there are always some new comers.
> I hope they also enter KGS bot tournament.
> 
> Thanks,
> Hiroshi Yamashita
> 
> 
> - Original Message - From: "Nick Wedd" 
> To: 
> Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2017 4:43 PM
> Subject: [Computer-go] November KGS bot tournament
> 
> 
> The November KGS bot tournament will be on Sunday, November 5th, starting
> at 16:00 UTC and ending by 22:00 UTC.  It will use 19x19 boards, with
> time limits
> of 14 minutes each and very fast Canadian overtime, and komi of 7½.  It
> will be a Swiss tournament.  See http://www.gokgs.com/tournInfo.jsp?id=112
> 7
> 
> Please register by emailing me at mapr...@gmail.com, with the words "KGS
> Tournament Registration" in the email title.
> With the falling interest in these events since the advent of AlphaGo, it
> is likely that this will be the last of the series of KGS bot tournaments.
> 
> Nick
> -- 
> Nick Wedd  mapr...@gmail.com
> 
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Re: [Computer-go] Digression about e-manners and the spectrum

[David Doshay]

And while what you say is true (when I was a kid they did not say I had 
Aspergers Syndrome but rather called me hyperactive when they chose my meds), 
in this case I believe that it is magnified by, I am guessing here, one is 
German the other is French, and they are typing in English … a situation ripe 
for misunderstanding.

Let’s all play nice here, as is almost always the case.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 24, Oct 2017, at 5:07 PM, pie...@alumni.caltech.edu wrote:
> 
>  I suspect his tone is offending you rather than his actual words. That’s 
> typical of conversing with someone with Aspergers over an electronic medium 
> which strips all of the additional communication side bands.

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Re: [Computer-go] AlphaGo Zero

[David Doshay]

I saw my first AlphaGo Zero joke today:

After a few more months of self-play the games might look like this:

AlphaGo Zero Black - move 1
AlphaGo Zero White - resigns


Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com




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Re: [Computer-go] Alphago and solving Go

[David Doshay]

Yes, that zeroth order number (the one you get to without any thinking about 
how the game’s rules affect the calculation) is outdated since early last year 
when this result gave us the exact number of legal board positions:

https://tromp.github.io/go/legal.html 

So, a complete game tree for 19x19 Go would contain about 2.08 * 10^170 unique 
nodes (see the paper for all 171 digits) but some number of duplicates of those 
nodes for the different paths to each legal position. 

In an unfortunate bit of timing, it seems that many people missed this result 
because of the Alpha Go news.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 6, Aug 2017, at 3:17 PM, Gunnar Farnebäck  wrote:
> 
> On 08/06/2017 04:39 PM, Vincent Richard wrote:
>> No, simply because there are way to many possibilities in the game, roughly 
>> (19x19)!
> 
> Can we lay this particular number to rest? Not that "possibilities in the 
> game" is very well defined (what does it even mean?) but the number of 
> permutations of 19x19 points has no meaningful connection to the game of go 
> at all, not even "roughly".
> 
> /Gunnar
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Re: [Computer-go] ADMIN: free.fr and various invites that bounce

[David Doshay]

they are both just noise to me

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 16, Feb 2017, at 3:02 PM, computer...@roveg.org wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi,
>   Here's the word from the sysadmin
> 
>> I figured this out. A long time ago I was getting lots of Spam from 
> free.fr
>> so I blocked that domain. I just unblocked it, so we'll see how that 
> goes.
> 
> 
>   Various invites get posted from unsubscribed addresses, e.g.
> 
> CISP-BMEI 2017 Informatics Track, Deadline 10 May, Shanghai, China 
> [Submitting to IEEE Xplore/Scopus/EI Compendex/ISI]
> 
>   and
> 
> ICNC-FSKD 2017 Submissions due 15 March: Submitting to IEEE Xplore/EI 
> Compendex/ISI
> 
>   In general, should I approve these?
> 
>   Thanks,
>   Michael
> 
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Re: [Computer-go] Our Silicon Overlord

[David Doshay]

Yes, standards are high for AI systems … but we digress

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 7, Jan 2017, at 1:24 PM, Xavier Combelle  wrote:
> 
> 
>> ...this is a major objective. E.g., we do not want AI driven cars
>> working right most of the time but sometimes killing people because
>> the AI faces situations (such as a local sand storm or a painting on
>> the street with a fake landscape or fake human being) outside its
>> current training and reading. 
> currently I don't like to be killed by a drunk driver, and to my opinion
> it is very more likely to happen than an AI killing me because a mistake
> in programming (I know, it is not the point of view of most of people
> which want a perfect AI with zero dead and not an AI which would reduce
> the death on road by a factor 100)
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Re: [Computer-go] Poll: Scientific Breakthrough of the Year 2016

[David Doshay]

I used Safari on a Mac and it worked fine.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 30, Nov 2016, at 9:21 AM, Michael Alford  wrote:
> 
> I've tried Firefox and Safari on Mac, and Firefox and Chrome on Debian. I 
> have used the link and accessed the page from the main page.  In all 
> instances the Submit is grayed out and does not function.
> 
> 
> Michael

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Re: [Computer-go] May KGS bot tournament

[David Doshay]

A long time ago there existed the ‘formal’ and the ‘open’ divisions. Because 
SlugGo used so much GNUGo code in a way such that SlugGo could offer several 
stones and still beat GNUGo, it was decided that whenever both bots were 
available for the tournament one would be in one division and the other would 
be in the other division. This was also the way that newer bots could start 
playing in tournaments without getting every detail of the game-end protocol 
correct.

Or at least that is what I remember.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 4, May 2016, at 10:09 AM, Nick Wedd  wrote:
> 
> I would happily run more than one division (which the KGS scheduler will 
> regard as separate events). Is there enough interest to justify a second 
> division?
> 
> Nick
> 
> On 4 May 2016 at 15:46, Urban Hafner  > wrote:
> There used to be many more entrants in the past IIRC. And we never split into 
> several tournaments or leagues. But I also feel we should wait for Nick to 
> chime in. I think we had this exact same discussion a while ago but I can’t 
> remember the outcome. ;)
> 
> Urban
> 
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 4:38 PM, Gonçalo Mendes Ferreira  > wrote:
> Has the number of programs risen that much?
> 
> I'd prefer not adding self-declared ranking limitations, though as a
> spectator handicap matches are interesting.
> 
> Anyways, Urban, I can enter my program too if you want, it is well
> bellow GNU Go in 19x19.
> 
> Gonçalo
> 
> On 04/05/2016 15:27, Erik van der Werf wrote:
> > Or switch to McMahon / Handicaps
> >
> > On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 4:18 PM, Sebastian Scheib  > >
> > wrote:
> >
> >> That would be good, something like in other sports where you have a first,
> >> second and so... categories.
> >>
> >> 2016-05-04 11:00 GMT-03:00 Jim O'Flaherty  >> >:
> >>
> >>> Hmmm...if bots weaker than GnuGo are actively discouraged, perhaps there
> >>> could be a separate tournament level for that grouping of "aspiring
> >>> computer Go" entrants (if it isn't too much extra work). Having bots earn
> >>> the right to move into the higher level of (i.e. have met the entry
> >>> requirement of "consistently beats GnuGo version X.Y) might be a nice
> >>> filter as the number of those desiring to participate (with weaker bots)
> >>> rises.
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 4:01 AM, Urban Hafner  >>> >
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
>  I’m considering entering with my bot but it’s rather weak (a lot weaker
>  than GnuGo on 19x19) so I don’t know if it makes sense. Unless of course
>  other weaker bots were willing to enter as well. If no one is interested 
>  in
>  this (or if it’s even discouraged by Nick) then I would refrain from
>  entering tournaments that I have no chance in beating GnuGo.
> 
>  Urban
> 
>  On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 6:51 PM, Nick Wedd   > wrote:
> 
> > The May KGS bot tournament will start on Sunday, May 8th at 16:00 UTC,
> > and finish by 22:00 UTC.  It will use 19x19 boards, with time limits
> > of 14 minutes each plus very fast Canadian overtime, and komi of 7.5.
> > See http://www.gokgs.com/tournEntrants.jsp?id=1030 
> > 
> >
> > Please register by emailing me, with the words "KGS Tournament 
> > Registration"
> > in the email title, at mapr...@gmail.com  .
> >
> > Nick
> > --
> > Nick Wedd  mapr...@gmail.com 
> >
> > ___
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> > http://computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go 
> > 
> >
> 
> 
> 
>  --
>  Blog: http://bettong.net/ 
>  Twitter: https://twitter.com/ujh 
>  Homepage: http://www.urbanhafner.com/ 
> 
>  ___
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>  http://computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go 
>  
> 
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ___
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> >>> http://computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go 
> >>> 
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Dracux
> >> 

Re: [Computer-go] Lee Sedol's reviews on AlphaGo games

[David Doshay]

Sir,

After 1400 words you get to your point. 
Your point about Monte Carlo techniques is well known to this list.
Your 1400 word digression on neurons and their networks is really not news to 
this list either (in my case there is 5+ years working for NASA doing 
computational neuroscience).

While you are mostly civil, and I have found both humor and occasional insight 
in your postings, you have succeeded in doing exactly what your .sig file 
indicates: you have once again shot yourself in your foot.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 11, Apr 2016, at 5:08 PM, djhbrown .  wrote:
> 
> Lee Sedol and the rest of us should scratch our heads as well as shake
> them in dismay, for we all have been beaten at our own game by a
> dumbass box of tricks that just guesses. Fancy that!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> patient: "whenever i open my mouth, i get a shooting pain in my foot"
> doctor: "fire!"

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Re: [Computer-go] Beginner question : how to choose a board representation

[David Doshay]

Look at:

https://github.com/lukaszlew/libego

it is a much better start than Fuego. Fuego is a fine program if you are an 
expert C++ programmer, but is a pretty big package to understand well if you 
wish to do so quickly. Libego is much easier to understand and is also 
sometimes very clever.


Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 10, Apr 2016, at 12:19 AM, Jean-Francois Romang  wrote:
> 
> Hello to everyone ; I'm a newcomer in this list and computer go programming. 
> I have a chess programming background, but I want to start something new. :-)
> I'm currently in the early phases of developing GTP compatible go engine ; 
> now it's time for me to choose a board representation : are there some 
> articles or tips on this ?
> Thanks,
> Jean-Francois
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Re: [Computer-go] "English Explanations" based on Neural Networks

[David Doshay]

It all comes down to having a reasonable way to search the MCTS’s tree. An 
elegant tool would be wonderful, but even something basic would allow a 
determined person to find interesting things. When I was debugging SlugGo, 
which had a tree as wide as 24 and as deep as 10, with nothing other than an 
SGF reader displaying the board and a window showing me numerical values 
encoded as comments, it was fairly easy to understand why the program made its 
choices. Translating from those numerical values and sequences into “language 
based evaluations” of the type suggested below became easy for me and did aid 
in making the program stronger. Initially SlugGo beat me consistently, but 
after a month of looking at those sgf files I internalized enough of how SlugGo 
evaluated things that I never lost a game to it again, even after modifications 
to the evaluation function.

In all honesty, I’ve had Go teachers who’s comments in lessons (not your 
choice; ‘this’ is the best move) were less useful to me than being able to 
explore so many different evaluated branches of the tree.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 31, Mar 2016, at 2:09 PM, uurtamo .  wrote:
> 
> Major changes in the evaluation probability could likely have a horizon of a 
> few moves behind that might be interesting to more closely evaluate. With a 
> small window like that, a deeper/more exhaustive search might work.
> 
> s.
> 
> On Mar 31, 2016 10:21 AM, "Petr Baudis" > 
> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2016 at 08:51:30AM -0500, Jim O'Flaherty wrote:
> > What I was addressing was more around what Robert Jasiek is describing in
> > his joseki books and other materials he's produced. And it is exactly why I
> > think the "explanation of the suggested moves" requires a much deeper
> > baking into the participating ANN's (bottom up approach). And given what I
> > have read thus far (including your above information), I am still seeing
> > the risk extraordinarily high and the payoff exceedingly low, outside an
> > academic context.
> 
>   I think we may just have a different outcome in mind.  To illustrate
> where I think my approach could work, that could be for example
> (slightly edited):
> 
> > White Q5 was played to compel Black to extend at the bottom.
> > If Black doesn’t respond, White’s pincer at K4 will be powerful.
> 
> in 
> https://gogameguru.com/lee-sedol-defeats-alphago-masterful-comeback-game-4/ 
> 
> 
> 
>   Sure, it seems a bit outrageous, and for initial attempts, generating
> utterances like
> 
> > White 126 was a very big move which helped to ensure White’s advantage.
> 
> is perhaps more realistic (though many of these sentences are a bit
> of truisms and not terribly informative).  But I'm quite convinced that
> even the first example is completely plausible.
> 
>   (But I'm *not* talking about generating pages of diagrams that
> describe an opening position in detail.  That's to ponder when we
> get the simpler things right.)
> 
> --
> Petr Baudis
> If you have good ideas, good data and fast computers,
> you can do almost anything. -- Geoffrey Hinton
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Re: [Computer-go] Congratulations to AlphaGo

[David Doshay]

Here is a tinyURL link to a panel discussion of things AlphaGo that included:

• Oliver Roeder: Senior writer at FiveThirtyEight. All too human.
• David Doshay: Archivist for the American Go Association, co-creator 
of SlugGo, a Go-playing computer program.
• Matt Ginsberg: Businessman, astrophysicist, creator of a former 
computer bridge champion called GIB and an expert-level AI crossword puzzle 
solver called Dr. Fill. FiveThirtyEight wrote about Matt and his new basketball 
prediction technology in October.
• Andy Okun: President of the American Go Association and a 1 dan Go 
player. He attended the match in Seoul.
• Jonathan Schaeffer: Computer science professor at the University of 
Alberta and the man who solved checkers.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

http://tinyurl.com/jx7ctaw

As with all editing, each of us might have done it differently … at one point I 
am going on about multi-cpu and multitasking without context because they 
edited out the comment I was responding to. But I am pleased with the article 
in total, particularly the headline they chose which I think will resonate with 
the people on this list.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 21, Mar 2016, at 10:22 AM, Ingo Althöfer <3-hirn-ver...@gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> Helo,
> 
> popular culture is growing around AlphaGo's win. Some pieces are
> nice: others are, let's say, "special":
> 
> Here is the link to a nice Youtube video with an A capella hymnus 
> (31 seconds) on AlphaGo, performed on 9 GPU ;-)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh_mfGo183Y
> 
> Ingo.
> 
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Re: [Computer-go] computergo.org

[David Doshay]

From my perspective, having both a computer.org and a computer-go.org seems 
redundant.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 18, Mar 2016, at 12:49 PM, Gonçalo Mendes Ferreira  wrote:
> 
> I don't know how up-to-date computer-go.info is, but it appears a better
> target for redirecting.
> 
> - Gonçalo
> 
> On 18/03/2016 19:46, Xavier Combelle wrote:
>> 2016-03-17 16:16 GMT+01:00 Joshua Shriver :
>> 
>>> Does anyone have interest in that domain name? I'd be willing to
>>> transfer it to a new owner for free.  It came up a year or so back and
>>> I grabbed it just in case but never used it.
>>> 
>>> Rather see it go to someone who can use it rather than squat. It's
>>> already for another year.
>>> 
>>> -Josh
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>> 
>> 
>> I would vote for redirecting to computer-go.org if everybody agree (or the
>> other direction should be good too)
>> 
>> 
>> 
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Re: [Computer-go] computergo.org

[David Doshay]

sorry about that auto-correct ‘typo. The first one is supposed to be 
computergo.org, but that should be clear anyway ...

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 18, Mar 2016, at 1:56 PM, David Doshay <ddos...@mac.com> wrote:
> 
> From my perspective, having both a computer.org and a computer-go.org seems 
> redundant.
> 
> Cheers,
> David G Doshay
> 
> ddos...@mac.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 18, Mar 2016, at 12:49 PM, Gonçalo Mendes Ferreira <go...@sapo.pt> wrote:
>> 
>> I don't know how up-to-date computer-go.info is, but it appears a better
>> target for redirecting.
>> 
>> - Gonçalo
>> 
>> On 18/03/2016 19:46, Xavier Combelle wrote:
>>> 2016-03-17 16:16 GMT+01:00 Joshua Shriver <jshri...@gmail.com>:
>>> 
>>>> Does anyone have interest in that domain name? I'd be willing to
>>>> transfer it to a new owner for free.  It came up a year or so back and
>>>> I grabbed it just in case but never used it.
>>>> 
>>>> Rather see it go to someone who can use it rather than squat. It's
>>>> already for another year.
>>>> 
>>>> -Josh
>>>> ___
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>>> 
>>> 
>>> I would vote for redirecting to computer-go.org if everybody agree (or the
>>> other direction should be good too)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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Re: [Computer-go] March KGS bot tournament - slow

[David Doshay]

Is there any way to forward this to the AlphaGo team? Comparing AlphaGo to the 
regular set of participants would be enlightening.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 17, Mar 2016, at 5:57 AM, Nick Wedd  wrote:
> 
> The March KGS slow bot tournament will start on Sunday, March 27th, at 22:00 
> UTC and end by 14:00 UTC on Wednesday 30th.  It will use 19x19 boards, with 
> time limits of 235 minutes (almost four hours) each plus fast Canadian 
> overtime, and komi of 7.5.  See http://www.gokgs.com/tournInfo.jsp?id=1020 
> 
> 
> Please register by emailing me, with the words "KGS Tournament Registration" 
> in the email title, at mapr...@gmail.com  .
> 
> Nick
> -- 
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Re: [Computer-go] *****SPAM***** Congratulations to AlphaGo

[David Doshay]

The SiliValley Go club is getting requests to join our email notifications at 
about 5 times the normal rate since the AlphaGo paper was published. So far 
everyone has had some prior knowledge of the game, and several have not played 
in a while. Some are beginners, but so far no people who do not yet know how to 
play.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 13, Mar 2016, at 3:44 PM, David Fotland  wrote:
> 
> Smart-games.com  is getting a big increase in 
> traffic, so there is certainly more interest in the game now.  I hope it 
> holds up for the long term.
>  
> David
>  
> From: Computer-go [mailto:computer-go-boun...@computer-go.org] On Behalf Of 
> Dmitry Kamenetsky
> Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2016 2:18 PM
> To: computer-go@computer-go.org
> Subject: *SPAM* [Computer-go] Congratulations to AlphaGo
>  
> Congratulations to AlphaGo and its team! You have done what many of us could 
> only dream to do and in such short time I may add. This is a truly historical 
> moment and an amazing achievement for AI research!
>  
> I hope this is not the end of Go and only sparks more interest in this 
> beautiful game. What an exciting time we live in and I can't wait to see what 
> the future holds. 
>  
>  
> Regards,
> Dmitry Kamenetsky
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Re: [Computer-go] Facebook Go AI

[David Doshay]

This looks like GnuGo at level 1. Note things like filling at Q15, which GnuGo 
would not do on level 10 or higher.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 3, Nov 2015, at 8:31 AM, Marc Landgraf  wrote:
> 
> then again, Gnugo donked that game pretty badly. 
> Showing one game, where Gnugo just throws away the entire top before move 50 
> is not really telling about the overall strength, imho. Gnugo repeats the 
> failure by suiciding the top right as well. 
> What is shown after is hard to evaluate, considering the score difference. 
> The fact that the FB Bot prefers to play random moves in the center instead 
> of removing the possible Ko in the lower left later is weird, but may be due 
> to it's gigantic lead at this point.
> 
> Another interesting thing to note is, that the values shown on the right do 
> not always correspond to the played moves. E.g. at move S17 (killing the top 
> right) actually S16 had been give a higher score then the played S17
> 
> 2015-11-03 17:22 GMT+01:00 Aja Huang  >:
> Yes I checked the game. The agent looks pretty strong. It crushed GnuGo 
> easily.
> 
> Aja
> 
> On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 4:20 PM, Rémi Coulom  > wrote:
> Can a strong player look at the video and give impressions about the game?
> 
> On 11/03/2015 03:28 PM, Petr Baudis wrote:
>Hi!
> 
>Facebook is working on a Go AI too, now:
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/Engineering/videos/10153621562717200/ 
> 
> https://code.facebook.com/posts/1478523512478471 
> 
> 
> http://www.wired.com/2015/11/facebook-is-aiming-its-ai-at-go-the-game-no-computer-can-crack/
>  
> 
> 
> The way it's presented triggers my hype alerts, but nevertheless:
> does anyone know any details about this?  Most interestingly, how
> strong is it?
> 
> 
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Re: [Computer-go] Computer-go Digest, Vol 69, Issue 2

[David Doshay]

SlugGo used message passing in a distributed architecture and started as a 
shell over the top of multiple instantiations of GNU Go in order to evaluate a 
look-ahead tree that GNU Go did not build. It was one of the strongest programs 
before the MCTS programs hit their stride. Now it would not be competitive: 
It’s peak performance was to beat a human 8k at the Cotsen Open when other 
programs were playing near 12k.

Much like you are suggesting with HALy, SlugGo was an attempt to integrate 
different ways to compute the moves, including an expert system based upon the 
concepts used by my Go teacher (Lance Kemper, 5D), but we did not get the 
arbitration of moves suggested by different ‘brains’ to be successfully 
evaluated (although somebody else might be able to). At some point we found 
that we had a stronger engine just doing MCTS instead of all the other 
computation.

I think that your premise that there is not much sharing in computer Go is 
wrong. The exchange of ideas and data on this forum far exceeds what takes 
place in many other computer games. The rapid spread of the MCTS technique, the 
way that RAVE, AMAF, and other methods were developed in a very open way, and 
the recent integration of the DCNN data into other engines displays to me that 
Go programmers have found a healthy balance between competition and cooperation 
… or maybe I should say exploration / exploitation.


Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 2, Oct 2015, at 6:53 AM, djhbrown .  wrote:
> 
> .
> "sharing code is typically not going to be practical."
> 
> that's not what i suggested.  perhaps someone else can explain the concept of 
> message-passing distributed architecture better than me
> 
> 
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Re: [Computer-go] Computer-go Digest, Vol 69, Issue 2

[David Doshay]

The messages need not be used on a single CPU; in SlugGo MPI was our way to 
start jobs on remote nodes. The time to wrap and unwrap the messages was not 
significant compared to the time used to calculate a suggested move.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





> On 2, Oct 2015, at 11:26 AM, Petri Pitkanen  
> wrote:
> 
> I think very few people here do not know message passing style of 
> programming.  I just not suited problem at hand. Not very cPU efficient. This 
> is high speed simulation anyways
> 
> 
> 
> 2015-10-02 16:53 GMT+03:00 djhbrown .  >:
> .
> "sharing code is typically not going to be practical."
> 
> that's not what i suggested.  perhaps someone else can explain the concept of 
> message-passing distributed architecture better than me
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Computer-go] Building A Computer Go AI

[David Doshay]

It depends very much upon what you mean by a “powerful Computer AI.” If you 
mean a modern Go playing program then all the advice about MCTS is good. If you 
mean an AI that depends more upon traditional Go knowledge, then the MCTS 
systems will not interest you, even though the mature MCTS bots are now much 
stronger than the traditional systems. If you are interested in the 
knowledge/pattern based systems then take a look at GNU Go. It is large and 
there will be a learning curve, but it is where I started when I built SlugGo, 
which was strong enough to win the KGS tournaments it entered until it was 
surpassed by the MCTS programs.

Given your limited programming experience, I suggest Michi because Python is 
easy to read. While Libego is very fast, some of the C++ constructs can take a 
while to figure out, so modifying or adding to the code is harder. 

Good luck! 


Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





 On 21, Aug 2015, at 12:48 AM, CaiGengYang gengyang...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Hello …
 
 
 I am a 3d~~5d go player from Singapore. 
 
 Keen to learn how to build a powerful Computer Go AI to compete in the 
 Computer Go Tournament and also for admissions to a Computer Science college 
 program.
 
 Have very little programming experience except following some code examples 
 on CodeAcademy … how do I start building a Computer Go AI ?
 
 
 Gengyang
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Re: [Computer-go] April KGS bot tournament, 13x13

[David Doshay]

Because 13x13 is the one that is working, so folks are playing at that board 
size.

I do not think it matters much that the rating come from the same board size as 
the tournament. The point is just to get programs that have crossed to some 
minimal level of maturity, and some of the programs that are playing at the 
level near 1100 have not done anything beyond implementing known and available 
algorithms, so that sounds about right to me when combined with implementing 
the KGS endgame protocol.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





 On 2, Apr 2015, at 12:47 PM, Nick Wedd mapr...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 When I look at CGOS, it gives me lists of ratings 
 for 9x9 and 13x13 (which covers the April tournament), but nothing for 19x19; 
 why 
 is this?

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Re: [Computer-go] April KGS bot tournament, 13x13

[David Doshay]

I have not competed in the KGS tournaments for many years, but here is my 
suggestion: now that CGOS is up and running again, set a minimum rating level 
on CGOS, perhaps something like 1000 or 1200. In that way new programers will 
be encouraged to use CGOS for primary comparison against existing programs, but 
they won’t be excluded from the tournaments until they can beat programs that 
have many many years of development. I can understand setting the level higher 
for some tournaments, such as the very long time tournaments, but setting the 
bar at GNU Go seems too high for the standard monthly tournaments. 

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





 On 1, Apr 2015, at 6:11 AM, Nick Wedd mapr...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 I will be willing to welcome players of all strengths, if that is what the 
 strong players want.
 
 My reason for excluding weaker players is that, last time this was discussed, 
 at least one 
 operator of a strong player said that he did not want to set it up and 
 operate it and then see 
 it win a succession of games against players five or more grades weaker.  If 
 that has 
 changed, I will gladly relax the requirement that entrants be at least as 
 strong as GNU Go.
 
 So, I welcome Rémi's opinion, and I hope that other operators of strong 
 programs will tell 
 me their opinions.
 
 Nick

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Re: [Computer-go] CGOS back online

[David Doshay]

cgos.boardspace.net http://cgos.boardspace.net/ says:

At the current time there is one player called FatMan with a fixed ELO of 1800 
on the 9x9 server and Gnugo-3.7.10 at level 10 serves as the anchor player on 
the 13x13 and 19x19 server, also with a fixed ELO of 1800.

Cheers,
David G Doshay

ddos...@mac.com





 On 16, Jan 2015, at 11:05 AM, Urban Hafner cont...@urbanhafner.com wrote:
 
 On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 7:45 PM, Urban Hafner cont...@urbanhafner.com 
 mailto:cont...@urbanhafner.com wrote:
 I see. I wonder what the correct options for GnuGo are. gnugo --mode gtp 
 --level 0 --chinese-rules --positional-superko --capture-all-dead seems like 
 a good start, right? I will give that a try now ...
 
 It seems to work: 
 http://cgos.boardspace.net/13x13/cross/GnuGo-3.8-level-0.html 
 http://cgos.boardspace.net/13x13/cross/GnuGo-3.8-level-0.html. I'll leave 
 it running for a while then.
 
 Urban 
 -- 
 Blog: http://bettong.net/ http://bettong.net/
 Twitter: https://twitter.com/ujh https://twitter.com/ujh
 Homepage: http://www.urbanhafner.com/ 
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Re: [computer-go] Pachi/fuego GnuGo hybrid

[David Doshay]

The SlugGo team is working towards a Fuego/GG hybrid.

But just as our cluster distributed GG added a few new evaluation  
functions, we are working on an additional evaluation module for  
Fuego. Work had been slow, but we intend complete the addition to  
Fuego prior to integrating that into the existing GG based SlugGo code.


I agree that Fuego has a steep learning curve, but I also think it is  
well worth the effort.


The basic architecture of SlugGo was designed to be a multi-brain  
approach, but when we started GG was the only open source engine  
available, and we always thought it best to build from an existing Go  
engine rather than develop our own from scratch.


Cheers,
David



On 17, Jan 2010, at 11:14 PM, petri.t.pitka...@gmail.com wrote:

Has anyone tried doing pachi/Fuego + GnuGo hybrid slightly in way  
Many FAces is done?


If I understood correctly Manyfaces is mostly a plausible move  
generator. And serac is widened via the RAVE.


So simplest hybrid could rather simple words that often used before  
huge effort taking for ever. When a new node is initialized:

Contact GnuGo using GTP and load situation,
send genmove,
send topmoves and you have a starting point for simulations.

Obviously this is not what GG was designed for and will do loads of  
overhead but could be interesting. I would have tried I but I could  
not get Pachi to compile under Cygwin and currently I do not a linux  
machine. Also Fuego had some problems building under cygwin -and has  
steeper learning curve. Also it would slow under cygwin. At least  
Pachi multicore due to threading.


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Re: [computer-go] Neural networks - numenta

[David Doshay]

I'm not Remi, but I know a bit about Numenta. I gave a lightning  
talk at their
workshop about a year and a half ago. A few people at Numenta are  
interested
in using their software for Go, and I was working with one of them  
before my

heart problems stopped that work.

I do not think that they are all start-up hype, but their product is  
still short a
few features that would be needed to play Go. Lately they have mostly  
been
working on image recognition, and their proposed prediction module  
won't
get up to release standards until they are even further along with the  
vision

modules.

The existing image modules could possibly be used for evaluation  
functions,
but that seemed hard to me. I am willing to wait for the prediction  
module

that would more directly lead to move generation.

Cheers,
David



On 14, Oct 2009, at 9:03 AM, David Fotland wrote:

Remi,  what do you think of Numenta http://www.numenta.com/, a  
startup that

is using feedforward/feedback networks to model learning and pattern
recognition in the neocortex.  Does this approach make sense or is  
it just

startup hype?

http://www.numenta.com/for-developers/education/biological-background-htm.ph
p


David


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Re: [computer-go] Generalizing RAVE

[David Doshay]

http://users.soe.ucsc.edu/~dph/mypubs/AMAFpaperWithRef.pdf

Cheers,
David



On 25, Sep 2009, at 12:34 PM, Peter Drake wrote:

Yes. I believe Fuego does this. See also Helmbold and Parker-Wood,  
All-Moves-As-First Heuristics in Monte-Carlo Go:


(Does anyone have a URL for this one? I can't seem to find it  
online, but I have a paper copy in front of me.)


Peter Drake
http://www.lclark.edu/~drake/



On Sep 25, 2009, at 9:22 AM, Stefan Kaitschick wrote:

I have a question about RAVE: it seems a little strange to me that  
all outcomes below the current position are just added up.
Positions further down the tree are less similiar to the current  
position than those further up.
So shouldn't there be some kind of attenuation factor from level to  
level?


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Re: [computer-go] any mac programmers out there?

[David Doshay]

The best way to do it is to use darwinports to install the boos libs.  
That means installing the ports infrastructure first and using it to  
install boost. I just finished doing it last week and Fuego compiles  
on my Mac laptop.


Cheers,
David



On 7, Sep 2009, at 11:17 PM, Mark Boon wrote:

Just being curious I decided to give it a swing to see if Fuego  
would compile on a Mac. The configure scripts stops saying 'boost'  
is not installed. So I downloaded the latest version of that (it's  
huge!) and set a BOOST_ROOT environment variable, but it still says  
it can't find it.


Anyone know what's the matter there? I must admit I didn't spend a  
whole lot of time trying to figure it out.


Mark

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Re: [computer-go] any mac programmers out there?

[David Doshay]

No playing with multiple compilers, just getting back to computer Go  
after health problems the first 1/2 of the year.


Cheers,
David



On 8, Sep 2009, at 10:16 AM, terry mcintyre wrote:

Cool! Have you had a chance to experiment with the gcc-llvm and  
clang versions of fuego?




From: David Doshay ddos...@mac.com

The best way to do it is to use darwinports to install the boost  
libs. That means installing the ports infrastructure first and using  
it to install boost. I just finished doing it last week and Fuego  
compiles on my Mac laptop.


Cheers,
David


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Re: [computer-go] Basic question concerning the edges of the board

[David Doshay]

On 13, Jul 2009, at 10:27 AM, Carter Cheng wrote:


I am not sure I quite get the 20x21+2 idea


It is only that you can get away without the off board boundary on  
all sides.


My personal opinion is that way too much effort is put into  
optimizations that used to be very important when memory was small,  
but now is nice but not really needed. My bias is that efficiency is a  
good thing as long as it does not get in the way of easily  
understandable code, particularly for a new engine. I am not debating  
(and do not want to start a flame war on the subject) that good data  
structures lead to good programs, but I think that trying to wring  
every last bit out of the stored data is silly when machines these  
days have up to 8 GB of RAM.


Cheers,
David


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Re: [computer-go] MCTS, 19x19, hitting a wall?

[David Doshay]

This is one of two reactions i see repeatedly. The other is to claim  
that those who use larger clusters have an unfair advantage and should  
be excluded from various competitions ... but we are seeing that one  
less often than previously.


As far as i know, i was the first person to use larger clusters in Go,  
with a 72 cpu G5 cluster in 2004. Our inefficient architecture at that  
time added a layer of global search around GNU Go's local searches,  
and added at best 2 stones strength. Since then we have seen Mogo play  
public matches with 800 cores. I think the lesson learned is that  
hardware never hurts (except by slowing development and debugging  
time), but the rate of increase is seemingly small for the amount of  
hardware involved.


The real increases at this stage in the development of Go programs are  
from algorithms.


Cheers,
David



On 10, Jun 2009, at 9:26 PM, Don Dailey wrote:

My basic observation is that over the several year period I have  
been in this forum,  I have detected a huge amount of resistance to  
the idea that hardware could have anything to do with computer go  
strength, despite the fact that it keeps proving to be so.   The  
resistance is strong enough that we have to explain it way when it  
happens, by saying things like we have hit a wall and it won't  
happen any more thank goodness.


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Re: [computer-go] US Go Congress

[David Doshay]

Because of my health problems I will not be able to attend this year  
either, so neither of the two people who ran last year's event in  
Portland will be able to do it this year.


Any other volunteers? It would be nice if this became a regular event  
again.


Cheers,
David



On 9, Jun 2009, at 9:27 AM, Peter Drake wrote:

Due to other commitments, I will NOT be attending the US Go Congress  
in Fairfax, Virginia, August 1-9. As a result, if there is to be any  
computer Go event there (e.g., computer-computer tournament,  
computer-professional match), someone else will have to organize it.


Peter Drake
http://www.lclark.edu/~drake/



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Re: [computer-go] Re: US Go Congress

[David Doshay]

Mr Kim is not comfortable on 9x9. He has previously declined to
play against computers on small boards.

Cheers,
David



On 9, Jun 2009, at 11:27 AM, Ingo Althöfer wrote:


Terry McIntyre wrote:

I can volunteer to organize the computer versus pro demonstration.
Myung-Wan Kim lives in Los Angeles and I can approach him; he
played against Mogo last year.

Will Mogo be available?

Mogo team, do you feel that Mogo has improved since the previous
demonstration?

Which is the strongest computer go program nowadays?


I would like to see bot vs pro on 9x9 board.
What about Fuego (the 9x9-winner of Pamplona) on strong
Microsoft hardware?!

Just my 2 cents.

Ingo.
--
GRATIS für alle GMX-Mitglieder: Die maxdome Movie-FLAT!
Jetzt freischalten unter http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/maxdome01
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to Steenvreter!

[David Doshay]

SlugGo has not been participating because we had made no progress.
I hope to have something by the end of summer.

Cheers,
David



On 1, Jun 2009, at 1:39 PM, Nick Wedd wrote:


would like to know what I might do to attract more entrants.


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Re: [computer-go] Go + code + environment

[David Doshay]

On 23, May 2009, at 4:03 AM, Gunnar Farnebäck wrote:


Joshua Shriver wrote:
 Perhaps I'm mistaken in my reading, but isn't Mogo a clusterized and
 highly tuned version of gnugo?

You are mistaken.

You may have mixed things up with SlugGo, which at least at some time
could be loosely described as a clusterized GNU Go, although I
don't believe highly tuned fits. I don't know what the current status
of SlugGo is.
/Gunnar


Gunnar is correct. SlugGo is not highly tuned, but rather has additional
heuristics for combining the multiple lines of play that are spread over
the cluster. The point of SlugGo is not to clusterize GNU Go, but to see
what can be done with multiple brains working on the same problem.
We just started with GNU Go because it is open source.

SlugGo moves in fits and starts ... Grad students come and go, and I  
have

been dealing with heart problems lately, so progress has been slow, when
there has been progress at all.

Because my background is physics I have been bothered by MC methods.
My thesis was on MC methods to investigate phase transitions, so I am
fine with MC methods, but in physics we have theory that gives us the
correct probability distributions. I am impressed with the MCTS methods
that do so well without a prior distribution, but we spent the last 2  
years

trying different methods of extracting distributions from Go games. We
had no success. We are trying to figure out an appropriate way to  
publish

our negative results.

On 23, May 2009, at 8:15 AM, Ian Osgood wrote:

You are thinking of the cluster research program SlugGo.  That  
developer and the GNU Go team have the friendly agreement not to  
both compete in the same tournament at the same time.  GNU Go only  
participated in the 2008 US computer Go championship when SlugGo  
could not get its new cluster working in time to participate.


Yes, I ask the GNU Go folks if they will compete, and if they do, SlugGo
does not. I entered and operated GNU Go in Portland for the reason
stated by Ian.

Cheers,
David

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Re: [computer-go] Re: verifiable claims

[David Doshay]

there are no chains of size 30 on a 5x5 board, and if after a
large capture the remaining stones are unconditionally alive
the void at the location of the capture cannot be very large.
Do remember that we are talking about 5x5 with the first
move in the center as the winning move.

Cheers,
David



On 22, May 2009, at 3:15 PM, Dave Dyer wrote:





You can just prove that you can make a large-enough chain that is
unconditionally alive. I believe that's what Erik did. In practice,
you cannot do an exhaustive search using superko rules because then
hash table scores cannot be used.


I don't think you can always do that.  For example, if white
is capturing a chain of size 30, how can you prove that black
can never profit by continuing inside that 30 space void. In
fact, in many cases you can demonstrate that he should.

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Re: [computer-go] Re: Hardware limits

[David Doshay]

Programmers work on all kinds of hardware. Making them port their
code to some arbitrary standard platform is not a great idea. Just
as one voice, I will not bother to port my code to a different box. So,
if the competitions are all on the same hardware you are running a
*Go -playing-programs-developed-on-that-platform* competition.
And that sounds silly to me.

I have been working on Go on moderate sized clusters (25 - 75 CPUs)
for about 5 years. Most of my work has shown that it is not trivial to
write a program that scales reasonably over those processors. It is far
from trivial to develop and debug programs that run on clusters. More
hardware is no guarantee of a stronger program and is not a simple
way to get one.

Cheers,
David



On 13, Jan 2009, at 6:26 AM, Petr Baudis wrote:


Is it a _Go program_
competition? Or _Go-playing computer_ competition? I think in the  
former

case it would make most sense to just run all the programs on the same
hardware provided by the organizers.


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Re: [computer-go] Re: Hardware limits

[David Doshay]

I think the whole concept of taking on performance per watt in
the restricted domain of Go playing programs is silly. Are we to
spend our time searching for the Transmeta cores and porting
to those?

Saving energy is a fine thing. Lets leave that to various hardware
engineers in the semiconductor industry. Or, if you think this is
such a grand idea then you should offer up the prize money and
then we can all see who comes to compete for it.

Lets stick to writing algorithms and use time restrictions in play
against each other and against humans for our metrics. It is not
the case that a successful algorithm on one CPU is a good one
for putting on a cluster. Different people will try different things,
some on one CPU, some to take advantage of the newer multi-core
CPUs, and some will try things on multiple CPUs. It is all good,
and these things are not directly interchangeable. I invite you to
spend a few hours debugging an MPI application if you think
there is a simple relationship between the power of the computer
and the strength of the program.

Putting a V12 engine in a soap-box derby car will not make it win.
It is not that simple.

Cheers,
David



On 14, Jan 2009, at 11:58 AM, Ryan Grant wrote:


On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 9:22 AM, David Doshay ddos...@mac.com wrote:

if the competitions are all on the same hardware you are running a
*Go -playing-programs-developed-on-that-platform* competition.
And that sounds silly to me.


it would be worthwhile for this community to reward authors of
efficient algorithms.

authors of the best algorithms, once clearly identified, could
line up for grants to port to larger architectures, to see
whether their work scales.  newcomers would have a strong
incentive to try their ideas, even if they're not aligned with
large computing resources.  while we don't currently have such
funding, clear community demand would be an important step in
realizing it.

for any architecture, we can measure which algorithms are getting
the best results, per rough unit of computation resources.  one
very honest measurement is electricity.  electricity can be
estimated where it is not closely measured.

here is a thread from July which tries to outline this in more
detail:

 Elo-joules / honest clusters / Re: tournaments
 http://computer-go.org/pipermail/computer-go/2008-July/015357.html

   arrange a Green Computer Go tournament, in which the
   wattage used by each machine is well monitored.  play a
   marathon to calculate rankings, then normalize based on each
   contestant's sum of game-relative joules.  the best Elo /
   joules ratio determines the winner.

--
- Ryan
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Re: [computer-go] The Enemy's Key Point Is My Own

[David Doshay]

On 28, Oct 2008, at 11:23 AM, Richard Brown wrote:


... if there is someone who can explain to me why I have the
nagging suspicion that a differential equation is involved here, ...


I cannot tell why you have this nagging suspicion, but I can say that
if you wish to look into it deeper you can look up computer methods
for dealing with dif Eqs on a discrete lattice. It may give you a better
feeling one way or the other. Personally, in this case I do not see it,
I only see continuous parameters on a discrete lattice.

But I can add that SlugGo uses a modified version of the common
Go Proverb The Enemy's Key Point Is My Own as part of its evaluation
function. My experiments do show that this helps improve play in
many cases, and leads to amazing blunders in others.

It is worth pointing out that this proverb is too exact, and that it is
far better to realize that if implemented in a program as it is stated
you get the pathological behavior you mention. The truth is closer
to: Look near your opponent's best move to find things that are
interesting or possibly when my good moves are near their good
moves, that area may be more urgent that a big play elsewhere.

Cheers,
David
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Re: [computer-go] The Enemy's Key Point Is My Own

[David Doshay]

On 28, Oct 2008, at 12:28 PM, terry mcintyre wrote:

Sluggo has ( or had ) a particularly nasty form of the enemy's key  
point is my own - the program actually ran the GnuGo engine, so  
Sluggo knew precisely where GnuGo was most likely to play, and  
( using a large cluster ) could give GnuGo a five stone handicap and  
win convincingly and consistently, according to David Doshay, the  
author of Sluggo - google sluggo gnugo evil twin for more  
information.


While these things may be related, they are actually different code  
segments inside of SlugGo ... but the original post did mix the two  
somewhat as well.


The Evil Twin Effect comes from correct modeling of the opponent's  
play in look ahead sequences. The effect in SlugGo is strong enough in  
games against GNU Go that with proper parameter settings and enough  
look ahead SlugGo could beat GNU Go with 9 stones. But as Terry says,  
that apparent strength not only did not make SlugGo stronger against  
other programs, it made it weaker. Too much weight was placed upon  
long look ahead sequences which were virtually certain to happen in a  
game against GNU Go, and had virtually no probability of happening in  
a game against anyone else.


One nasty form of The Enemy's Key Point Is My Own was the reverse  
monkey jump, where SlugGo would properly recognize that the  
opponent's best move against it was a monkey jump, and properly see  
that stopping that monkey jump was the best move, but it would then  
play the same exact point the opponent would have, thus playing way  
too far inside its own area. So, as I said in my earlier post, near  
is the right idea, not at the same point. There are other easy  
examples involving them extending towards our stones, where we should  
not take their extension as our move, but we should prevent their  
extension my moving into that area farther from our own stones than  
they would have approached.


Cheers,
David




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Re: [computer-go] The Enemy's Key Point Is My Own

[David Doshay]

SlugGo was never intended to just be the multi-headed global
lookahead on top of GNU Go that it is today. The idea has always
been to have multiple go engines inside. We just picked GNU Go
for the first because when we started that was the only decent
open source program, so we built the infrastructure around that
engine.

We are working on others, but it is happening slowly.

The PhD topic is the combination of different expert systems and
how to arbitrate between their suggestions, particularly when the
experts use different representations for move quality/urgency.


Cheers,
David



On 28, Oct 2008, at 12:34 PM, Don Dailey wrote:


On Tue, 2008-10-28 at 12:28 -0700, terry mcintyre wrote:


The downside of overfitting to a particular opponent is that little
improvement versus other opponents was seen.


I wonder what would happen if Sluggo used a second player (with a  
style

much different from gnugo but still similar strength) as a source of
plausible moves in addition to gnugo?Specifically a player that  
had

different weaknesses and strengths.

- Don




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Re: [computer-go] The 2nd Comuputer Go UEC Cup

[David Doshay]

This is wonderful news for SlugGo, but unfortunately my wife just  
booked a
vacation for us at the same time. I will have to wait until next time  
to be

able to attend.

I will plan to hold this time open next year and hope that you will be  
holding

the tournament again at that time.

Thank you,
David



On 28, Oct 2008, at 8:00 PM, Hideki Kato wrote:


Seems Ito-sensei is very busy...

Remote computing is allowed.  See 1-4: Using a Remote Host via the
Internet at http://jsb.cs.uec.ac.jp/~igo/2008/eng/sankayouken.html
(Requirements for participation in the side menu) for detail.

Hideki

David Doshay: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

Will remote computing be allowed, or do we need to have our hardware
on site?

Cheers,
David



On 27, Oct 2008, at 7:21 PM, TAKESHI ITO wrote:




*
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

The 2nd Computer Go UEC Cup
 The University of Electro-Communication,
 Tokyo, Japan, 13-14 December 2008
 http://jsb.cs.uec.ac.jp/~igo/2008/eng/index.html
*

#Important Information
 Championship: December 13-14, 2008
 Entry's Deadline: November 28, 2008

#Schedule
 December 13
   Preliminary Match
 December 14
   Final Tournament
   Exhibition Match
   Explanation by professional Igo player

#Guest Comentator
 Mr.Cheng Ming Huang(9th-grade), Ms.Kaori Aoba(4th-grade)

#Event
 Exhibition match:  Ms.Kaori Aoba(4th-grade) VS Championship
Program (Handicap Game)

#Entry
 Cost:free
 Entry:accepting now
   http://jsb.cs.uec.ac.jp/~igo/2008/eng/mailform.html

#Venue
 The University of Electro-communications
 : Building W-9 3F AV hall(campus map:40)
  1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu-shi, Tokyo 182-8585 Japan.

#Past
 The 1st Comuputer Go UEC Cup
http://jsb.cs.uec.ac.jp/~igo/2007/eng/index.html

#Host Organizer
 Cognitive Science and Entertainment (EC) Research Station,
 The University of Electro-communications

#Support
 Computer Go Forum

#Contact (Tournament committee)
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]


-
 Takeshi Ito
The University of Electro-Communications
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [computer-go] MC programs vs. top commercial programs?

[David Doshay]

GNU Go won the tournament at the US Go Congress against several MC  
programs including Many Faces and Leela, but the Many Faces that  
competed was not quite the newest. David Fotland was working on  the  
program while in Portland and only got the multi-core (to use both  
cores of a duo) working after the tournament.


By some stroke of luck for him, after the tournament GNU Go was not  
turned off and sat waiting for more games against Many Faces. David  
played his multi-threaded multi-core version against GNU Go and all of  
those games were won by Many Faces. I do not recall the number of  
games he played before he went home.


Cheers,
David



On 27, Oct 2008, at 12:05 PM, Ian Osgood wrote:

Now that Leela and Many Faces v12 are available for any Windows user  
to purchase and run (and Fuego is free to tinker with), has anyone  
tried them against the old guard of commercial programs? KCC Igo,  
Haruka, Go++, and HandTalk haven't competed in a while so it is hard  
to tell how much better MC is than the previous state of the art.   
(For that matter, it isn't a foregone conclusion that they are  
better; GNU Go won the 2008 US computer go tournament against a  
field MC programs.)


Alternatively, I wonder whether Hiroshi Yamashita has tested his  
stronger AyaMC against his stable of commercial programs (as he  
previously did in 2007 using GNU Go).


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Re: [computer-go] The 2nd Comuputer Go UEC Cup

[David Doshay]

Will remote computing be allowed, or do we need to have our hardware  
on site?


Cheers,
David



On 27, Oct 2008, at 7:21 PM, TAKESHI　ITO wrote:




*
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

The 2nd Computer Go UEC Cup
  The University of Electro-Communication,
  Tokyo, Japan, 13-14 December 2008
  http://jsb.cs.uec.ac.jp/~igo/2008/eng/index.html
*

#Important Information
  Championship: December 13-14, 2008
  Entry's Deadline: November 28, 2008

#Schedule
  December 13
Preliminary Match
  December 14
Final Tournament
Exhibition Match
Explanation by professional Igo player

#Guest Comentator
  Mr.Cheng Ming Huang(9th-grade), Ms.Kaori Aoba(4th-grade)

#Event
  Exhibition match:  Ms.Kaori Aoba(4th-grade) VS Championship  
Program (Handicap Game)


#Entry
  Cost:free
  Entry:accepting now
http://jsb.cs.uec.ac.jp/~igo/2008/eng/mailform.html

#Venue
  The University of Electro-communications
  : Building W-9 3F AV hall(campus map:40)
   1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu-shi, Tokyo 182-8585 Japan.

#Past
  The 1st Comuputer Go UEC Cup
 http://jsb.cs.uec.ac.jp/~igo/2007/eng/index.html

#Host Organizer
  Cognitive Science and Entertainment (EC) Research Station,
  The University of Electro-communications

#Support
  Computer Go Forum

#Contact (Tournament committee)
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]


 -
  Takeshi Ito
 The University of Electro-Communications
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to David Fotland!

[David Doshay]

Huygens has 3328 cores, but I do not believe that Mogo
has run on more than 800, the number used for both
exhibition matches against Kim Myungwan.

Cheers,
David



On 2, Oct 2008, at 9:16 AM, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:



Mogo runs on Huygens, which is 3328 cores...


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to David Fotland!

[David Doshay]

The @home systems work great for big problems that do not have time  
constraints. Game playing is interactive and people expect reasonably  
quick replies. The problem with @home computational models is that you  
never know when the user will want their machine back, so you have the  
problem of deciding if a result is worth waiting for, or if you will  
send similar requests to multiple machines just to try and be sure  
that you get at least one reply.


I was contacted by someone in the Govt of Singapore about trying  
exactly this ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and while it is interesting, it is not nearly  
as simple as SETI@ home, where independent problems are being solved  
on different machines and you do not expect to get the answer back to  
the primary server on any particular schedule. In Go the answers are  
interdependent.


I suggested that it was too hard, or at best a research project not  
nearly ready for prime-time.


Cheers,
David



On 2, Oct 2008, at 10:17 AM, Michael Markefka wrote:

So, when are we going to see distributed computing? [EMAIL PROTECTED],  
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] With Go engines that scale well to increased  
processing capacity, imagine facilitating a few thousand PCs to do  
the computing. For good measure, [EMAIL PROTECTED] as about 800,000 nodes  
online as of now.


What's the approximate increase in playing level per increase in  
processing power? Any rough law for that?


Best regards,
Mike


Olivier Teytaud wrote:
Mogo was allowed to use 800 cores, not more, and only for games  
against humans.
We have no acces to so many cores for computer-computer games (if  
there were only three teams involved,

we could :-) ).
For some games Huygens was unaivalable at all, and mogo played with  
much weaker hardware (some quad-cores,

however, it is not so bad :-) ).
Best regards,
Olivier

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to David Fotland!

[David Doshay]

Yes, various kinds of off-line (not in-game) processing could be done.
But nothing in a real-time game.

Cheers,
David



On 2, Oct 2008, at 10:48 AM, terry mcintyre wrote:

An @home network might be better for things such as creating opening  
books, testing algorithms, etc.


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Re: [computer-go] Time signals in SGF?

[David Doshay]

time left in seconds

Cheers,
David



On 2, Oct 2008, at 3:12 PM, Peter Drake wrote:


Here's the beginning of the SGF file of a game I played on KGS:

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]HA[2]KM[0.50]TM[1800]OT[5x30 byo-yomi]
PW[mundungus]PB[zj]WR[5k]BR[7k]DT[2008-10-01]PC[The KGS Go Server at http://www.gokgs.com/ 
]AB[pd][dp]RE[W+Resign]

;W[pp]WL[1794.929]C[mundungus [5k?\]: hi
zj [7k\]: hi
]
;B[cd]BL[1795.411]
;W[ed]WL[1790.725]
;B[dc]BL[1793.565]
;W[ec]WL[1788.904]

What are those items marked BL and WL? Time left?

Peter Drake
http://www.lclark.edu/~drake/




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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to David Fotland!

[David Doshay]

Hi David,

Did you take those machines to China?

Cheers,
David



On 1, Oct 2008, at 6:14 AM, David Fotland wrote:


I was doing about 40 million playouts per move on 32 Xeon
processors and he had eight cores.


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Re: [computer-go] MoGo v.s. Kim rematch

[David Doshay]

On 22, Sep 2008, at 10:50 PM, Hideki Kato wrote:



David Doshay: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

It was 800, just like last time, but the networking had been upgraded
from ethernet to infiniband. Olivier said that this should have  
been a

good improvement because he felt that communication overhead was
significant.


Really previous Huygens used Ethernet?  It's hard to believe...

Hideki


I thought so as well, but Olivier wrote to me:

Begin forwarded message:


From: Olivier Teytaud [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 6, September 2008 2:07:42 AM PDT
To: David Doshay [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [computer-go] yet a mogo vs human game

Hi David,
...

We will have at least the same number of cores, probably more, and  
we will very likely have a better hardware -
the infiniband network should be available, and this makes a big  
difference.


...
Best regards,
Olivier



So, perhaps Huygens has both and they were not using it last time,
or maybe they brought Huygens up with E-net and then upgraded.

But Mogo did not use it for the Portland exhibition, but did use
infiniband for the rematch.

Cheers,
David
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Re: [computer-go] MoGo v.s. Kim rematch

[David Doshay]

It was 800, just like last time, but the networking had been upgraded  
from ethernet to infiniband. Olivier said that this should have been a  
good improvement because he felt that communication overhead was  
significant.


Cheers,
David



On 22, Sep 2008, at 6:06 AM, terry mcintyre wrote:

Consider this as tentative, since I heard it about 3rd-hand, but I  
believe the number of processors used to have been 3000.


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Re: [computer-go] Re: sgf format for non-quadratic board sizes?

[David Doshay]

First move is easy, but depending upon ratio of diameter to length
of torus, ladders can get complicated.

Cheers,
David



On 19, Sep 2008, at 10:48 AM, Álvaro Begué wrote:


On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 1:29 PM, Don Dailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Would go on a torus be interesting?  There are not corners or  
edges, the

sides of the board simply wrap around.

- Don


Yes, it's probably similar in spirit to regular go, except everything
feels like the center of the board. It would also make the first move
easy. :)

Álvaro.




On Fri, 2008-09-19 at 09:52 -0700, Ross Werner wrote:

Urban Hafner wrote:
Ah, right. I thought you were talking about implementing this  
feature

for your own program. Personally I don't know of any program that
supports rectangular boards.


There was a recent thread on GoDiscussions about this topic:
http://www.godiscussions.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6960

Not much information there, but maybe enough to be useful.

 ~ Ross
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Re: Rating systems (was Re: [computer-go] Kaori-Crazystone)

[David Doshay]

You would have to ask these questions of Paul. He is an extremely  
serious and careful person, so while I would find it hard to believe  
that every person had exactly the same rating down to 0.01, it must  
have been very close when the entire collection of AGA members was  
considered. I do not believe that Paul would have allowed the change  
in the previous rules if the data were not convincing. But I was not  
involved at the time, so he would know and I only know the story as it  
was told to me (and how it is being used as the basis for rating  
computer Go playing programs now).


Cheers,
David



On 5, Sep 2008, at 1:46 AM, Robert Jasiek wrote:


David Doshay wrote:
 Two
separate rating tables were kept, one for handicap games and  
another for non-handicap games. Over time it turned out that the  
ratings for individuals converged


Did they converge for each person individually or converge only for  
all persons on average? Did the convergence occur for all persons  
regardless of whether they played Black the more often in handicap  
games? Did fixed versus free handicaps make a difference? Would  
altering the handicap density per rank difference / komi system have  
made a difference?


IOW, was the conclusion well justified or misinterpretation?

--
robert jasiek
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[computer-go] MoGo v.s. Kim rematch

[David Doshay]

MoGo and Myungwan Kim will hold an exhibition rematch at the Cotsen  
Open on Saturday September 20. The exhibition will start at about 5pm  
Pacific Daylight time.


As probably known by all on this list, MoGo won the last game, held at  
the US Go Congress in Portland Oregon, when it was given a 9 stone  
handicap and played with a one hour time limit.


At this time the expected handicap will be 7, and it is not clear if  
there will be one game or two. It is not known at this time how many  
cores MoGo will be running on. Mr Kim has asked for MoGo to be given  
90 minutes because he saw how much the increase in time from 15  
minutes to one hour increased its playing strength. Mr. Kim has also  
asked that there be only one or at most 2 blitz games at the start.


The MoGo team also wants to have some 9x9 games, but Mr Kim does not  
feel familiar enough with 9x9 to play those games, but he is searching  
for an alternate strong player. MoGo has some new features for 9x9,  
and the team is anxious to see the newest code in action.




Cheers,
David



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Re: [computer-go] rz-74 on CGOS ?

[David Doshay]

On 18, Aug 2008, at 6:58 AM, terry mcintyre wrote:


Just a guess: an incarnation of Sluggo?


not to my knowledge,
but it is true that students do things that I am not aware of
and they do make up their own player names.

Cheers,
David


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Re: [computer-go] Correction in AGA eJournal...

[David Doshay]

I had asked Chris to print the correction, and he was glad to do so.  
Now I am trying to get the article on the AGA web site updated. I have  
already seen a bunch of things on the internet that link to it and the  
mistaken comment (9 stones in a year, computer superiority real soon)  
is getting repeated a huge number of times.


Cheers,
David



On 12, Aug 2008, at 11:57 AM, Robert Waite wrote:


Just in case anyone hadn't seen the correction yet...

CORRECTION: The EJ misquoted David Doshay in our 8/7 report on  
Computer Beats Pro At U.S. Go Congress. What I said is that  
computer programs have improved 7 to 9 stones in the last few years,  
[not We've improved nine stones in just a year and I suspect the  
next nine will fall quickly now, as the EJ reported] Doshay  
writes, so the next nine stones will surely happen in a decade. My  
meaning was and is that computers will be playing even games with  
Pro players within a decade. I surely did not mean to predict that  
it would be over (unbeatable computer) in that time. I certainly  
did not expect this when I was on my way to the Congress. We  
apologize for the error.

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Re: [computer-go] Correction in AGA eJournal...

[David Doshay]

Hi Bob,

No problem at all ... it was inevitable that this would happen. I just  
found that the Oregonian, which printed that I wrote GNU Go, properly  
changed it to SlugGo in the on line version.


What I am trying to understand now is how the New Scientist technology  
blog has me properly quoted saying things that Chris did not print ...  
I was unaware of any other reporters nearby when I sad those things!


Cheers,
David



On 12, Aug 2008, at 3:34 PM, Bob Hearn wrote:

Well you can blame me for linking to the AGA story on Slashdot, but  
at least I didn't repeat the misquote, and I also asked Chris to fix  
it on the AGA site. I figured it would probably make Slashdot  
quickly anyway, so the story might as well be written by someone  
with at least a bit of a clue.


Bob


On Aug 12, 2008, at 1:23 PM, David Doshay wrote:

I had asked Chris to print the correction, and he was glad to do  
so. Now I am trying to get the article on the AGA web site updated.  
I have already seen a bunch of things on the internet that link to  
it and the mistaken comment (9 stones in a year, computer  
superiority real soon) is getting repeated a huge number of times.


Cheers,
David


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Re: [computer-go] Re: mogo beats pro!

[David Doshay]

We are in agreement on the general nature of things, but seeing it in  
person was just so amazing. I did see comments about the quality of  
the pro, but it may have been in the game chat rather than here. I  
slept very little over the 10 days in Portland, so things are all  
mixed up in my head.


Cheers,
David



On 10, Aug 2008, at 1:06 PM, Mark Boon wrote:



On 10-aug-08, at 13:11, David Doshay wrote:

As an aside, the pro in question won the US Open, so comments about  
him being a weak pro seem inappropriate.


I don't see where anybody questioned the level of the pro. As far as  
I'm concerned I consider a Korean (is that correct?) 8-dan pro to be  
close enough to the ultimate top as to be indistinguishable for the  
sake of this discussion.


All I tried to do was put this achievement in perspective to other  
achievements in the past. I don't think anybody disputes the great  
progress that has been made either, no matter the hardware  
requirements.


I don't think a computer will beat a pro on even in ten years just  
using the faster hardware that will be avaliable by then. I believe  
considerable improvements will have to be made in the software as  
well. Is it impossible? No, it's not impossible. But it's impossible  
to make predictions about it, IMO. If I had to put money on it I'd  
rather go for 20 years than 10 years. But even 20 years isn't going  
to be a lay-up.


But if in ten years we have a million-CPU computer to our disposal  
and there has been progress in the software in the order of 4-5  
stones as well we might be getting close. I say 'might', as I'd like  
to see more games. Considering the low availability of such a  
powerful computer, that data needed to make stronger claims is a bit  
hard to come by.


Mark

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Re: [computer-go] Games vs professionals

[David Doshay]

On 11, Aug 2008, at 4:56 AM, Basti Weidemyr wrote:


-
The review of Xiao Ai Lin vs Leela: 
http://www.weidemyr.com/egc/cg/XiaoAiLin_Leela-review.sgf

-


Several people at the congress expressed worries to me about what  
would happen to the sport Go, if computer programs became stronger  
and threatened to defeat the strongest men. Go would lose its  
advantage over chess, they said, and people would feel redundant as  
computers could do it better.


Nobody in Portland asked me this question, either before or after the  
Mogo/Kim match.


One man asked me repeatedly to quit running challenges between  
professionals and computers. The professionals themselves became  
very nervous when we asked them to play against a computer. It is  
not hard to imagine the bold headlines after losing, but it is hard  
to imagine them after winning.


I had an interchange from the other side. I wanted to know the  
sensible thing to try next, and asked a pro who will remain un-named.  
He thought the whole question absurd. He felt that the match meant  
nothing and that the distance between the program and any pro was  
still so large that to discuss next was equally meaningless. And  
this is a pro that I have spoken to many times, who has always been  
very polite. I have only seen him more emphatic and less composed once  
when he yelled at me If you can't read well then don't try so hard to  
read it out!


The game between MoGo and Kim Myung Wan was unique, since MoGo run  
on a large cluster and interesting to watch. (Congratulations MoGo  
team!) It was also a great way of showing people the progress that  
has been made in computer-go recently. However, maybe we do not need  
to use these kinds of challenges as a means of getting media  
attention.


If the reporters understood what we were doing and got it right it  
would be useful ...


I think we do need these matches, but we need to be careful in how  
they are structured and how often we have them. I also understand the  
difficult position the pro is in: If they win it means nothing but if  
they loose they are for all history the goat.


But as Don keeps saying, we are not treading on new ground, the exact  
same thing happened with chess.


We would like to find a way to cooperate with the traditional go- 
community with little friction. What do you think?


I agree that we need to insert ourselves politely, but I think still  
with a little force. I will not go into all of the details of the  
meeting with the AGA regarding getting honest and accurate ratings for  
programs, but there were many obvious prejudices being expressed and  
more than a few Catch-22 situations to carefully be danced around.  
Fortunately, the incoming AGA President saw the situation clearly and  
crafted a comfortable compromise. We will be accepted, even if only  
Incrementally.





Best regards
Basti Weidemyr
kgs: sestir
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Re: [computer-go] Re: mogo beats pro!

[David Doshay]

It is of no consequence what words WE use to describe this. Journalists
will ALWAYS print it that way. If you use too many big words or ideas
that are accurate but convoluted, you will either not get the publicity
or the journalist will make up something even more absurd.


Sorry if I am a bit over sensitive ... getting misquoted, my work  
ignored,

and getting credit for the work of others in this past week has me very
aware of how these people work. They are on a deadline and meeting the
deadline with a headline that captures a lay reader's attention is the  
only

priority. I know how my attempts to get a correction were greeted ...

Cheers,
David



On 11, Aug 2008, at 8:37 AM, Hideki Kato wrote:


Hi all,

I'd like to say first Congratulations! to MoGo team.

I have a question.  Why do you all call the game as human vs.
computer?  It's obviously a match between Kim 8p and MoGo, a program
developped by MoGo team, running on a supercomputer.

As both MoGo and the supercomputer were developped by human, the game
is clearly (a special type of) human vs. human.

I'm afraid it may raise unnecessary emotional thoughts of against
computers among people.  It might be better to call such a game
something of a style a professinal Goplayer vs. a program with its
developper(s) to emphasize the program was created by human.

-Hideki


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Re: [computer-go] beating mogo with time (funny post)

[David Doshay]

If we do concentrate for just a moment on how to beat mogo, I can  
report that in the 3 blitz games the pro figured out that multistep  
kos were the easy way. But in the longer game he presented the same  
pattern to mogo to start it, but mogo played differently. I thought  
that was a huge difference.


Cheers,
David



On 11, Aug 2008, at 5:10 PM, Peter Christopher wrote:

I am about as strong as the mogos running on kgs.  I get a kick out  
of trying to learn how to beat the mogos there.  It's certainly not  
as easy as beating gnu go with a few stones (just surround it) or  
beating aya giving it 6 stones (just don't make tactical mistakes,  
but take advantage of its tactical mistakes).  With mogo there are  
other techniques, but this isn't a post about the strategical  
considerations for beating mogo at go thinking.


Often, mogo can beat me because the game is short, thus I can't  
think quickly enough in some of the complexity it presents.  I get  
back, though, occasionally.  When I stay properly ahead of mogo on  
time, sometimes in the endgame it has the standard few points ahead,  
but sometimes mogo doesn't estimate time properly... and gets down  
to 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... Then mogo gets scared.  It doesn't play  
any more stones, it just passes.  (pass doesn't remove time on  
kgs).  I calmy destroy one of mogos groups, quickly making 5 or 6  
moves in a row ... I still have 10 seconds left ... mogo passes  
again, I pass, I win ...


Of course I was the loser of the real go game, but because the mogos  
are running with bizarre time settings, and they beat me sometimes  
because of them, I get my revenge.


Pedro
Costa Rica

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Re: [computer-go] Re: What's happening at the European Go Congress?

[David Doshay]

On 11, Aug 2008, at 7:23 PM, Don Dailey wrote:


On Tue, 2008-08-12 at 09:55 +0900, Darren Cook wrote:
My first impression of watching the game was that Leela was  
handicapped

by having a handicap. By that I mean it would have seen itself so far
ahead for the first few moves that is was playing arbitrarily.


I was blasted for making that observation many months ago concerning  
the
possibility of handicap matches on CGOS.   I thought it not a good  
idea
for Monte Carlo players because each player starting with a dead won  
or

dead lost game.   The response was that it didn't matter, the programs
would still fight.


I wonder if this was part of the beginning move selection of Mogo in the
games against Mr Kim. Can anyone on that team check their logs and  
respond?





It could turn out that the best strategy is simply to let the opponent
play desperately and not over-react, because to have any chance when
giving 9 stones you must in some sense over-play it.


This exact point was made in the post game analysis by Mr Kim. He  
explained
that he expected about 1 dan replies to his approach in the lower  
right, and
thus played to live in the corner and have an extension across the  
bottom.
An observer said Oh, so you made an overplay. Mr Kim replied I have  
to
overplay (against 9 stones). He later showed how he would have played  
it had
he expected mogo to find what he called 4 or 5 dan moves. He also said  
that
he was impressed with Mogo's ability to avoid overreacting, that it  
could not

be provoked like a human once it was ahead.

Mr Kim also said that from his perspective his opponent in the last 2  
games
felt completely different than in the first 2 games. The difference,  
of course,
was the additional search time. In the 2nd game mogo played the first  
half

thinking it had 10 minutes, even though the KGS clock was set to 15, and
mid-game the operator realized the mistake, took it offline and fixed  
the
clock before reconnecting. But it was too late, so Mr Kim, other than  
being

confused by the opponent abandoning and reappearing, did not get much
chance to see the difference in play.


Cheers,
David

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Re: [computer-go] Re: mogo beats pro!

[David Doshay]

No offense at all taken by your words. I only meant to say that I
have had personal experience with how reporters and journalists
turn what they hear into what they write. It is my opinion that
we could try very hard to fix our words and they will either
change them back or make up something even more dramatic.

Cheers,
David



On 11, Aug 2008, at 7:42 PM, Hideki Kato wrote:


David,

I didn't intend to offend any person in this list, sorry for short
of my words.  I'm just trying to prevent people misunderstand the
truth.

Hideki

David Doshay: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
It is of no consequence what words WE use to describe this.  
Journalists

will ALWAYS print it that way. If you use too many big words or ideas
that are accurate but convoluted, you will either not get the  
publicity

or the journalist will make up something even more absurd.


Sorry if I am a bit over sensitive ... getting misquoted, my work
ignored,
and getting credit for the work of others in this past week has me  
very
aware of how these people work. They are on a deadline and meeting  
the
deadline with a headline that captures a lay reader's attention is  
the

only
priority. I know how my attempts to get a correction were greeted ...

Cheers,
David



On 11, Aug 2008, at 8:37 AM, Hideki Kato wrote:


Hi all,

I'd like to say first Congratulations! to MoGo team.

I have a question.  Why do you all call the game as human vs.
computer?  It's obviously a match between Kim 8p and MoGo, a  
program

developped by MoGo team, running on a supercomputer.

As both MoGo and the supercomputer were developped by human, the  
game

is clearly (a special type of) human vs. human.

I'm afraid it may raise unnecessary emotional thoughts of against
computers among people.  It might be better to call such a game
something of a style a professinal Goplayer vs. a program with its
developper(s) to emphasize the program was created by human.

-Hideki


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--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kato)
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Re: [computer-go] Re: mogo beats pro!

[David Doshay]

Yeah, I am really on a roll ... first I am misquoted as saying it is  
going to be all over for humans in go very soon, and then they say  
I wrote GNU Go.


Sigh ...

I guess that now I need to expect requests for the next release of GNU  
Go source, or Windows versions, or whatever.


Cheers,
David



On 9, Aug 2008, at 9:34 PM, terry mcintyre wrote:

I was present; David Doshay said that in ten years, it would be  
reasonable to expect computers to play even games with pros.


Reporters tend to be a bit sloppy at times. In the Oregonian, David  
is reported as the author of Gnugo -- I've heard his spiel dozens  
of times, and he has never said anything remotely in the same  
ballpark as that. The fault was not his, in any way, shape or form.


Terry McIntyre [EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: [computer-go] Re: mogo beats pro!

[David Doshay]

Yes, for the first time I do think that on the 10 year time scale
computers will play against pros on an even basis. I am not
ready to predict that they will routinely beat the best of the
pros.

They play (or rather it played) at amateur 1-dan now ... that is
what just happened.

Cheers,
David



On 10, Aug 2008, at 4:15 AM, Ray Tayek wrote:


At 01:50 AM 8/10/2008, you wrote:

Yeah, I am really on a roll ... ...

On 9, Aug 2008, at 9:34 PM, terry mcintyre wrote:


I was present; David Doshay said that in ten years, it would be
reasonable to expect computers to play even games with pros.


david d, do you *really* think that they will play even with pros?

i am guessing more like amateur 1-dan.

thanks

---
vice-chair http://ocjug.org/


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[computer-go] the more important news from the Go congress

[David Doshay]

While the mogo game and result is in the newspaper and keeping all of  
us talking, there was another piece of progress in computer Go that  
took place at the US Go congress that I think says more about the  
state of computer go than the 9-stone handicap win.


The day before the mogo match there was a meeting with a number of AGA  
officials that Peter Drake and I attended. After much spirited,  
passionate, and strongly opinionated discussion, it has been decided  
that the AGA will develop a plan to formally rate computer programs.  
The AGA feels that it has the gold standard in rating systems, and  
previous to this point all games against computer programs were  
explicitly not rated, and thus programs could not get a rating.


It is clear to me that the AGA is not going to drag its feet on this,  
and we will be able to get reliable ratings before a year from now.  
Before folks start rants about KGS ratings, lets make clear that while  
those are interesting, the ease of making a new user name to either  
inflate or deflate one's rating, and the ease of abandonment are very  
real issues that lead the AGA to shrug off KGS ratings at this time.


The exact details of the system are not yet specified, but I have been  
assured by those with the power to make it happen that one year from  
now we will have made the first important step towards the acceptance  
that programs can play Go: they will have realistic and confirmed  
ratings. This is clearly an important step towards more widespread  
acceptance of programs as serious players.


Cheers,
David



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Re: [computer-go] mogo beats pro!

[David Doshay]

Chris may be right with his implication that I talk too much these  
days, but just to keep things honest, the quote below is not exactly  
what I said. I said that others were wondering how much time it will  
be before the programs are beating the pros. My thought was that  
programs have advanced 7 to 9 stones in the last few years, and after  
this match, for the first time I think that programs will likely be  
competing evenly with pros within a decade. I am shocked to be  
thinking this ... I certainly did not think this yesterday.


Cheers,
David



On 7, Aug 2008, at 8:47 PM, terry mcintyre wrote:


This is from the AGA newsletter:

COMPUTER BEATS PRO AT U.S. GO CONGRESS: In a historic achievement,  
the MoGo computer program defeated Myungwan
Kim 8P (l) Thursday afternoon by 1.5 points in a 9-stone game billed  
as

“Humanity’s Last Stand?” “It played really well,” said Kim, who
estimated MoGo’s current strength at “two or maybe three dan,” though
he noted that the program – which used 800 processors, at 4.7 Ghz, 15
Teraflops on a borrowed European supercomputer – “made some 5-dan
moves,” like those in the lower right-hand corner, where Moyogo took
advantage of a mistake by Kim to get an early lead. “I can’t tell you
how amazing this is,” David Doshay -- the SlugGo programmer who
suggested the match -- told the E-Journal after the game.
“I’m shocked at the result. I really didn’t expect the computer to win
in a one-hour game.” Kim easily won two blitz games with 9 stones and
11 stones and minutes and lost one with 12 stones and 15 minutes by  
3.5

points. The games were played live at the U.S. Go Congress, with over
500 watching online on KGS. “I think there’s no chance on nine  
stones,”

Kim told the EJ after the game. “It would even be difficult with eight
stones. MoGo played really well; after getting a lead, every time I
played aggressively, it just played safely, even when it meant
sacrificing some stones. It didn’t try to maximize the win and just
played the most sure way to win. It’s like a machine.” The game
generated a lot of interest and discussion about the game’s tactics  
and
philosophical implications. “Congratulations on making history  
today,” game organizer Peter Drake told both Kim and Olivier  
Teytaud, one of MoGo’s programmers, who participated ina brief  
online chat after the game. At a rare loss for words in a brief
interview with the EJ after the game, Doshay wondered “How much time  
do

we have left? We’ve improved nine stones in just a year and I suspect
the next nine will fall quickly now.”
- reported by Chris Garlock, photo by Brian Allen

Terry McIntyre [EMAIL PROTECTED]




“Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is  
found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to  
insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.”



Benjamin Disraeli, Speech in the House of Commons [June 15, 1874]




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Re: [computer-go] mogo beats pro!

[David Doshay]

On 8, Aug 2008, at 7:29 AM, Eric Boesch wrote:

On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 8:04 AM, Mark Boon [EMAIL PROTECTED]  
wrote:

First of all, congratulations to the MoGo team.


Ditto!


Absolutely an amazing achievement!



Where I do differ in opinion from most is the remarks from the pro.  
He
played too fast and made a few terrible mistakes at crucial points.  
He said
that MoGo winning the lower-right corner was 5-dan level play but I  
strongly
disagree. It was good play, probably dan-level, but the kicker was  
that the

mistake by the pro was also almost sub dan level.


If it was an outright blunder then it was definitely sub-dan level. I
just don't know if that's the case.


In discussion one person said So it was an overplay on your part? His
answer was With 9 stones I must make overplays. From the nature of
what was said after that it is clear that Mr Kim knew how to live in the
corner, but chose a variation that he did not think the computer would
answer so well that would prevent him from getting sealed into the
corner.


Maybe (as an alternative to the misclick theory, which would be my
other top candidate) Myung Wan


I mentioned the misclick theory in the chat and he was emphatic that
there was no misclick.


deliberately tested Mogo for a blunder


He showed us the kind of responses he expected, which he said were
1-Dan level.


after Mogo played a very nice squeeze. Myung Wan was disrespecting his
opponent to even try to see if r1 would work (but maybe he wanted to
see just in case Mogo was that dumb, and he wanted to find out early
in the game so he would know how many points he needed to make
elsewhere), but s1 is not great either because if Myung saves his
bottom chain, then as in the variation starting with move 52 in the
attached SGF, Myung is stuck in the corner after black plays s7. It is
hard to imagine that the lower right side is worth losing the corner,
but maybe the difference is small.

To me, r2 looks very good. What do you stronger players think? (I'm  
only 1 kyu.)
MyungWan- 
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Re: [computer-go] cgos 19x19 has no anchor

[David Doshay]

I will put up GNU Go when I get home.

Cheers,
David



On 8, Aug 2008, at 8:20 AM, David Fotland wrote:


All three anchors have been off-line since yesterday.

David

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Re: [computer-go] Re: mogo beats pro!

[David Doshay]

Kim applauded once when Mogo made a good move in a blitz game.

I believe that the comment about not using more time, which was in  
response to my question, applied only to high handicap games.


Cheers,
David



On 8, Aug 2008, at 9:15 AM, Peter Drake wrote:



One person who seemed to be in the room with Kim said that he was  
laughing and clapping at some of the computer's moves.


This was only at one moment during the second blitz game when MoGo  
cut off one of Kim's groups. He was definitely concentrating on his  
games.


One person in this list, but not the AGA eJournal, mentioned that  
Kim used about 11 minutes time.. where the computer used around 50.  
This was surprising to me... Kim is reported to say that he felt  
having extra time would not have helped.


Correct.

To me... this seems a little odd. He may have used it as a tactic  
to give the computer less thinking time (if Mogo was indeed  
thinking during Kim's turn).


I don't know about this; he may not have been aware that MoGo  
pondered.


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Re: [computer-go] CGOS request

[David Doshay]

After I get home from the Congress I can set up a machine that can run
GNU Go, most probably for 2 board sizes.

Cheers,
David



On 3, Aug 2008, at 11:12 AM, Don Dailey wrote:



The main web page for CGOS has been updated with links to the various
standings pages and updated instructions for using the clients.

I hope to get 1 or 2 volunteers to run the gnugo anchor for either  
13x13

or 19x19.It's good to get more than 1.   I have a spare computer I
use and can run 1 anchor,  but it's not clear that I can run them both
without faltering on time once in a while.

Gnugo is fairly resource intensive - is anyone aware of a program that
has a much better strength/time tradeoff?   Hopefully something just  
as

strong as gnugo but not as slow?   Or perhaps a little weaker but much
faster?

It seems to be pushing it running gnugo 3.7.10 for BOTH 19x19 and  
13x13

on a slower spare computer I have.

- Don


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Re: [computer-go] Human-computer showdown

[David Doshay]

The cluster is in Amsterdam, not France.

Cheers,
David



On 21, Jul 2008, at 2:54 PM, Peter Drake wrote:


Pacific time.

We'll do this in the Computer Go room. We'll announce the usernames  
when the time comes.


On Jul 21, 2008, at 2:28 PM, Jason House wrote:


1pm in which timezone? Which room  user name(s) will be used on KGS?

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 21, 2008, at 5:04 PM, Peter Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


(This is from the US Go Congress to be held in Portland, Oregon.)

On Thursday, August 7, at 1:00 PM, Kim MyungWan 8p will take on  
MoGo, the world’s strongest computer Go program. MoGo will connect  
remotely from France, where it will be running on a supercomputer  
boasting over 3,000 processor cores. The game will be broadcast on  
KGS.


Peter Drake
http://www.lclark.edu/~drake/

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http://www.lclark.edu/~drake/



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Re: [computer-go] Re: tournaments

[David Doshay]

My program runs on a cluster ... no way around that.

Cheers,
David



On 17, Jul 2008, at 12:31 PM, Dave Dyer wrote:



One possibility is to use one of the VM products that are available
to host unix on a windows machine, or windows on a unix machine.

VirtualBox looks particilarly promising, since it's free and available
for all the common platforms.   There is some performance penalty
associated with the virtualization, but I would expect for a CPU bound
Go program this would be minimal.

If the performance penalty is significant enough, it could
be equalized by running ALL programs in VM boxes.

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Re: [computer-go] Re: tournaments

[David Doshay]

On 17, Jul 2008, at 1:34 PM, terry mcintyre wrote:


--- On Thu, 7/17/08, David Doshay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


From: David Doshay [EMAIL PROTECTED]



My program runs on a cluster ... no way around that.


David, you're just not taking full advantage of Virtualization ...  
simply emulate multiple VMs on a single computer; there may be a  
performance penalty. ;)


It is actually one step easier than that. MPI lets one do it directly  
without all of the multiple VMs. And hey, just like your smiley  
indicates, if I emulate 64 machines I only have a factor of maybe 65  
in speed hit!! Wow, my program could finish a one hour game in only 65  
hours!



I do appreciate having some head-to-head competitions using similar  
hardware, but I also want to see unlimited open class competition,  
where people are able to run multiprocessors, and learn to scale  
algorithms to big-n processors. We'll all have 1000 processors on  
our desktops in a few years anyhow, might as well iron out the  
problems now.


getting further off-topic in a somewhat off-topic thread, I have my  
doubts about common desktops moving much past 8 or so cores. That is  
about the max number of things most users will try to run at one time.




Cheers,
David




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Re: [computer-go] Computer Go tournament at EGC, Leksand, Sweden

[David Doshay]

On 17, Jul 2008, at 1:02 PM, Rémi Coulom wrote:


David Doshay wrote:

Had I known that I might have participated. I thought I would have
to ship my cluster, and with my previous traveling cluster I thought
it would never get past the US airport security ... is was such a  
mass

of wires and parts that it hardly even looked like a computer.

Cheers,
David


Note however that you would have probably not been allowed to  
participate together with GNU Go (I am not completely sure). Since  
nobody registered GNU Go this year, it may not be too late to enter.  
But the availability of internet connection in Beijing has not been  
confirmed yet. Also, you should be able to play on a local computer  
as a backup in case of connection problem.


Rémi


I would never presume that I could find enough local Macs with enough  
memory, networking equipment, and enough time to install MPI and make  
sure that everything was working ... maybe next year, when we also  
think we will be less dependent upon GNU Go. But predicting the  
progress made in software is difficult.


Cheers,
David

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Re: [computer-go] US Go Congress Computer Tournament: Who's Playing

[David Doshay]

Hello all,

The total prize money pool from which various prizes will be awarded  
will be at least $1250.


The uncertainty in the distribution is because we may wish to keep  
some prize money for computer programs that compete against humans. At  
the Cotsen Open in Los Angeles, programs have entered in a bracket of  
12k to 8k players and there was a prize for the best program.  
Something similar may happen at the Congress. It does seem like a good  
idea to at least have some kind of a demonstration game between a  
human and the winning program, but a few such games including the top  
few programs might be nice too. Play against humans may be different  
than play against humans.


Another possible use of the money would be to buy really cool  
trophies. It is my personal view that money spent is forgotten,  
however strong a motivator money may seem to be, but a trophy is  
lasting proof of success.


I plan to enter my program SlugGo, which will require the permission  
of the GNU Go folks. It is my opinion that derivative programs like  
SlugGo that are based upon open source code should be eligible for  
trophies and recognition of where they place in the tournament, but  
should not be eligible for cash prizes ... but that is my opinion and  
a not yet a specific decision of the TD.


Sincerely,
David G Doshay
President and Treasurer
Hierarchical Systems Research Foundation


On 9, Jun 2008, at 10:25 AM, Peter Drake wrote:



Prizes
Prize money has been donated by Hierarchical Systems Research  
Foundation and other anonymous donors. At a minimum, the following  
prizes will be awarded:


1st place   $400
2nd place   $200
3rd place   $100
4th place   $50





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Re: [computer-go] US Go Congress Computer Tournament: Who's Playing

[David Doshay]

Ooops, that should be that play against humans may be different than  
play against other computer programs.


Cheers,
David



On 9, Jun 2008, at 5:33 PM, David Doshay wrote:


Play against humans may be different than play against humans.


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Re: [computer-go] Computer Olympiad registration reminder: 11 days left

[David Doshay]

SlugGo is not ready for such a big trip this year. Hopefully next  
year ...


Cheers,
David



On 5, Jun 2008, at 11:39 AM, Joshua Shriver wrote:

Wish I could go, maybe next year. Amazed that the WCCC is being held  
at the same place just 3 days after.  :)


-Josh

On Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 4:08 AM, Rémi Coulom [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 wrote:

Dear Go programmers,

I remind you that the deadline for early registration to the ICGA  
Computer Olympiad is June 15. After that date, registration fees  
will be doubled. You'll find all information on the web site of the  
tournament:

http://www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr/icga/event.php?id=37

I hope to meet you there.

Rémi
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[computer-go] Money prizes at US Go Congress

[David Doshay]

A while ago I asked this list what would encourage more programmers to  
bring their programs to the US Go Congress. Prize money was mentioned  
by several, and as a result the foundation I run, Hierarchical Systems  
Research Foundation, put up $1,000 for prize money.  A donor outside  
HSRF has contributed an additional $250. The donor will also increase  
their donation to match other contributions if the total exceeds $1,000.


If you wish to donate to the prize money pool please contact me  
privately via email. If you have any other interesting ideas about  
promoting computer Go at the Congress then let's discuss it openly.


Hierarchical Systems Research Foundation is an IRS approved 501(c)(3)  
public benefit entity.


Cheers,

David Garrett Doshay
President and Treasurer
Hierarchical Systems Research Foundation



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Re: [computer-go] Random

[David Doshay]

Hi,

As mentioned before, Monte Carlo simulations in physics was my thesis
topic, and there we need REALLY good PRNGs or we see the effect in
the results.

There is always a tradeoff between fast and good. If the newer Mersine
Twister algorithms (which are very good) is too slow and you want to
test an alternative, you can use the trick that is in Knuth that I  
used for
my thesis work. It is a 2 step generator that shuffles. You build an  
array
that holds a set of PRNGs straight from your crude but very fast  
generator
(I was partial to a list of 273), Your first PRNG call mod(arraysize)  
picks

the PRN you will use, and then the second refills that spot.

No promises that this is any faster, but for lattice simulations where
any correlations pop right out at you sort of like a herringbone  
pattern,

this shuffling worked great for me.

Personally, I think that much of the really high quality issues are  
not

that important for MC Go right now. I think that other things like not
having a reasonable distribution function (which UCT does a remarkable
job of smoothing over) completely overwhelm the effects of a poor PRNG.

Cheers,
David



On 16, May 2008, at 10:42 AM, Don Dailey wrote:




terry mcintyre wrote:

Regarding the time used by RDTSC:

From
http://smallcode.weblogs.us/2007/12/07/performance-measurements-with-rdtsc/

Intel and Agner Fog recommend measuring the overhead
of RDTSC function and subtracting it from your result.
The overhead is relatively low (150-200 clock cycles)
and it occurs in all tested functions, so you can
neglect it when measuring long functions (e.g., 100
000 clock cycles).

NOTE: the page above recommends flushing the cache
before  calling RDTSC, when using it for timing
purposes. There is probably no need to do so when
grabbing LSBs.

I wonder, however, if the LSBs would be as random as
all that, when called frequently in
quasi-deterministic code which takes a predictable
number of cycles between invocations.

I'm not interested in using it here to measure performance, but as a  
possible way to have a very fast and very high quality random number  
function. But this won't happen if RDTSC isn't fast and it doesn't  
appear to be very fast.


I don't expect RDTSC to be very random either, I'm more interested  
in the chaos it presents to the random number system which is  
produced even with very little agitation added to the system. Even  
an occasional 1 bit change would cure many of the problems of some  
fast random number generators.


If you were to call this random number generator consecutively, many  
time in a tight loop, I suspect that you will get a LOT of variation  
in the number of cycles that have passed between calls, certainly  
enough to make it completely unpredictable in the long run. Like  
weather predictions you might predict the next day (or call) with  
some level of reasonable accuracy but not a specific day in the next  
month.


Every deterministic pseudo random number generator in existence  
always has some kind of structure. The main difference between what  
we consider good and bad ones is how well that structure is  
obfuscated or hidden from view. We try to be clever so that  
statistical tests cannot see the structure. One of primary methods  
to hide this structure is to make it so big (by long cycle  
lengths) that we can only see a tiny portion of it. For instance if  
every zillion'th bit alternated between 0 and 1, it would be hard to  
observe.


So if you can add a small amount of non-determinism you can probably  
bust up the hidden structure.


At any rate, it seems like it's not workable as a fast alternative  
to RNG. It might be combined with a slow very high quality generator  
to produce numbers that are somewhat closer to true random numbers.


- Don





Terry McIntyre lt;[EMAIL PROTECTED]gt;

“Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is  
found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to  
insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.”


Benjamin Disraeli, Speech in the House of Commons [June 15, 1874]


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Re: [computer-go] Random

[David Doshay]

These shuffles are different than the one I used and attempted to  
describe.


Cheers,
David



On 16, May 2008, at 12:55 PM, terry mcintyre wrote:


An interesting note from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_shuffle which
appears to be pertinent to Don's remarks about a
limited number of games:

quote
Limited PRNG state space


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[computer-go] Money for computer Go (was: Ing Challenge)

[David Doshay]

On 27, Mar 2008, at 3:39 PM, David Fotland wrote:


US go congress (August, small prize this year)



Since I announced that HSRF will supply $1,000 total of prize money for
computer Go at the US Congress this year, another person contacted me
and has agreed to add a minimum of $250. The offer is also to match
other contributions, with that person offering a maximum of $1,000.
I need to get back to them to finalize the details of their offer and  
the

matching conditions, but I have been busy trying to move.

More details, and perhaps more money, soon.

Cheers,
David

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Re: [computer-go] State of the art of pattern matching

[David Doshay]

Our pattern matching work is just now starting to run.
We will post details when we have done more testing.

Cheers,
David



On 26, Mar 2008, at 11:08 AM, Mark Boon wrote:

Lately I have been putting some effort into pattern-matching.  
Although I have made progress, the result was not as good as what I  
had hoped for by about an order of magnitude. This makes me wonder  
what is currently actually the state of the art of pattern matching  
in Go.


Of course it's a bit of a vague question, as there are many  
possible forms of pattern-matching. Fixed-size patterns are the  
easiest since a hash-code can be used. Nothing is going to beat  
that in terms of speed, but its use is limited to some special  
occasions. Joseki is one and apparently 3x3 patterns are used in  
Monte-Carlo programs.


But I think the most generally useful form is one that can do  
pattern-matching for variable shapes. (Or which can have don't-care  
points if you like.) I thought I had a solution that would be  
pretty close to the theoretical best performance. Formally proving  
that would probably be a dissertation in itself, most important for  
me is in itself it works and with modest memory requirements. That  
is the good part. The bad part is, if I'm right this is the best it  
can get I'm a bit disappointed it isn't faster. I'd rather be  
proven wrong here. It's written in Java so making it in C would  
possibly give a two-fold speedup, but that's all I can think of.


What I have now takes 10-15 microseconds on a 2Ghz Intel computer  
to find all the patterns on a board (on average for 9x9, for 19x19  
it's more like 15-20 usec) and it also gives me the 'new' patterns  
i.e. patterns that match now but didn't match the previous move (I  
believe that's a useful feature, but it's a detail). The set of  
patterns is under a thousand patterns. Somehow smaller sets don't  
go much faster, but larger sets do slow down, every ten-fold  
increase in number of patterns seems to double the time.


So I was wondering if others cared to share the performance of  
their pattern-matcher. I just want to find out if I'm chasing a  
unicorn or not by trying to make something faster.


Mark


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[computer-go] Prize money for computer tournament at US Go Congress

[David Doshay]

Hello programmers,

Hierarchical Systems Research Foundation (HSRF), a privately funded
IRS recognized 501(c)3 public benefit organization, is providing a
total of $1,000 in prize money for a computer-computer tournament
to be held at the 2008 US Go Congress in Portland Oregon.

While the exact breakdown of the prize money is not yet final, we are
considering the following for a 19x19 tournament:

1st place:  $400
2nd place:  $200
3rd place:  $100
4th place:  $ 50

with the remaining $250 to be split between all of the programmers with
programs entered. The strong preference of HSRF is that the tournament
be structured so that each program plays each other program at least
once as Black and once as White, and time limits be similar to a human-
human tournament game

Another possibility is to decrease all of these amounts to make prize
money available for the highest placing programs in a computer-human
tournament. The possibility of such a tournament will depend upon the
TD's at the Congress.

Your thoughts will be considered, but the decision will be made by the
president and secretary of HSRF and finalized prior to the opening of
the Go Congress.

The original authors of open source programs are welcome to enter
and are eligible for prize money. Clones of existing programs are not
eligible for prize money and should not be entered. If you believe
that you have made significant changes to an open source program
(defined as logic that results in a move evaluation function that  
results

in different move choices than the original open source program), then
your program can be considered for prize money. HSRF reserves the
right to form a committee of programmers to review the source code
changes and determine eligibility for prize money.

While HSRF does not wish to prevent a 9x9 tournament, at this time
we do not want to offer prize money for competition on 9x9 boards.

In the spirit of full disclosure, HSRF funds the research team at UC
Santa Cruz that has written the program SlugGo, and SlugGo will
enter the tournament.


Sincerely,
David G Doshay
President and Treasurer
Hierarchical Systems Research Foundation


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Re: [computer-go] Computer Go event in European Go Congress, Sweden

[David Doshay]

Unfortunately, the overlap with the US Go Congress will prevent SlugGo
from attending. We are working towards having a cluster and SlugGo at
the US Congress.

Cheers,
David



On 16, Mar 2008, at 8:59 AM, Nick Wedd wrote:


This year the annual European Computer Go Congress is in Leksand,
Sweden, for two weeks, July 26 - August 9.  On the Wednesday in of the
second week, August 6th, it will include a Computer Go tournament,  
with

prizes.


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Re: [computer-go] Hybrid theory

[David Doshay]

We are still bringing up our 2nd method, so we are not yet as far
as choosing a voting method.

Cheers,
David



On 11, Mar 2008, at 12:18 PM, Alain Baeckeroot wrote:


Le vendredi 1 février 2008, David Doshay a écrit :

This is the direction in which we are moving with SlugGo. We also
expect it to be difficult to integrate different approaches, but this
has always been our research direction: when there are multiple
codes which will each give an evaluation of a situation, how does
one design an arbitrator that makes the final decision?


I asked how one do in my lab in speach recognition. They use home made
very simple method, but deeply linked to the internal of our tools.
The good news is that the phD student is going to study a little
voting methods and alike before his the end of his thesis !
Maybe in some monthes i'll have more info :)

Alain

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Re: [computer-go] Hybrid theory

[David Doshay]

This is the direction in which we are moving with SlugGo. We also
expect it to be difficult to integrate different approaches, but this
has always been our research direction: when there are multiple
codes which will each give an evaluation of a situation, how does
one design an arbitrator that makes the final decision?

While SlugGo started off with multiple instantiations of GNU Go,
it has always been our intent to add engines that evaluate, select,
and rank moves in completely different ways. It just made some
sense to start getting the cluster infrastructure worked out with
only one engine.

There are many details ... each engine has a different bias in its
selection, and also a different representation for the values of
those choices, so simple algebraic combinations of the values
does not in general work, even though it did when we were using
only GNU Go engines. But one thing is reasonable obvious: if a
bunch of completely different engines pick the same move, the
confidence that it is your best choice goes up.

Cheers,
David



On 1, Feb 2008, at 8:55 AM, Don Dailey wrote:

There is much to think about with Jason's and Michaels ideas.I  
favor

a more integrated approach than Michael suggests because I think it
would be very difficult to essentially have 2 different programs  
playing
the same game (ever play non-consultation doubles in chess or go?
It's

fun but the level of play stinks.  You take turns making a move with
your partner and no consultation is allowed.)

I also favor focusing more on the tree portion, but no doubt the
play-out portion could improve.   I say this because search is more
sensitive to early mistakes and work near the root is cheap  
compared to

work nearer leaf nodes.But by all means we should do research on
what it takes in the play-outs.

- Don



Jason House wrote:

I wouldn't stop there.  I'd like a static analyzer to add tactical
smarts to playouts.  If there's a pre-existing nakade, seki, etc, the
playouts should get it right.

On Feb 1, 2008 10:34 AM, Michael Williams  
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I think we would all agree that UCT+MC is quite good for strategy
but not so good with tactics.  I'd like to see this hybrid  
engine:

 One that starts with a
traditional full-board static analysis (with local tactical
searches), looking for urgent moves.  If it finds an urgent move,
it makes it.  If the position is
relatively quiet, it uses UCT+MC to find a good strategic play.
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- 
---


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Re: [computer-go] Hybrid theory

[David Doshay]

Yes, I would like to see the references. I also wonder how similar
the statistical estimators are to each other. Do they represent
data and estimates in the same way?

We are trying to move towards a design that mixes intrinsically
different kinds of engines. Neural Networks, UCT/MC, Gnu Go,
tile/pattern matching systems, etc., can all have very different
ways of representing why a particular choice is the highest
valued and what the distance is between the lower valued choices.

Cheers,
David



On 1, Feb 2008, at 12:29 PM, Alain Baeckeroot wrote:


Le vendredi 1 février 2008, David Doshay a écrit :

This is the direction in which we are moving with SlugGo. We also
expect it to be difficult to integrate different approaches, but this
has always been our research direction: when there are multiple
codes which will each give an evaluation of a situation, how does
one design an arbitrator that makes the final decision?


There is a phD student in my lab working on such a topic in speech
recognition (use several different statistical estimators and combine
the informations to get the best one or the best tree).
This give some nice improvements:
more or less 5 engines with 25 % error, give a system which does  
20% error,

and this is a huge improvement.

I'll post some references, i guess the tools and methods are more  
or less

well known.

Alain



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[computer-go] Hydra theory (was Hybrid theory)

[David Doshay]

I looked up borda voting on Wikipedia. I did not know this was called
Borda voting, and it might be called a zeroth-order version of what I
am thinking. Rather than just take rank order from each, I intended to
try to include other metrics, for example, some measure of distance
from top. One engine may evaluate that there is one really great move
with all others considered very bad. That is different than many nearly
equal good moves.


Cheers,
David



On 1, Feb 2008, at 2:41 PM, Don Dailey wrote:

I'm not expert on decision theory,  but it's my understanding that  
borda

counting or voting is excellent way to integrate different decision
making agents.Of course this depends a lot on the nature of the
decision to be made, but if you have N choices and several agents that
are capable of ranking those choices, the whole is greater than the  
sum

of the parts.

One of my first primitive MC programs evolved moves using genetic
algorithms.  I discovered it worked surprisingly better to evolve a
handful of players and borda vote the best choice.   It was  
surprisingly

the best use of resources I could find, based on a simple evolution
strategy that is.

I don't really understand why it worked so well.   I think it is  
because

any particular playing strategy is pretty brittle.   The nature of the
evolved individuals was such that were probably full of
intransitives.They could beat particular strategies easily, but  
were
susceptible to other strategies and with borda voting you tended to  
find

a move that was reasonable with many strategies instead of super-tuned
for just a few.

There are many papers on making decisions using borda voting,  and  
some

of these papers are  not just about voting theory or sociology but
computer based decisions too.

Like I say, I don't know much about this and perhaps you do, but I
thought I would present it just in case.I think it's very
interesting figuring out how to integrate knowledge based on experts
or agents that have wildly varying strengths and weaknesses.

- Don


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Re: [computer-go] Hydra theory (was Hybrid theory)

[David Doshay]

On 1, Feb 2008, at 5:39 PM, terry mcintyre wrote:


Hydra ( apt choice, David! )



While I at first intended it as a minor pun on Hybrid,
when reading your reply I realized that there may have
been a subconscious nod to Chrilly Donninger and his
Hydra chess program. So, I will acknowledge his first
use now.

Cheers,
David

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Re: [computer-go] Hydra theory (was Hybrid theory)

[David Doshay]

On 1, Feb 2008, at 7:31 PM, Don Dailey wrote:


terry mcintyre wrote:

...



From Don and Terry's comments and suggestions it should be
obvious that the answers are not so obvious, and thus this is
a reasonable subject for research.

I appreciate these pointers to voting theory, and I am also
reading some of the earlier works on Agent based computing.
Agent based computing seems to have gone off in a direction
somewhat different than Minsky was writing about in The
Society of Mind, (or at least become such a sub-specialty of
AI that it now has its own incomprehensible jargon) which is
what got me thinking about using a cluster to do these kinds
of hierarchical computations. I use the term hierarchical
because an agent may choose to call other agents to assist
in its computation, and thus it is promoted to an arbitrator of
the inputs from those agents. In this way the computation
branches into a dynamic, run time determined, tree of agents.

Or so I intend ... progress has been slow to date.

Cheers,
David


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Re: [computer-go] 19x19 Study

[David Doshay]

These are G5 Macs, so if we get a binary it needs to be appropriate.
We can do the compiling if you don't want to, but you may not wish
to deliver us your code, and in that case I can make you an account
so you can compile it and then delete the source if you wish.

The cluster will be available in about 10 days for the study, but we
always keep one CPU available for compiling, so that can be done
at most any time.

Whichever you prefer, we can take this off-line for the details.

Cheers,
David



On 30, Jan 2008, at 9:24 AM, Don Dailey wrote:


Hi Olivier,

Yes, that would be great.   Please do. Also,  is there a Mac  
version

of this?   We have the possiblity of using a huge cluster of Mac
machines if we have a working binary. We could probably get you a
temporary account to build such a thing if you don't already have it.

- Don


Olivier Teytaud wrote:

I can provide a new release with double instead of float.
(unless the other mogo-people reading this mailing-list do not agree
for this; Sylvain, no problem for you ?).


I don't know exactly when it begins to do bad moves. However, I know
that
after several hours, the estimated winning rate converges to 1 or 0,
with
crazy principal variations, and the cause is low resolution of  
single

floats. In this study, it should no be a big factor of unscalability
given
the number of simulations.

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Re: [computer-go] 19x19 Study

[David Doshay]

That is correct.

It is my understanding that the Intel machines can compile to
a universal binary that will run on the G5 machines, but we
have not verified that. I trust that it works, but have no idea
if there is an efficiency hit.

Cheers,
David



On 31, Jan 2008, at 11:30 AM, terry mcintyre wrote:


The G5 macs are the power-pc version, right? the pre-Intel version.

- Original Message 

From: David Doshay [EMAIL PROTECTED]

These

are
G5
Macs,






   
__ 
__

Never miss a thing.  Make Yahoo your home page.
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
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Re: [computer-go] KGS bot tournaments: poll results

[David Doshay]

You must have been tired ...

Continue to use Absolute?

Cheers,
David



On 28, Jan 2008, at 3:56 AM, Nick Wedd wrote:

A majority for Absolute, a minority for byo-yomi, and no-one for  
Canadian.  I shall continue to use Canadian.


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Re: [computer-go] KGS bot tournaments: poll

[David Doshay]

Hello All,

First, Thanks to Nick for doing these tournaments and for asking what  
we would like.


Sticking with most of the replies I have seen so far, I will send my  
votes on the form directly to Nick, but will comment here on a few  
points.


First, I am wondering about the 2-out-of-3 bias for smaller boards.  
Given that CGOS is now a regularly used resource, could simple back  
and forth 19x19 one month, and the 9-13 parings the next be a better  
choice? With so many stronger programs are we now ready for more  
regular 19x19 tournaments? I think so.


The Formal/Open structure has always had a distinct possibility of  
impacting us because SlugGo is a GNU Go wrapper (not the much feared  
clone) which significantly uses GNU Go code, but often makes moves  
that GNU Go would not (for better and for worse). So far it has not  
been a problem sharing the Formal division with the GNU folks. I have  
asked them a few days in advance of the tournament if I can take the  
Formal spot and except for a few times when I did not get any answer  
in a timely way (it happens on open source projects) they said OK, or  
if they wanted the Formal spot to check something new, SlugGo went  
into the Open division. It has worked fine for us. But the reason for  
the divide (what if there are a whole slew of GNU clones?) never did  
materialize.


SlugGo has not been in a KGS tournament in a while, but we hope to  
get some things done and be able to bring some new software to a  
tournament soon.



Cheers,
David



On 18, Jan 2008, at 9:41 AM, Nick Wedd wrote:

It is two years and six months since I chose the format that we use  
for the monthly bot tournaments on KGS.  Since then, things have  
changed: UCT has been invented, processing power has increased,  
pondering has been implemented in more programs, and CGOS is  
running.  I get occasional requests for changes to the format of  
the KGS tournaments;  I generally think, yes, that's a good idea,  
and then forget to do anything about it.  So I have decided to poll  
the members of this list, about what changes they think desirable.


HOW THINGS ARE NOW

The current settings for the tournaments are listed at
http://www.weddslist.com/kgs/future.html
Each event consists of two tournaments, one Formal (with entry  
restrictions) and one Open.  The events go in a cycle: 19x19+19x19,  
9x9+13x13, 13x13+9x9.  For each board size, the time limits (which  
are all sudden death) also cycle.  The cycles are: 19x19 - 58m,  
28m, 18m; 13x13: 13m, 18m, 28m;  9x9: 8m, 13m, 28m.




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Re: [computer-go] On average how many board updates/sec can top Go programs do these days?

[David Doshay]

The problem here is that you asked mutually contradictory things. You  
defined what you meant by a board update, in which you specified a  
list of things, and you also asked about top programs. The top  
programs do not do the kinds of evaluations you specify, although  
older conventional programs do. The newer programs that are now the  
strongest are variations of the Monte Carlo method, which does  
statistical sampling, not the kinds of evaluation you specify.


Cheers,
David



On 14, Jan 2008, at 7:41 PM, mingwu wrote:

On Jan 14, 2008 6:15 PM, Jason House [EMAIL PROTECTED]  
wrote:


slow.  UCT (or generically Monte Carlo) can evaluate a position  
fairly

quickly (maybe 1k-100k per second depending on how heavy the playout
is), they don't give a reliable estimate.  To improve this, they  
end up


1K ~ 100 K / sec is much faster than a dozen / sec of a  
conventional program.


Do they calculate dragon safety (eyes, connections, patterns ...)?  
if not, the estimate will be VERY unreliable.
But if they do, how can they be this fast compared to the more  
conventional programs?


reevaluating positions more than once (maybe 100 times?) to get a more
reliable estimate.

why reevaluating the same position?

Sorry, I didn't go into their papers, can people who knows UCT, or  
actually working on UCT programs explain in a way that a layman can  
understand.  Thanks.


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Re: [computer-go] How to get more participation in 19x19 CGOS?

[David Doshay]

I also run from Macs, and have no problem connecting to CGOS.

Cheers,
David



On 9, Jan 2008, at 8:51 AM, Mark Boon wrote:

I have a Java version of the old Goliath 3. I have a GTP bridge  
also. If it's not a lot of work I'd consider putting it on 19x19  
CGOS. How would I go about doing that? (I have a Mac but could  
possibly arrange a PC.)

...Mark
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Re: [computer-go] How to get more participation in 19x19 CGOS?

[David Doshay]

The only reason that SlugGo is not on 19x19 CGOS is that we are working
towards a version that does something different than the version that  
was

running a year ago.

When we have the new features running we will begin playing there.

It is my opinion that 30 minutes per side is common for human tournament
games, and thus makes sense for 19x19 CGOS. I think 10 minutes is rather
restrictive, so maybe 20 minutes makes sense.

Cheers,
David



On 8, Jan 2008, at 11:24 AM, David Fotland wrote:

I think there are two reasons there are not more programs on 19x19  
CGOS:


1) The anchor, Gnugo, is quite strong, Many Faces 12 is stronger, and
CrazyStone is much stronger.  Since the programs playing are so  
strong, it

is demoralizing for a new program to lose so often.  Without weaker
competition, it is hard to get accurate ratings for new, weaker  
programs.


2) The rounds take almost an hour, so it takes much too long to get  
enough
games to see how your program is doing.  In my local testing, I use  
10 or 15
minutes per side.  I like to see 50 to 100 test games get any  
confidence
that a new version is stronger.  I prefer to get a test run  
complete in

under a day.

I propose the following changes:

I'll put up 3 weaker versions of Many Faces 12, so there is  
competition at
lower ratings.  These versions are quite fast, using only a few  
seconds for

a full game.  This will provide some stable opponents for the weaker
programs.

I think the time limits for CGOS19x19 should be reduced to 10 or 15  
minutes
per side.  This is enough to test programs, and it's still a  
reasonable time

limit for games against people.  Since programs that search scale with
additional time, the relative ratings of these programs should be  
similar at

10 minutes per game and 30 minutes per game.

-David


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Re: [computer-go] How to design the stronger playout policy?

[David Doshay]

I have been interested in monte-carlo approaches to Go since running
my first MC simulations in magnetic phase transitions when I was in
graduate school in the 1980's. What held me back, even when the latest
crop of MC programs started winning against older stronger programs
and my program SlugGo, is that in the physics simulations we know on
theoretical grounds what the shape of the random distributions are, but
in Go we do not. I was amazed at how well UCT helps get around the
problem and still allows the use of nearly flat random distributions
(flat except for a few hand tuned rules).

Recent work on the ELO ratings of patterns comes very close to what I
think is needed to move forward, and we are also working on ways to
determine biased probability distributions that are appropriate for Go
move selection.

I have little doubt that such weighted playout (not really heavy or  
light)

considerations will lead to the next major step in computer Go progress.
The advantage of such a method is that it intrinsically matches the  
basic

premise of MC: the right degree of randomness allows you to search the
problem space appropriately.

Cheers,
David



On 8, Jan 2008, at 11:04 AM, Don Dailey wrote:


I think Dave Hillis coined this term heavy playouts.

In the first programs the play-outs were uniformly random.   Any move
would get played with equal likelihood with the exception of eye- 
filling

moves which don't get played at all of course.

But it was found that the program improves if the play-outs are  
somewhat

managed.   So Dave starting calling the original formula light
play-outs and the slower but better method heavy play-outs.

And yes, it slows down the play-outs.   Still, the play-outs seem to
require a good bit of randomness - certainly they cannot be
deterministic and it seems difficult to find the general principles  
that

are important to the play-out policy.

- Don


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