> It is clear that in > professional play 2 handicap stones is overwhelming.
Kageyama mentioned a student who had been playing him at a small handicap and winning. The student didn't think he could lose a game and nine stones. So they played a nine stone game; Kageyama kicked his butt and says the student wouldn't believe that he'd been playing at full strength in all the other games. The closest to this I actually saw was with a guy who'd been sandbagging his rating when he entered a local tournament--and I think the extra stones really hurt him, because he would normally have been harder to beat. Handicaps are tricky. A program playing with a big handicap might not be vulnerable to the same 'psychological' kind of mistake, like trying to defend all its stones... but a program capable of playing like a human might be. Forrest Curo ----------------------------------------- This email was sent using AIS WebMail. http://www.americanis.net/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list [email protected] http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
