Hi Don,

I agree that the very best players can know, if they are given enough time, 
whether they are winning or not. But here we are talking about professionnal 
players. But you know, even a 9d Pro, probably cannot be certain of the outcome 
at the yose stage, if he plays a blitz game. Still, if he thinks he is leading, 
he will always play "normal" moves, defending his territories instead of 
playing strange and apparently useless consoliding moves like a MC player would 
do. Yet if he thinks he is losing, he will probably try unsound invasions and 
try hopeless things exactly like a MC would do, when the outcome of the game 
matters for him.
For example, i am 4d on KGS, and when there is some trade to be made beetwen 
points and safety, this is always a tough decision for me.
Because i dont know how many points i can concede exactly, and i dont know how 
risky some line of play realy is.
I have lost a lot of games because i made the wrong choice in such situations. 
So i think you are over estimating the "evaluation" ability of human players. 
This is the reason why human generaly dont play like MC, because they do not 
have the same informations. MC are good at knowing what the situation is, 
humans are good at playing moves that tend to maximise territory most of the 
time. 
Humans and MC just do not have the same strengh. Somehow, i would say that MC 
is more intelligent, because it relies on understanding the situation rather 
than patterns and reflexes. 


----- Message d'origine ----
De : Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
À : computer-go <[email protected]>
Envoyé le : Mardi, 22 Janvier 2008, 22h22mn 42s
Objet : Re: Re : [computer-go] Is MC-UCT really scalable against humans?

I agree that probably most players play as you say.    But it's
difficult for me to believe that the very best players don't know if the
are wining or not.    

I think if I had the skill of a professional,  I would make it my
business to know, ESPECIALLY  if it were really close.    

I'm talking about the cases where a UCT player thinks it's winning with
high probability.  If a UCT player knows this,  I'm sure a really
strong professional knows.      It's a different story when several
groups are in question and a UCT players is "skillfully" assessing the
odds.    But I don't think we are talking about that case.    UCT
doesn't start playing too bizarre until a win is in the bag for one of
the players.  

I've seen this for myself.    The score gets about 95% but there are
still many ways to lose if you play stupid,  but the MC player knows
carefully takes care of business - sealing this and that off so that
there is no chance.  

Many times I've seen it throw away 1 or 2 points by not claiming an
extra point right next to the point that it does claim.    In some of
those cases I counted it off myself and to my amazement it just didn't
need that point and it was probably a random choice.

But in those cases there was no chance of tricking a human.    
Nevertheless, the human sometimes is under the impression the program
made a series of "really bad" moves and STILL WON,  making the human
feel frustrated.    But really it was not like that at all.

- Don



ivan dubois wrote:
> Hello Don,
>
> I think you are mostly right, but there is something you seem not to realise. 
> MC players are very good at "scoring". They know when they will win for sure 
> by 0.5. However, human players, even strong players, generaly never have such 
> accurate counting skills. So if they are ahead by 0.5, there is no way they 
> can anticipate it at as a sure win, because it would require amazing couting 
> skills. Actually, a lot of strong players never count during the course of a 
> game, especialy during fast games.
> So often, the most rational way of playing is to be conservative with the 
> points you have, and just always play the natural, conservative defending 
> moves. It may be too hard for human to reason about "probability of winning", 
> it is easier to reason about points you have or not.
> Of course, i think the ultra rational way based on accurate couting by MC 
> programs is a great strength they have. Its a specific strength of MC that 
> human, unfortunately for them, do not have.
>


      
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