What a bot does with its playouts in a handicap situation is to essentially try
to beat itself, despite the handicap.
And in this situation the bot reacts in a very human way, it becomes despondend.
Adjusting the komi dynamically shifts the goal from winning to catching up
quickly enough.
I feel that that is the natural handicap strategy, not a band-aid.
Ofcourse, the dynamic komi must be adjusted down to zero in good time.
I think there are 2 main reasons that this hasnt been fully explored sofar.
1. Trying to maximize the score turned out to be a huge mistake, compared to
trying to maximize the winrate.
This makes dynamic komi a kind of blind spot.
2. Handicap go wasnt given special attention sofar.
Stefan
----- Original Message -----
From: Don Dailey
To: computer-go
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 11:24 PM
Subject: Re: [computer-go] Dynamic komi at high handicaps
Terry,
I understand the reasoning behind this, your thought experiment did not add
anything to my understanding. And I agree that if the program is strong
enough and the handicap is high enough this is probably better than doing
nothing at all.
However, I think there must be something that is more along the lines of
treating the disease, not the symptoms. You might be able to put a band aid
on the problem but you have not addressed the real issue in a systematic way.
Besides, I have not yet seen anyone demonstrate that this works - it's always
talked about but never implemented. It is made to sound so simple that you
have to wonder where the implementation is and why the strong programs do not
have it.
- Don
2009/8/12 terry mcintyre <[email protected]>
Consider this thought experiment.
You sit down at a board and your opponent has a 9-stone handicap.
By any objective measure of the game, you should resign immediately.
All your win-rate calculations report this hopeless state of affairs.
Winrate gives you no objective basis to prefer one move or another.
But, you think, what if I can make a small group? What if I try for a
lesser goal, such as "don't lose by more than 90 points?"
Your opponent has a 9 stone handicap because he makes more mistakes than
you do.
As the game progresses, those mistakes add up. You set your goal higher -
losing by only 50 points; losing by only 10 points.
The changing goal permits you to discriminate in a field which would
otherwise look like a dark, desolate, win-less landscape.
Terry McIntyre <[email protected]>
“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.” --
Aesop
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Don Dailey <[email protected]>
To: computer-go <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 1:05:36 PM
Subject: Re: [computer-go] Dynamic komi at high handicaps
Ok, I misunderstood his testing procedure. What he is doing is far more
scientific than what I thought he was doing.
There has got to be something better than this. What we need is a way to
make the playouts more meaningful but not by artificially reducing our actual
objective which is to win.
For the high handicap games, shouldn't the goal be to maximize the score?
Instead of adjusting komi why not just change the goal to win as much of the
board as possible? This would be far more honest and reliable I would think
and the program would not be forced to constantly waste effort on constantly
changing goals.
- Don
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Brian Sheppard <[email protected]> wrote:
>The small samples is probably the least of the problems with this. Do
you
>actually believe that you can play games against it and not be subjective
in
>your observations or how you play against it?
These are computer-vs-computer games. Ingo is manually transferring moves
between two computer opponents.
The result does support Ingo's belief that dynamic Komi will help programs
play high handicap games. Due to small sample size it isn't very strong
evidence. But maybe it is enough to induce a programmer who actually plays
in such games to create a more exhaustive test.
_______________________________________________
computer-go mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
_______________________________________________
computer-go mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
computer-go mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/_______________________________________________
computer-go mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
