________________________________ From: Vlad Dumitrescu <[email protected]> >I'm sorry to bother you, but I don't get it. There must be some subtle >detail that escapes me... >Please try to explain why the "hahn calculation" isn't working in a >normal game so as to ensure a win. I'm talking about strong human >players. >In my view, we have > hahn: object of the game = max board score > normal: object of the game = board score > komi >Both seem just as easy and interesting. If you are winning in the Hahn sense, your score also exceeds komi; but Hahn scoring - either by accumulating points in a tournament ranking, or converting points to dollars in bang neki fashion, gives you incentive to achieve larger scores. Under the "board score > komi" regime, if you have a group which might be invaded (at some risk of losing points), but which can be safely walled off, I might choose to wall it off if my overall score is sufficient to win. Under Hahn scoring, a rational player would probably invade, in order to maximize the expected win. In some sense, "half a point is good enough" may be easier for such situations - the safe strategy is easier to compute; seal the borders and count, if you have enough, you're done. Smart players will economize - "rich men don't pick fights" - the game will progress to simpler, more easily-analyzed paths, where the outcome is certain. In a way, this is like an Indian parable: a sultan decreed that his daughter would be given in marriage to the slowest horse in a race among her suitors. In order to prevent the race from taking all day, he randomly assigned each suitor to ride a different suitor's horse. In regular go, rich men (winners) don't pick fights; losers do. In Hahn go, rich men pick fights, and losers seek to minimize their losses. I'd love to see a regular Hahn tournament among computer programs; it might lead to some interesting advances. Strong programs might become rapaciously bloodthirsty daredevils. They might develop models of opponents' weaknesses - learning that programs A and B always fall for certain swindles, but C and D do not.
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