Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Brian Slesinsky]

Maybe another way to put it:

In Fischer time, the time allowed to play the game is simply a
function of the number of moves in the game.  If white moves last,
this time is same for both players, otherwise black gets slightly
more.  At the beginning of the game, the time on the clock is the
amount of time left for a zero-move game where the player ponders
until running out of time.  After each move, the time is increased
because we now know that the game will be a little longer.

The practical upper limit on the amount of time a game will take to
play is limited by the maximum length of a game in moves.  If you can
estimate the number of moves in the game and add it to the clock, that
is the true time left in some sense, assuming you don't actually run
out of time and end the game early.

The way the clock works ensures a minimum amount of time for each move
in the end game. You don't really get more time by moving faster than
the amount given to you after each move; it just means that you're
using less of your total time (determined by the number of moves) so
there is more for the end game.

- Brian
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Sat, 2007-06-23 at 08:51 +0900, igo wrote:
> I can understand what you are saying,
> but still Fischer timing is not natural(simple) to my feeling.  
> Maybe because I am a fool. :-)
> 
> There are many other time-limit competition's time system,
> (football,boxing...)
> I think they all have the same point: time goes steadily. (decreasing)
> not like Fischer-timing, time goes irregularly. (increasing while
> decreasing) 
> but I know this is a problem of feeling. 

Yes, I think so too.   byo-yomi has something really odd, your clock can
stand still even though you are using time.  Unless you use too much,
then suddenly you get penalized a whole chunk of time - otherwise none.
This happens when the byo-yomi time is 60 seconds and as long as you use
less than 60 seconds, it's as if you didn't use any time at all!How
crazy is that?   The difference between using 59.9 seconds and 60.1
seconds is about 300X greater than 60.1 - 59.9

- Don



> Thanks a lot for the comments.
> 
> igo
> 

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[igo]

I can understand what you are saying,
but still Fischer timing is not natural(simple) to my feeling.  
Maybe because I am a fool. :-)

There are many other time-limit competition's time system, (football,boxing...)
I think they all have the same point: time goes steadily. (decreasing)
not like Fischer-timing, time goes irregularly. (increasing while decreasing) 
but I know this is a problem of feeling. 

Thanks a lot for the comments.

igo


-
Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Thu, 2007-06-21 at 19:38 +0900, igo wrote:
> > Thank you very much.
> > 
> > I think the writer was discussing from the "player's point of view",  
> > but not from GO's view.
> > For the game of GO, if the time-system is fair and 
> > can avoid Sudden-Death naturally, that's enough.
> > 
> > The writer's conclusion is "Keep it Simple!",
> > but the Fischer timing's action is not simple to understand.
> 
> If you are that locked into byo-yomi thinking you will probably think
> anything else is "wrong."   If you only know one thing it's simple and
> everything else is complicated.   
> 
> I have an example of emotional sentimentality vs practical superiority
> in the Post Script at the end of this.
> 
> > Can someone explain me why a player receives times after played a move
> > even when he doesn't lack of time ?
> 
> Why does byo-yomi allocate a big chunk of time at the beginning even
> though it's not needed?Would it be more "logical" from your point of
> view to play the whole game in byo-yomi time so that you never have time
> on the clock that is not needed?
> 
> As I've stated before, you can think of any time-control system using
> clocks in terms of who is given control over time-allocation.  I think
> it should be the players themselves, you lean in the direction of
> thinking that decision should be automated and decided for the players.
> 
> Sudden death is the least heavy-handed time-control system but fails to
> recognize that it's impossible to predict how long a game might last.
> So EVERY system is some compromise between you controlling your
> time-allocation or having the control taken from you.
> 
> A skilled human will do best when given as much control as possible over
> his time allocation.   However, it's probably also the case that an
> inexperienced player will do better if those decisions are imposed on
> him, like a child who needs the guidance of his parents before he is
> mature enough to make wise decisions on his own.   
> 
> > If it's ok, instead of receiving times, I prefer receiving money. :-)
> 
> Time is a far more precious resource than money.  I'll take the time,
> you can have the money :-)
> 
> - Don
> 
> 
> 
> P.S.I was playing club chess when the USCF decided to stop using
> what is called "descriptive chess notation" and go with "algebraic
> notation" which is what most of the world was then using and still
> does.   
> 
> There was quite an outrage over this.   There was no real pattern over
> who embraced it and who didn't.   Some very strong players resisted and
> so did some very weak player and visa versa.   As an observer of human
> nature I tried to detect some pattern and what I thought I saw was two
> different personality types.  Some people were more into the "culture"
> of chess (regardless of their strength) and others didn't care so much -
> they just wanted to play chess.   The ones who wanted to stay with the
> archaic system also tended to know more about the history of chess and
> in my (imperfect) judgment were the more intuitive type of players.   Of
> course there was nothing very scientific about this,  it was based only
> on my very subjective assessment.I was very fascinated with the
> phenomenon and wondered why someone could be so passionate about
> something like this.I immediately starting training myself to use
> the new system and it slowed me down a little at first - it was awkward
> getting used to something new when you are so comfortable with a
> different way of doing things.
> 
> It got harder and harder to get chess books that used descriptive
> notation and over time virtually everyone stopped using it even for
> their personal games.  Just about everyone eventually acknowledged the
> superiority of algebraic notation but it took a while for some. 
> 
> Personally, I expected the strong players to embrace the new system
> (because I believed it was superior) and the weak players to be the
> sentimental fools but it didn't seem to to work that way - there was no
> pattern that I could detect in regard to the strength of players
> advocating one system over the other.
> 
> 
> - Don
> 
> 
> 
> > igo
> > 
> 
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[igo]

I can understand what you are saying,
but still Fischer timing is not natural(simple) to my feeling.  
Maybe because I am a fool. :-)

There are many other time-limit competition's time system, (football,boxing...)
I think they all have the same point: time goes steadily. (decreasing)
not like Fischer-timing, time goes irregularly. (increasing while decreasing) 
but I know this is a problem of feeling. 

Thanks a lot for the comments.

igo


-
Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Thu, 2007-06-21 at 19:38 +0900, igo wrote:
> > Thank you very much.
> > 
> > I think the writer was discussing from the "player's point of view",  
> > but not from GO's view.
> > For the game of GO, if the time-system is fair and 
> > can avoid Sudden-Death naturally, that's enough.
> > 
> > The writer's conclusion is "Keep it Simple!",
> > but the Fischer timing's action is not simple to understand.
> 
> If you are that locked into byo-yomi thinking you will probably think
> anything else is "wrong."   If you only know one thing it's simple and
> everything else is complicated.   
> 
> I have an example of emotional sentimentality vs practical superiority
> in the Post Script at the end of this.
> 
> > Can someone explain me why a player receives times after played a move
> > even when he doesn't lack of time ?
> 
> Why does byo-yomi allocate a big chunk of time at the beginning even
> though it's not needed?Would it be more "logical" from your point of
> view to play the whole game in byo-yomi time so that you never have time
> on the clock that is not needed?
> 
> As I've stated before, you can think of any time-control system using
> clocks in terms of who is given control over time-allocation.  I think
> it should be the players themselves, you lean in the direction of
> thinking that decision should be automated and decided for the players.
> 
> Sudden death is the least heavy-handed time-control system but fails to
> recognize that it's impossible to predict how long a game might last.
> So EVERY system is some compromise between you controlling your
> time-allocation or having the control taken from you.
> 
> A skilled human will do best when given as much control as possible over
> his time allocation.   However, it's probably also the case that an
> inexperienced player will do better if those decisions are imposed on
> him, like a child who needs the guidance of his parents before he is
> mature enough to make wise decisions on his own.   
> 
> > If it's ok, instead of receiving times, I prefer receiving money. :-)
> 
> Time is a far more precious resource than money.  I'll take the time,
> you can have the money :-)
> 
> - Don
> 
> 
> 
> P.S.I was playing club chess when the USCF decided to stop using
> what is called "descriptive chess notation" and go with "algebraic
> notation" which is what most of the world was then using and still
> does.   
> 
> There was quite an outrage over this.   There was no real pattern over
> who embraced it and who didn't.   Some very strong players resisted and
> so did some very weak player and visa versa.   As an observer of human
> nature I tried to detect some pattern and what I thought I saw was two
> different personality types.  Some people were more into the "culture"
> of chess (regardless of their strength) and others didn't care so much -
> they just wanted to play chess.   The ones who wanted to stay with the
> archaic system also tended to know more about the history of chess and
> in my (imperfect) judgment were the more intuitive type of players.   Of
> course there was nothing very scientific about this,  it was based only
> on my very subjective assessment.I was very fascinated with the
> phenomenon and wondered why someone could be so passionate about
> something like this.I immediately starting training myself to use
> the new system and it slowed me down a little at first - it was awkward
> getting used to something new when you are so comfortable with a
> different way of doing things.
> 
> It got harder and harder to get chess books that used descriptive
> notation and over time virtually everyone stopped using it even for
> their personal games.  Just about everyone eventually acknowledged the
> superiority of algebraic notation but it took a while for some. 
> 
> Personally, I expected the strong players to embrace the new system
> (because I believed it was superior) and the weak players to be the
> sentimental fools but it didn't seem to to work that way - there was no
> pattern that I could detect in regard to the strength of players
> advocating one system over the other.
> 
> 
> - Don
> 
> 
> 
> > igo
> > 
> 
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Thu, 2007-06-21 at 14:15 +0100, Nick Wedd wrote:
> The snag with Fischer timing is that you need a special 
> clock to do it - but if you're using a computer anyway, this
> shouldn't 
> be a problem. 

Yes, this is true.   

But I think these are commonly available.  I had one years ago even
though I have never used Fischer time in a real game.

- Don


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Nick Wedd]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, igo 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
Not sure this was mentioned before, but there's an interesting study 
work presented at

http://senseis.xmp.net/?TimingSystemsRedux


Thank you very much.

I think the writer was discussing from the "player's point of view",
but not from GO's view.
For the game of GO, if the time-system is fair and
can avoid Sudden-Death naturally, that's enough.

The writer's conclusion is "Keep it Simple!",


Simplicity is a big reason to prefer Fischer timing to byo yomi and to 
Canadian overtime.  You start with an initial allocation, and then every 
move you make, regardless of the circumstances, you get the same 
increment.  The snag with Fischer timing is that you need a special 
clock to do it - but if you're using a computer anyway, this shouldn't 
be a problem.



but the Fischer timing's action is not simple to understand.
Can someone explain me why a player receives times after played a move
even when he doesn't lack of time ?


A player receives time whether or not he lacks it.  This is simple, and 
IMHO better than a system that preferentially assigns time to the player 
who has squandered what he had.


Nick



If it's ok, instead of receiving times, I prefer receiving money. :-)

igo

--
nando <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Not sure this was mentioned before, but there's an interesting study
work presented at
http://senseis.xmp.net/?TimingSystemsRedux

-- nando

On 6/20/07, igo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [Fischer clock] -- play a move to get times.
> [Byo-yomi] -- use times to play a move.
>
> For human's feeling, time is passing, but not increasing.
>
> So byo-yomi is popular now and in the future.
>
> igo


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Thu, 2007-06-21 at 19:38 +0900, igo wrote:
> Thank you very much.
> 
> I think the writer was discussing from the "player's point of view",  
> but not from GO's view.
> For the game of GO, if the time-system is fair and 
> can avoid Sudden-Death naturally, that's enough.
> 
> The writer's conclusion is "Keep it Simple!",
> but the Fischer timing's action is not simple to understand.

If you are that locked into byo-yomi thinking you will probably think
anything else is "wrong."   If you only know one thing it's simple and
everything else is complicated.   

I have an example of emotional sentimentality vs practical superiority
in the Post Script at the end of this.

> Can someone explain me why a player receives times after played a move
> even when he doesn't lack of time ?

Why does byo-yomi allocate a big chunk of time at the beginning even
though it's not needed?Would it be more "logical" from your point of
view to play the whole game in byo-yomi time so that you never have time
on the clock that is not needed?

As I've stated before, you can think of any time-control system using
clocks in terms of who is given control over time-allocation.  I think
it should be the players themselves, you lean in the direction of
thinking that decision should be automated and decided for the players.

Sudden death is the least heavy-handed time-control system but fails to
recognize that it's impossible to predict how long a game might last.
So EVERY system is some compromise between you controlling your
time-allocation or having the control taken from you.

A skilled human will do best when given as much control as possible over
his time allocation.   However, it's probably also the case that an
inexperienced player will do better if those decisions are imposed on
him, like a child who needs the guidance of his parents before he is
mature enough to make wise decisions on his own.   

> If it's ok, instead of receiving times, I prefer receiving money. :-)

Time is a far more precious resource than money.  I'll take the time,
you can have the money :-)

- Don



P.S.I was playing club chess when the USCF decided to stop using
what is called "descriptive chess notation" and go with "algebraic
notation" which is what most of the world was then using and still
does.   

There was quite an outrage over this.   There was no real pattern over
who embraced it and who didn't.   Some very strong players resisted and
so did some very weak player and visa versa.   As an observer of human
nature I tried to detect some pattern and what I thought I saw was two
different personality types.  Some people were more into the "culture"
of chess (regardless of their strength) and others didn't care so much -
they just wanted to play chess.   The ones who wanted to stay with the
archaic system also tended to know more about the history of chess and
in my (imperfect) judgment were the more intuitive type of players.   Of
course there was nothing very scientific about this,  it was based only
on my very subjective assessment.I was very fascinated with the
phenomenon and wondered why someone could be so passionate about
something like this.I immediately starting training myself to use
the new system and it slowed me down a little at first - it was awkward
getting used to something new when you are so comfortable with a
different way of doing things.

It got harder and harder to get chess books that used descriptive
notation and over time virtually everyone stopped using it even for
their personal games.  Just about everyone eventually acknowledged the
superiority of algebraic notation but it took a while for some. 

Personally, I expected the strong players to embrace the new system
(because I believed it was superior) and the weak players to be the
sentimental fools but it didn't seem to to work that way - there was no
pattern that I could detect in regard to the strength of players
advocating one system over the other.


- Don



> igo
> 

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Álvaro Begué]

On 6/21/07, igo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

[...]
The writer's conclusion is "Keep it Simple!",
but the Fischer timing's action is not simple to understand.
Can someone explain me why a player receives times after played a move
even when he doesn't lack of time ?


It really is simple. You start with an initial time pool. Every time
you make a move, a fixed amount is added to your pool. If your pool
runs out, you lose. It's hard for me to think of anything simpler,
except for sudden death. If you make it so a player only receives time
when he is in time trouble, you need to add extra conditions, making
the scheme more complicated.

The only reason to not use Fischer clock is that it requires an
electronic clock that supports it (hard to use with a watch).
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[igo]

> Not sure this was mentioned before, but there's an interesting study work 
> presented at
> http://senseis.xmp.net/?TimingSystemsRedux

Thank you very much.

I think the writer was discussing from the "player's point of view",  
but not from GO's view.
For the game of GO, if the time-system is fair and 
can avoid Sudden-Death naturally, that's enough.

The writer's conclusion is "Keep it Simple!",
but the Fischer timing's action is not simple to understand.
Can someone explain me why a player receives times after played a move
even when he doesn't lack of time ?

If it's ok, instead of receiving times, I prefer receiving money. :-)

igo

--
nando <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Not sure this was mentioned before, but there's an interesting study
> work presented at
> http://senseis.xmp.net/?TimingSystemsRedux
> 
> -- nando
> 
> On 6/20/07, igo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > [Fischer clock] -- play a move to get times.
> > [Byo-yomi] -- use times to play a move.
> >
> > For human's feeling, time is passing, but not increasing.
> >
> > So byo-yomi is popular now and in the future.
> >
> > igo

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Wed, 2007-06-20 at 08:52 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> > The right parameters for Fischer time is whatever allows the highest
> > quality of games in the shortest actual game time and of course these
> > values can only be estimated or guessed at.I have estimated (perhaps
> > incorrectly but based on many comments from the group and for other
> > reasons too) that the highest quality games will result from giving a
> > player a large pool of time for HIM to manage rather than trying to
> > manage it for him with a small pool and large increment.
> 
> after reading the page linked to earlier (at sensei's), i was impressed to
> discover that the NYGC has had good success with fisher, experimenting
> with various controls.  they switched from 10 minutes / 20 seconds fisher
> to 18 minutes / 15 seconds fisher.  i'd be interested in trying a game or 
> twelve
> this way at KGS, unless adding a time control would be a big pain.  If it is 
> (wms),
> shoot me the source and I'll be happy to add it.

Yes, I saw that too.  I suspect you could go even further and increase
the main time more and the increment less.  But I'm not a go player so
my opinion on this may be less credible (of course I do not have bias
from years of playing traditional time-controls either.)

- Don



> s.
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> Shape Yahoo! in your own image.  Join our Network Research Panel today!   
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[steve uurtamo]

> The right parameters for Fischer time is whatever allows the highest
> quality of games in the shortest actual game time and of course these
> values can only be estimated or guessed at.I have estimated (perhaps
> incorrectly but based on many comments from the group and for other
> reasons too) that the highest quality games will result from giving a
> player a large pool of time for HIM to manage rather than trying to
> manage it for him with a small pool and large increment.

after reading the page linked to earlier (at sensei's), i was impressed to
discover that the NYGC has had good success with fisher, experimenting
with various controls.  they switched from 10 minutes / 20 seconds fisher
to 18 minutes / 15 seconds fisher.  i'd be interested in trying a game or twelve
this way at KGS, unless adding a time control would be a big pain.  If it is 
(wms),
shoot me the source and I'll be happy to add it.

s.



  

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Wed, 2007-06-20 at 11:12 -0400, Don Dailey wrote:
> All of these considerations together would seem to indicate that it is
> best to let the human have as much control as possible by allocating a
> large pool of initial time and keeping the increment pretty small
> (just
> what is needed to comfortably play the ending and perhaps a small bit
> more.) I believe this will lead to the strongest possible play on
> average for a given amount of time per round of play. 

I would like to also mention that CGOS is an extreme example of Fischer
clock time control with tiny increment.   1/4 second is silently added
to every move on CGOS and the purpose was exactly the same as what we
are talking about - to prevent time-loss when a game lasts too long and
a program cannot "physically negotiate" the clock in the required
time.   

Of course in the case of CGOS, this is essentially due to network lag
where it is known that some strong programs have lost easily won games
despite playing instantly on their local clocks.

To be technically accurate, CGOS actually uses the Bronstein clock
because time is not allowed to accumulate.   Think of it as the first
1/4 second is for free,  if you can move faster than that no time is
charged against you but if it takes longer than 1/4 sec you get the 1/4
second as a time-lag compensation. 
  

- Don



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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Wed, 2007-06-20 at 06:44 -0700, terry mcintyre wrote:
> 3-5 or 5-10 seconds is not a "relaxed" or "comfortable" pace for most
> human players. Byo yomi 
> is usually set at 30 seconds per move. Canadian time controls might be
> "20 moves in five minutes",  .

Who said the pace is 5-10 seconds?   There is a liberal main
time-control that makes the pace of the game much more relaxed and
comfortable.  

This post addresses the logic behind why Fischer time with small
increments is best for both humans and computers.   I stated my opinion
on this before, but I'm giving more substance in this message.  Read
on ...

The only complaint I've heard so far against sudden death is that
players are losing in dead won positions because they cannot physically
negotiate the interface to make moves. The small increment is
designed to address that situation.  But there are other good reasons
for it too.

If you try to address every possible situation, you basically have to
keep adding time somewhere and do it in a way that takes control away
from the player by giving it to the time-control mechanism in a fairly
rigid, unforgiving way.   

Fischer is the only way I am aware of that gives the players as much
control over their own time-allocation as possible without trying to
manage time FOR the players too much, and yet recognizes that games can
vary significantly in total length.

byo-yomi and other systems such as the Bronstein clock assumes the
player cannot manage his time and tries to manage it for him.  At least
to one degree or another.

Fischer is just a special case of the time control used in other games
where you are given so much time for N moves,  and then you are given
additional time for another batch of moves (but  accumulated time is not
taken away from you.)   Here is a typical time control NOT using Fischer
time:

  40 moves in 30 minutes 
followed by ...
  20 moves in 10 minutes
followed by ...
  20 moves in 10 minutes
  ... etc

Fischer is exactly the same system but the number of moves is either 0
or 1.

   0 moves in 15 minutes
   1 move  in 10 seconds
   1 move  in 10 seconds
   ...  etc.


What makes either system so good is that you are never penalized for
moving quickly and it's understood that if a game lasts longer you need
more time.

Fischer just does this with finer granularity and makes the bookkeeping
easier.

The right parameters for Fischer time is whatever allows the highest
quality of games in the shortest actual game time and of course these
values can only be estimated or guessed at.I have estimated (perhaps
incorrectly but based on many comments from the group and for other
reasons too) that the highest quality games will result from giving a
player a large pool of time for HIM to manage rather than trying to
manage it for him with a small pool and large increment.

Some of you may have noticed that the strongest CGOS programs spend most
of their time on just the first few moves.   Any time control that
prevents this by playing big-brother to the time-allocating decisions
will weaken these programs.  This even includes Fischer time with a
large increment.   The larger the increment, the more control the system
is imposing on you.

All of these considerations together would seem to indicate that it is
best to let the human have as much control as possible by allocating a
large pool of initial time and keeping the increment pretty small (just
what is needed to comfortably play the ending and perhaps a small bit
more.) I believe this will lead to the strongest possible play on
average for a given amount of time per round of play.

Although the relative difference in computers vs humans vary with the
time control mechanism used,  what applies to one still applies to the
other.  For instance sudden death weakens a computer program too (just
not relative to a human) because a computer doesn't know whether a game
will last a long time or not and can't predict when the game starts
getting easy.

So it's all about who controls your time - YOU, or the time-control
system.   Byo-yomi is particularly heavy-handed in this regard.   It has
a very artificial mechanism for controlling the pace of the endings.
It's like the mafia in that it makes you an offer you shouldn't refuse -
make your moves in 30 seconds or less, or else    Of course it will
forgive you up to a point but it's not true forgiveness, it forgives but
it doesn't forget.



- Don

 

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[terry mcintyre]

3-5 or 5-10 seconds is not a "relaxed" or "comfortable" pace for most human 
players. Byo yomi 
is usually set at 30 seconds per move. Canadian time controls might be "20 
moves in five minutes",
which is 300/20=15 seconds per -- players seem to find that they often are 
pushed to play the last
five moves in ten seconds under Canadian rules. There's a lot of angst 
expressed by many players
over time controls, but my thinking is "get over it" -- even though I myself 
have sometimes been
burnt, it's just a cost associated with a) getting a tournament organized in a 
reasonable time frame,
and b) not making your opponents cool their heels for long, unpredictable 
periods. Computers have
longer attention spans than humans. In byo-yomi, the game isn't quite over, but 
it is predictable. One
can usually determine the correct play comfortably inside of 30 seconds, 
probably even ten, but it
is important to make that decision correctly, as one may otherwise lose a point 
here, a point there,
thereby losing the game "in yose" ( in the endgame ).
 
Terry McIntyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
They mean to govern well; but they mean to govern. They promise to be kind 
masters; but they mean to be masters. -- Daniel Webster

- Original Message 
From: Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: computer-go 
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 5:16:23 AM
Subject: Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

On Wed, 2007-06-20 at 07:56 +0200, nando wrote:
> Not sure this was mentioned before, but there's an interesting study
> work presented at
> http://senseis.xmp.net/?TimingSystemsRedux 

I just looked,  after a quick scan it looks pretty good.  It seems
logical and there is no und[ue] deference to tradition just for sentimental
reasons but a pragmatic search/discussion for a practical time-control
for go.

After having though about this some more I think I would personally
favor Fischer but with really small increments.   Just enough of an
increment to play obvious moves comfortably without rushing.   On a
computer server this would be 3-5 seconds.  It should be whatever allows
you to play an instant obvious move in a relaxed way and still have a
second or two left over. 

Of course you should take this with a grain of salt since I'm not a go
player.   The idea is to have predictable round schedules similar to
sudden death but not lose games due to mad scrambles in simple
endgames.   There would still be time accumulating in cases where the
moves really are trivial.   Even for long tournaments it would be
reasonable to make the increment no more than 5-10 seconds.  (Of course
the main time would be correspondingly longer.)

This opinion is based on recent posts that claim once you are in
byo-yomi the game is over anyway.  


- Don




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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Wed, 2007-06-20 at 07:56 +0200, nando wrote:
> Not sure this was mentioned before, but there's an interesting study
> work presented at
> http://senseis.xmp.net/?TimingSystemsRedux 

I just looked,  after a quick scan it looks pretty good.  It seems
logical and there is no undo deference to tradition just for sentimental
reasons but a pragmatic search/discussion for a practical time-control
for go.

After having though about this some more I think I would personally
favor Fischer but with really small increments.   Just enough of an
increment to play obvious moves comfortably without rushing.   On a
computer server this would be 3-5 seconds.  It should be whatever allows
you to play an instant obvious move in a relaxed way and still have a
second or two left over. 

Of course you should take this with a grain of salt since I'm not a go
player.   The idea is to have predictable round schedules similar to
sudden death but not lose games due to made scrambles in simple
endgames.   There would still be time accumulating in cases where the
moves really are trivial.   Even for long tournaments it would be
reasonable to make the increment no more than 5-10 seconds.  (Of course
the main time would be correspondingly longer.)

This opinion is based on recent posts that claim once you are in
byo-yomi the game is over anyway.  


- Don




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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 18:16 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> sorry, i should have said that i think that it's least complicated
> with sudden death.  unless you mean to treat it internally as
> if it's sudden death, but to use fisher time to make up for lag/delay.

I'm talking about from the humans point of view.  

For a computer it's not quite as simple as sudden death.  In sudden
death you can always take a percentage of the remaining time.  With
Fischer I would probably just take the increment plus a percentage of
the remaining time or perhaps just a percentage of the remaining time
(but a fairly heavy percentage.)


- Don


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 17:54 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> actually, it's least complicated with sudden death.

I don't agree.  We are talking about time management from the humans
point of view and the human player doesn't need to think as hard about
playing quickly in order to save time for later.   If he doesn't it's
all about the clock and how he allocates his time.

With Fischer time he just plays and the clock is more forgiving.  You
have to manage your time with any time control system but Fischer is the
least distracting for the human.

- Don


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Heikki Levanto]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 11:55:47AM +0100, Jacques Basaldúa wrote:
> Computers feel comfortable with any time settings, and no matter how
> naif the scheduling algorithm is, it will always be far better than
> human scheduling. Computers can safely approach using 99.999% of their
> time (asymptotically) and there is no other reason why a computer should
> lose on time than net lag. 

Depends on the program. Programs based on MC, UCT, or other such things
can use as much or little time as they please. Programs like Gnu Go can
only adjust some overall parameters, and then it does its thinking. The
best it can do, is to adjust those again for the next move, if this one
turned out to take more or less time.  

-Heikki


-- 
Heikki Levanto   "In Murphy We Turst" heikki (at) lsd (dot) dk

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Heikki Levanto]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 04:18:20PM -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> true, and a good point.  time management other than attempting
> to equally divide remaining time among the expected number of
> remaining moves (which itself isn't so easy to estimate) is
> complicated.

Even that has the complication of estimating the expected length of the
game. Much easier to use something like 2% of the remaining time on each
move. 

-Heikki

-- 
Heikki Levanto   "In Murphy We Turst" heikki (at) lsd (dot) dk

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Jacques Basaldúa]

steve uurtamo wrote:

> true, and a good point.  time management other than attempting
> to equally divide remaining time among the expected number of
> remaining moves (which itself isn't so easy to estimate) is
> complicated.

But that is so much better than human time management!

If the expected number of moves is based on applicable experience
(including, maybe other games with the same opponent) and is updated
as the move number increases, just the same as a 70 year old person
has a longer life expectation than a 10 y.o. just for having survived
70 years, it will not experience serious problems.

Humans, like myself, who do not take part in tournaments want to have
at least 1/3 of our time unused to avoid "time pressure". Competitors
may feel confident with just 5% of their time remaining, but that
forces errors that would not have been played otherwise.

Humans spend time looking at a clock, and are distracted by doing so.
If the remaining time is small, they "reschedule" looking at the clock
again soon, which adds extra pressure.

Computers feel comfortable with any time settings, and no matter how
naif the scheduling algorithm is, it will always be far better than
human scheduling. Computers can safely approach using 99.999% of their
time (asymptotically) and there is no other reason why a computer should
lose on time than net lag. The reason for extra time (of any kind) is
that humans are lost when they run out of time. Therefore, it clearly
favors humans, because they would have lost that game.


Jacques.

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Vlad Dumitrescu]

Hi,

On 6/20/07, Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

But it's least complicated with Fischer clock because everything is
steady state, no mode shifts where suddenly things are reckoned
differently. A simple glance at the clock is all you need to know
the situation.


I'm not sure I understand how Fischer time works in practice: can you
use it without a digital clock? The advantage of the Canadian system
is that it is easy to use with regular Chess clocks.

best regards,
Vlad
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[nando]

Not sure this was mentioned before, but there's an interesting study
work presented at
http://senseis.xmp.net/?TimingSystemsRedux

-- nando

On 6/20/07, igo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

[Fischer clock] -- play a move to get times.
[Byo-yomi] -- use times to play a move.

For human's feeling, time is passing, but not increasing.

So byo-yomi is popular now and in the future.

igo


-
Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 16:18 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> > > Managing your own time whether in chunks or as a whole _is_ a
> > > sub-game/task either way.
> >
> > true, and a good point.  time management other than attempting
> > to equally divide remaining time among the expected number of
> > remaining moves (which itself isn't so easy to estimate) is
> > complicated.
>
> But it's least complicated with Fischer clock because everything is
> steady state, no mode shifts where suddenly things are reckoned
> differently. A simple glance at the clock is all you need to know
> the situation.
>
> - Don


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[igo]

[Fischer clock] -- play a move to get times.
[Byo-yomi] -- use times to play a move.

For human's feeling, time is passing, but not increasing. 

So byo-yomi is popular now and in the future.

igo


-
Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 16:18 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> > > Managing your own time whether in chunks or as a whole _is_ a 
> > > sub-game/task either way.
> > 
> > true, and a good point.  time management other than attempting
> > to equally divide remaining time among the expected number of
> > remaining moves (which itself isn't so easy to estimate) is
> > complicated.
> 
> But it's least complicated with Fischer clock because everything is
> steady state, no mode shifts where suddenly things are reckoned
> differently. A simple glance at the clock is all you need to know
> the situation.
> 
> - Don
 

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[steve uurtamo]

sorry, i should have said that i think that it's least complicated
with sudden death.  unless you mean to treat it internally as
if it's sudden death, but to use fisher time to make up for lag/delay.

s.

- Original Message 
From: Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: computer-go 
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 8:41:03 PM
Subject: Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 16:18 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> > Managing your own time whether in chunks or as a whole _is_ a 
> > sub-game/task either way.
> 
> true, and a good point.  time management other than attempting
> to equally divide remaining time among the expected number of
> remaining moves (which itself isn't so easy to estimate) is
> complicated.

But it's least complicated with Fischer clock because everything is
steady state, no mode shifts where suddenly things are reckoned
differently. A simple glance at the clock is all you need to know
the situation.

- Don


> s.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
> 
> Got a little couch potato? 
> Check out fun summer activities for kids.
> http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=summer+activities+for+kids&cs=bz
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[steve uurtamo]

actually, it's least complicated with sudden death.

s.


- Original Message 
From: Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: computer-go 
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 8:41:03 PM
Subject: Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 16:18 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> > Managing your own time whether in chunks or as a whole _is_ a 
> > sub-game/task either way.
> 
> true, and a good point.  time management other than attempting
> to equally divide remaining time among the expected number of
> remaining moves (which itself isn't so easy to estimate) is
> complicated.

But it's least complicated with Fischer clock because everything is
steady state, no mode shifts where suddenly things are reckoned
differently. A simple glance at the clock is all you need to know
the situation.

- Don


> s.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
> 
> Got a little couch potato? 
> Check out fun summer activities for kids.
> http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=summer+activities+for+kids&cs=bz
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 16:18 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> > Managing your own time whether in chunks or as a whole _is_ a 
> > sub-game/task either way.
> 
> true, and a good point.  time management other than attempting
> to equally divide remaining time among the expected number of
> remaining moves (which itself isn't so easy to estimate) is
> complicated.

But it's least complicated with Fischer clock because everything is
steady state, no mode shifts where suddenly things are reckoned
differently. A simple glance at the clock is all you need to know
the situation.

- Don


> s.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
> 
> Got a little couch potato? 
> Check out fun summer activities for kids.
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[steve uurtamo]

> Managing your own time whether in chunks or as a whole _is_ a 
> sub-game/task either way.

true, and a good point.  time management other than attempting
to equally divide remaining time among the expected number of
remaining moves (which itself isn't so easy to estimate) is
complicated.

s.





   

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Matt Gokey]

steve uurtamo wrote:

i think that maybe you misunderstand how byo yomi is used in
practice.

you have a giant pile of time that should be enough to account for
basically all of the hardest parts of the game.

then you have several (more than 1 !) byo-yomi periods, which are
like grace periods on top of what would otherwise be sudden death.

however, you don't enter byo-yomi until you have used all of your
main time. some people don't ever enter byo-yomi.  you certainly
can't lose on time unless you're in byo-yomi.

once you're in byo-yomi, each byo-yomi period is *plenty* of time to
make and answer the reasonably unchallenging final moves of the game.
if, however, a challenging move does come up, you can "go over" your
grace period.

that's pretty friendly from a sudden-death point of view.

you're just only allowed to "go over" some maximum number of times
(often 5 or 10).

the reality is that if your opponent is playing moves that you can't
answer using byo-yomi, then he's perhaps trying to beat you with the
clock, but he's definitely better at the game than you are, and maybe
you deserve to lose anyway.  it's something that he might do if
you're in byo-yomi and he isn't.  he wouldn't play moves that he
didn't know how to answer if he had fewer byo-yomi periods than you
did, because he'd just be beating himself with the clock.

all of this adds up to: i think that what you're worried about
(someone losing on time while having spent less time playing) is
unusual, or deserved.  here's my thinking.

the only way this could happen would be if (correct me if there's a
flaw here):

both players were into byo-yomi time. player A starts to play moves
very, very quickly. player B plays moves more slowly (and presumably
more deliberately).

at some point, player B plays one or more moves that player A has to 
think really hard about.  player A goes "overtime" 4 separate times

during this stage of the game and is left with a single byo-yomi
period left.  at this point he can take up to 30 seconds (say) for
every single move that he takes if he wants to.  player B plays a
very challenging move that player A can't answer in a single byo-yomi
period and then player A loses on time.

now, from my way of thinking, there's a sense in which player A
deserves this -- either he should have spent more of his time
thinking during the endgame instead of just making quick moves, or
player B is better at generating and figuring out complicated fights
(in which case, well, no use crying over losing by time, as that's
almost the definition of what it means to be good at go).


I'm jumping in here, but how about this? Byo-yomi time is complicated.
Fischer time is simple.  By other factors, I think there are legitimate
pros and cons to both systems, but personally would like Fischer time
better.  Managing your own time whether in chunks or as a whole _is_ a 
sub-game/task either way.


-Matt

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[steve uurtamo]

i think that maybe you misunderstand how byo yomi is used in practice.

you have a giant pile of time that should be enough to account for basically
all of the hardest parts of the game.

then you have several (more than 1 !) byo-yomi periods, which are like
grace periods on top of what would otherwise be sudden death.

however, you don't enter byo-yomi until you have used all of your main time.
some people don't ever enter byo-yomi.  you certainly can't lose on time
unless you're in byo-yomi.

once you're in byo-yomi, each byo-yomi period is *plenty* of time to make
and answer the reasonably unchallenging final moves of the game.  if, however,
a challenging move does come up, you can "go over" your grace period.

that's pretty friendly from a sudden-death point of view.

you're just only allowed to "go over" some maximum number of times (often 5
or 10).

the reality is that if your opponent is playing moves that you can't answer
using byo-yomi, then he's perhaps trying to beat you with the clock, but
he's definitely better at the game than you are, and maybe you deserve to
lose anyway.  it's something that he might do if you're in byo-yomi and he
isn't.  he wouldn't play moves that he didn't know how to answer if he had
fewer byo-yomi periods than you did, because he'd just be beating himself
with the clock.

all of this adds up to: i think that what you're worried about (someone losing
on time while having spent less time playing) is unusual, or deserved.  here's
my thinking.

the only way this could happen would be if (correct me if there's a flaw here):

both players were into byo-yomi time.
player A starts to play moves very, very quickly.
player B plays moves more slowly (and presumably more deliberately).

at some point, player B plays one or more moves that player A has to
think really hard about.  player A goes "overtime" 4 separate times during
this stage of the game and is left with a single byo-yomi period left.  at this
point he can take up to 30 seconds (say) for every single move that he takes
if he wants to.  player B plays a very challenging move that player A can't
answer in a single byo-yomi period and then player A loses on time.

now, from my way of thinking, there's a sense in which player A deserves
this -- either he should have spent more of his time thinking during the endgame
instead of just making quick moves, or player B is better at generating and
figuring out complicated fights (in which case, well, no use crying over losing 
by time,
as that's almost the definition of what it means to be good at go).

s.




   

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 22:11 +0200, Antonin Lucas wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> My formula is that the increment for Fischer should be pretty
> small for
> GO, longer for Chess where you will encounter difficulties at
> every 
> stage of the game until 1 player resigns.   This would solve
> the
> problems you mention.
> 
> 
> - Don
> 
> The final problem with go is that the endgame is sometimes boring, and
> a player that likes to drag it on is very annoying. A player might
> stack up twenty minutes and use them up on the last very few moves,
> which is not very nice. A steady pace during the small yose is a good
> thing for human player.  (It is a known tactic ,in the mid kyu levels,
> to beat upstart young kids that dare to be as strong as you, but still
> have a short attention span. Annoy them enough by playing "too slowly"
> and anger or distract them.) 


This problem isn't limited to the Fischer clock.   With byo-yomi you can
take the full time and always make your move at the last possible second
and not even have to take a penalty for it.   At least with Fischer, it
is real time you lose.  

I have had players in losing positions just walk away from the board to
run out their clocks but refusing to resign.Sometimes they appear if
they see you walk away from the board to make a quick move - hoping you
will forget the game and lose on time yourself.   They do this with any
time-control.

- Don



> Antonin
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Antonin Lucas]

My formula is that the increment for Fischer should be pretty small for
GO, longer for Chess where you will encounter difficulties at every
stage of the game until 1 player resigns.   This would solve the
problems you mention.


- Don



The final problem with go is that the endgame is sometimes boring, and a
player that likes to drag it on is very annoying. A player might stack up
twenty minutes and use them up on the last very few moves, which is not very
nice. A steady pace during the small yose is a good thing for human player.
(It is a known tactic ,in the mid kyu levels, to beat upstart young kids
that dare to be as strong as you, but still have a short attention span.
Annoy them enough by playing "too slowly" and anger or distract them.)

Antonin


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 21:32 +0200, Antonin Lucas wrote:
> The thing with Go is that typically moves that require long thinking
> times are among the first hundred, i.e. fuseki and chuban. The last
> 150 moves of a typical go games, the yose, require much less thinking
> time for a human (but can't be done instantaneously, which is a
> problem with sudden death : you can't play the whole yose in less than
> three or four minutes, on a real goban). 
> 
> Fischer timing would lead to huge amount of time being hoarded for the
> endgame, but leave less time in the thinking intensive, more
> interesting beginning. Pros on 8-hours game sometime spend a whole
> hour on a single move, and reach byoyomi by move 100. 
> 
> There is also for amateur tournaments the question of practicality :
> canadian or byoyomi overtime allow for relatively stable game length,
> whereas fischer time allowing time buildup might lead to much longer
> games, making it hard to have many rounds played in a day. 

My formula is that the increment for Fischer should be pretty small for
GO, longer for Chess where you will encounter difficulties at every
stage of the game until 1 player resigns.   This would solve the
problems you mention.  


- Don


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 12:15 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> > That still has the undesirable characteristic that you can use much less
> > time than your opponent but still lose on time.
> 
> not to be too obtuse, but why is this an undesirable characteristic?

No, I understand your question.

It is a matter of what you consider important.  You could argue that as
long as the rules are the same for both players it's fair so it doesn't
matter in that sense. 

I consider it "undesirable" because it takes a little dignity away from
the players.   It could be perceived as a bit unfair that you can can
lose on time despite using much less time.But also, you are being
forced to play a fairly steady rate instead of being given control over
your own time-allocation.  So there is less dignity in that.

It also seems more elegant to me to reward the player who has taken the
least amount of time.   Remember, I'm a firm believer in the
time/strength curve so to me if you spend less time playing the first N
moves and have an equal position, then in my view you have
"out-performed" your opponent.   I consider it a travesty that you
should get penalized for this.   Instead, your reward should be a
payment of some kind and extra time is the most logical payment!   

If you don't view it this way, then you are adding elements to the game
which might make it more interesting in some ways,  but those elements
are not pure go, it's extra sub-games that you have to skillfully
navigate.   Wouldn't it be silly if you added a rule that said if you
can't lift a 200 pound weight, you lose a turn?   It would give the
physically stronger player the advantage.   There is nothing wrong with
that,  after all the physically stronger players have an advantage in
sports and the more skilled players have an advantage in GO, but do you
really want to add more non-go-specific elements to the game?   It's
appropriate that the more skillful go player has an advantage but not
that the player with the strongest physical muscles does.  

I realize I'm really straining the gnat on this.  byo-yomi time control
isn't some kind of horrible travesty and it doesn't add very much extra
non-go skill to the game, but it does a little.  It's a step in the
wrong direction even if just a little.  

This reminds me of what Universities and other government agencies have
to live with with respect to funding.   You are given a certain amount
of money to spend in a certain amount of time, but if you don't use it,
you lose it.   You cannot save it up to be spent on something more
intelligent later.   When I worked at the lab we ran into that situation
and as a result we all got laptops!   We didn't really have a desperate
need for laptops, but we had to go on a silly spending spree otherwise
we would lose the money!

Byo-yomi is exactly like that.  If the byo-yomi time is 60 seconds, you
must use the full 59 seconds or lose it.   It's a shame that if you
don't really need it,  you lose it.  

- Don







> s.
> 
> 
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Nick Wedd]

on time systems -

as a human player, if my objective is to win by playing better moves, my 
order of preference is:  Canadian overtime, Byo yomi, Sudden death.  And 
if my objective is to win by any legal method, it is:  Sudden death, 
Canadian overtime, Byo yomi.


However, we all have our own preferences, so my opinion as a player is 
of no relevance.  My opinion as a referee may be more relevant.


If I am refereeing a computer event, I strongly prefer Sudden death. 
This allows me to fit more rounds into the schedule, as I know when 
every game will be over.  And the programs don't mind, the better ones 
are perfectly well able to adapt their play to how much time they have 
left.  (For fast events over the internet, I might prefer an extra 
second a move Fischer-style, to deal with lag.)


If I am refereeing a human event, I dislike sudden death.  Some people 
are more willing than others to do things which even I regard as dubious 
so as to win on time.  I may be asked to make a judgement call on 
whether they have stepped over the (undefined) line.  I don't like 
having to make judgement calls.  I prefer Canadian overtime to Byo yomi. 
The players manage Canadian overtime for themselves.  Byo yomi requires, 
either a human to count down each game, or an Ing clock, both of which I 
would rather avoid.


Nick
--
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Benjamin Teuber]

I don't think so - with a basic time x and a per-more time y you can 
freely adjust the fischer time setting to both short games and games 
where there's more time in the beginning.


Regards,
Benjamin

Antonin Lucas schrieb:




(I agree that Fischer time is superior for go, but it may take a long
while until it gains acceptance.)

Arend


The thing with Go is that typically moves that require long thinking 
times are among the first hundred, i.e. fuseki and chuban. The last 
150 moves of a typical go games, the yose, require much less thinking 
time for a human (but can't be done instantaneously, which is a 
problem with sudden death : you can't play the whole yose in less than 
three or four minutes, on a real goban).


Fischer timing would lead to huge amount of time being hoarded for the 
endgame, but leave less time in the thinking intensive, more 
interesting beginning. Pros on 8-hours game sometime spend a whole 
hour on a single move, and reach byoyomi by move 100.


There is also for amateur tournaments the question of practicality : 
canadian or byoyomi overtime allow for relatively stable game length, 
whereas fischer time allowing time buildup might lead to much longer 
games, making it hard to have many rounds played in a day.


Antonin
 


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Arend Bayer]

Sorry, but I disagree with almost anything you say in this post:

On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 09:32:27PM +0200, Antonin Lucas wrote:
> 
>  (I agree that Fischer time is superior for go, but it may take a
>  long
>  while until it gains acceptance.)

>The thing with Go is that typically moves that require long thinking
>times are among the first hundred, i.e. fuseki and chuban. The last 150
>moves of a typical go games, the yose, require much less thinking time
>for a human 

Fischer time can easily be adapted to this: Set the time per move to the
speed you want to have the endgame played in. During fuseki/middle game,
players would think longer, living off their main time.

>There is also for amateur tournaments the question of practicality :
>canadian or byoyomi overtime allow for relatively stable game length,
>whereas fischer time allowing time buildup might lead to much longer
>games, making it hard to have many rounds played in a day.

Not true, it is quite the opposite. A game of 300 moves in Fischer time
takes a very predictable amount of time, where as length of the same game in 
Canadian time setting depends very much on when the two players entered
in byo-yomi.

Your post is a pretty good example of why I think Fischer time will take
a looong time to get accepted, as many go players have irrational averse
reactions to Fischer time before they have actually played it.

Arend


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Antonin Lucas]

(I agree that Fischer time is superior for go, but it may take a long
while until it gains acceptance.)

Arend



The thing with Go is that typically moves that require long thinking times
are among the first hundred, i.e. fuseki and chuban. The last 150 moves of a
typical go games, the yose, require much less thinking time for a human (but
can't be done instantaneously, which is a problem with sudden death : you
can't play the whole yose in less than three or four minutes, on a real
goban).

Fischer timing would lead to huge amount of time being hoarded for the
endgame, but leave less time in the thinking intensive, more interesting
beginning. Pros on 8-hours game sometime spend a whole hour on a single
move, and reach byoyomi by move 100.

There is also for amateur tournaments the question of practicality :
canadian or byoyomi overtime allow for relatively stable game length,
whereas fischer time allowing time buildup might lead to much longer games,
making it hard to have many rounds played in a day.

Antonin


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 12:49 -0500, Arend Bayer wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 02:45:28PM -0400, Don Dailey wrote:
> > I also don't like having to account for move numbers.  It's ok if the
> > computer is tracking this such as online sites, but it's a pain
> > remembering and keeping up with move numbers in games played on physical
> > equipment.  
> 
> Have you ever tried it as go? Counting 20 stones, laying them out in
> front of you and closing the bowl with its lid is done in about the same
> time in which the opponent is resetting the clock.

I haven't tried it in GO, but I know it's a pain no matter how easy it
is.  

In chess you are required to write the down the moves - but it's still a
pain even though you have instance access to the move number - the
problem is that when you are super-focused on the game,  your not paying
any attention to what move number you are on.  

So it's not a difficult thing by any means, it's just a distraction that
you usually don't want to do deal with.


> (I agree that Fischer time is superior for go, but it may take a long
> while until it gains acceptance.)

The whole idea of any non-sudden death time is to prevent silly loses
due to being crunched for time at the last second.

These interesting time-control variants seem to me to be an attempt to
"simulate" not having a clock at all.   In an ideal world, you take as
much time as you need but this is totally unrealistic in the real world
and in tournaments and matches where you need some kind of time
guarantees.   

But the Fischer clock, in my opinion, is the most dignified way to
handle this from the human point of view.


- Don



> Arend
> 
> 

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[steve uurtamo]

> That still has the undesirable characteristic that you can use much less
> time than your opponent but still lose on time.

not to be too obtuse, but why is this an undesirable characteristic?

s.





   

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[terry mcintyre]

From: Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 11:27 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
>I also don't like having to account for move numbers.  It's ok if the
>computer is tracking this such as online sites, but it's a pain
>remembering and keeping up with move numbers in games played on physical
>equipment.  



I know that Ing clocks automatically deal with byo yomi. They even have little 
synthesizers
which announce "30 seconds", "10 seconds", and so forth. There are probably 
clocks 
which deal with Canadian time in a similar fashion. I don't think anyone would 
want
to manually deal with the intricacies nowadays. My understanding is that in pro 
games,
assistants with stopwatches announce the seconds, but for the rest of us, it's 
done by
some sort of automatic clock or computer, good help being hard to find ;)





   

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Arend Bayer]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 02:45:28PM -0400, Don Dailey wrote:
> I also don't like having to account for move numbers.  It's ok if the
> computer is tracking this such as online sites, but it's a pain
> remembering and keeping up with move numbers in games played on physical
> equipment.  

Have you ever tried it as go? Counting 20 stones, laying them out in
front of you and closing the bowl with its lid is done in about the same
time in which the opponent is resetting the clock.

(I agree that Fischer time is superior for go, but it may take a long
while until it gains acceptance.)

Arend


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 11:27 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> how about canadian time?
> 
> X moves in Y minutes, where X and Y reset every time
> you play X moves.  you can choose where to spend your
> time, and if things get tight, you only have to survive and
> not do anything stupid for X-(current # of moves) and then
> you get all of your time back.  you can use up ko threats,
> or just make suboptimal sente moves, or whatever, until
> you get a new unused batch of moves and time.


That still has the undesirable characteristic that you can use much less
time than your opponent but still lose on time.

You might as well set a time-control of 1 minute per move and you lose
if any moves go over 1 minute.

I also don't like having to account for move numbers.  It's ok if the
computer is tracking this such as online sites, but it's a pain
remembering and keeping up with move numbers in games played on physical
equipment.  

- Don


> s.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[steve uurtamo]

how about canadian time?

X moves in Y minutes, where X and Y reset every time
you play X moves.  you can choose where to spend your
time, and if things get tight, you only have to survive and
not do anything stupid for X-(current # of moves) and then
you get all of your time back.  you can use up ko threats,
or just make suboptimal sente moves, or whatever, until
you get a new unused batch of moves and time.

s.




   

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Sanghyeon Seo]

2007/6/20, Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

3.  Fischer - Best.  If you are really short on time, you can gain
time on your clock by playing easy moves more quickly.


I also note that this would allow trading ko threats with time. In
typical Go positions there are many forcing moves available.

--
Seo Sanghyeon
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[terry mcintyre]

Better go players simply make any move which is "good enough" when the flag is 
about to drop. When they play in that manner, their clock never runs out. This 
is quite frustrating for someone who hopes to catch others in time trouble. ( 
speaking from personal experience - I just lost a game this past weekend to a 
methodical player who used 29 seconds of every byo-yomi period while I still 
had a good bit of time on my clock. Give me sudden death :D )  Generally, by 
the time one is playing byo-yomi, the game is settled, and the clock time has 
been used to accumulate sufficient advantage that one need not sweat each and 
every end-game move.
 
Terry McIntyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
They mean to govern well; but they mean to govern. They promise to be kind 
masters; but they mean to be masters. -- Daniel Webster

- Original Message 
From: Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: computer-go 
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 8:11:15 AM
Subject: Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 07:14 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> Don, I like you very much, but when you say that byo-yomi
> is unfriendly to humans, I have to say that you clearly haven't
> played enough go.  Byo-yomi is incredibly friendly to humans.

You are not thinking clearly here because I am comparing 3 different
styles of time control and I ranked byo-yomi as friendlier than sudden
death by far.

Compared to sudden death, byo-yomi is very friendly - however, it still
puts you in sudden death like situations - racing the clock.   It's
clearly more unfriendly than Fischer time because you have little
control over your own time-allocation - you are always losing (or
maintaining) time, never accumulating.   

You perception of how friendly any time-control is has much to do with
the parameters.   Sudden death at 8 hours per side is far friendlier
than byo-yomi with really short time limits.  For example:

  Main time : 5 minutes.
  Byo-Yomi time : 5 seconds
   Byo-Yomi Periods : 3

isn't particularly friendly.   Any time-control style can be manipulated
to be comfortable or uncomfortable for humans.   If you try to compare
these systems of time control you must have settings that approximately
equal each other in terms of how long an expected match will last.

I would also point out that by adjusting parameters byo-yomi OR Fischer
becomes (or approaches) sudden death.  Just set time and period to zero
for byo-yomi.   So the practical difference is how much control you have
over your own time-allocation and this is clearly greatest with Fischer
time. 

Also, byo-yomi has the bizarre and illogical characteristic that the
player who used the least amount of time could be the one to LOSE on
time.   That's a side-effect of the characteristic that byo-yomi gives
you less control over your time allocation.   If you believe that makes
it friendlier than Fischer time,  then I believe you are not thinking
very clearly about this.   You are probably just making a judgment based
on what you are personally most familiar with, not what is objectively
best.   

Playing actual games with byo-yomi time is totally useless for judging
how friendly it is - your perception will be colored if those matches
are played with liberal byo-yomi time and liberal number of periods.  It
will be comfortable and you will be happy.   So you can only talk about
the characteristics of each type of time period and you have to reason
it out.   With byo-yomi you can get into time-crisis situation that
never go away.

Here is a table:

  1.  sudden death - very unfriendly to humans.

  2.  byo-yomi - you can get into time-crises situations that you can
never 
  recover from - but if the byo-yomi time is liberal, at least you
can 
  never be forced to move instantly.   

  byo-yomi is easy to manage for computers.  A computer can simply 
  always spend almost all of the byo-yomi time no matter how obvious
the 
  move which also will have the benefit of annoying the human
opponent. 

  3.  Fischer - Best.  If you are really short on time, you can gain
time on
  your clock by playing easy moves more quickly.

Sudden death is best for computers when playing humans but it's not the
easiest to manage for computers.  It's just that humans aren't good at
it.

So the ordering above is in worst to best order for humans but just the
opposite for computers.   

Fischer is also hardest to manage for computers.  None of these are
difficult to implement for computers,  but computers are very poor
judges of how to allocate time wisely - they pretty much have simplistic
algorithms for time management that doesn't consider (or does a poor job
at) how difficult or critical the decision happens to be.  Fischer is
wonderful for letting humans exploit this skill.   byo-yomi tries to
make you play at a steady rate - not friendly.

So if I wanted to play a very importa

Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 07:14 -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> Don, I like you very much, but when you say that byo-yomi
> is unfriendly to humans, I have to say that you clearly haven't
> played enough go.  Byo-yomi is incredibly friendly to humans.

You are not thinking clearly here because I am comparing 3 different
styles of time control and I ranked byo-yomi as friendlier than sudden
death by far.

Compared to sudden death, byo-yomi is very friendly - however, it still
puts you in sudden death like situations - racing the clock.   It's
clearly more unfriendly than Fischer time because you have little
control over your own time-allocation - you are always losing (or
maintaining) time, never accumulating.   

You perception of how friendly any time-control is has much to do with
the parameters.   Sudden death at 8 hours per side is far friendlier
than byo-yomi with really short time limits.  For example:

  Main time : 5 minutes.
  Byo-Yomi time : 5 seconds
   Byo-Yomi Periods : 3

isn't particularly friendly.   Any time-control style can be manipulated
to be comfortable or uncomfortable for humans.   If you try to compare
these systems of time control you must have settings that approximately
equal each other in terms of how long an expected match will last.

I would also point out that by adjusting parameters byo-yomi OR Fischer
becomes (or approaches) sudden death.  Just set time and period to zero
for byo-yomi.   So the practical difference is how much control you have
over your own time-allocation and this is clearly greatest with Fischer
time. 

Also, byo-yomi has the bizarre and illogical characteristic that the
player who used the least amount of time could be the one to LOSE on
time.   That's a side-effect of the characteristic that byo-yomi gives
you less control over your time allocation.   If you believe that makes
it friendlier than Fischer time,  then I believe you are not thinking
very clearly about this.   You are probably just making a judgment based
on what you are personally most familiar with, not what is objectively
best.   

Playing actual games with byo-yomi time is totally useless for judging
how friendly it is - your perception will be colored if those matches
are played with liberal byo-yomi time and liberal number of periods.  It
will be comfortable and you will be happy.   So you can only talk about
the characteristics of each type of time period and you have to reason
it out.   With byo-yomi you can get into time-crisis situation that
never go away.

Here is a table:

  1.  sudden death - very unfriendly to humans.

  2.  byo-yomi - you can get into time-crises situations that you can
never 
  recover from - but if the byo-yomi time is liberal, at least you
can 
  never be forced to move instantly.   

  byo-yomi is easy to manage for computers.  A computer can simply 
  always spend almost all of the byo-yomi time no matter how obvious
the 
  move which also will have the benefit of annoying the human
opponent. 

  3.  Fischer - Best.  If you are really short on time, you can gain
time on
  your clock by playing easy moves more quickly.

Sudden death is best for computers when playing humans but it's not the
easiest to manage for computers.  It's just that humans aren't good at
it.

So the ordering above is in worst to best order for humans but just the
opposite for computers.   

Fischer is also hardest to manage for computers.  None of these are
difficult to implement for computers,  but computers are very poor
judges of how to allocate time wisely - they pretty much have simplistic
algorithms for time management that doesn't consider (or does a poor job
at) how difficult or critical the decision happens to be.  Fischer is
wonderful for letting humans exploit this skill.   byo-yomi tries to
make you play at a steady rate - not friendly.

So if I wanted to play a very important computer/human match (and I'm a
computer) and I couldn't play sudden death,  I would clearly prefer
byo-yomi over Fischer, given the same approximate expected match length.

- Don
 


 

> If you don't like it, try canadian timing, which is also very
> friendly to humans.
> 
> Please, for the love of god, do not now make a chess analogy.
> Simply play a few hundred games of go with canadian, byo-yomi
> and fixed time to compare.
> 
> s.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
> 
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Lavergne Thomas]

I don't agree with you. In Go, before starting a sequence on the board
you have to think a lot about the different possible sequences and the
outcomes. You need to think about what you get finally and is there
anything better.
But when the sequence is started, you have the different variations in
mind, and you check if all go ok. Some can also be forced, so you don't
have to think so much for theses.

So, for me, it's clear that some moves need lot of reflexion and other
need can be responded almost imediately. Byo-yomi alocate a constant
time for each moves. So you have to take some time, when responding to
a forced move, to think a little about another move that you may do in
the future. But this is difficult to do, and most peaoples don't use
fully each period.

Tom

On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 07:14:49AM -0700, steve uurtamo wrote:
> Don, I like you very much, but when you say that byo-yomi
> is unfriendly to humans, I have to say that you clearly haven't
> played enough go.  Byo-yomi is incredibly friendly to humans.
> 
> If you don't like it, try canadian timing, which is also very
> friendly to humans.
> 
> Please, for the love of god, do not now make a chess analogy.
> Simply play a few hundred games of go with canadian, byo-yomi
> and fixed time to compare.
> 
> s.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
> 
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Sanghyeon Seo]

2007/6/19, steve uurtamo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

Don, I like you very much, but when you say that byo-yomi
is unfriendly to humans, I have to say that you clearly haven't
played enough go.  Byo-yomi is incredibly friendly to humans.

If you don't like it, try canadian timing, which is also very
friendly to humans.

Please, for the love of god, do not now make a chess analogy.
Simply play a few hundred games of go with canadian, byo-yomi
and fixed time to compare.


Sorry, but as far as I understood, Don said byo-yomi is better for
computers *compared to Fischer clock*. And I think he's right.

Don explicitly stated that byo-yomi is better for humans compared to fixed time.

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[steve uurtamo]

Don, I like you very much, but when you say that byo-yomi
is unfriendly to humans, I have to say that you clearly haven't
played enough go.  Byo-yomi is incredibly friendly to humans.

If you don't like it, try canadian timing, which is also very
friendly to humans.

Please, for the love of god, do not now make a chess analogy.
Simply play a few hundred games of go with canadian, byo-yomi
and fixed time to compare.

s.




   

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

By the way, byo-yomi is not a very logical system.  It has the
characteristic that you are penalized for playing quickly.   If you play
quickly the time should be credited to you.But byo-yomi seems more
interested in forcing a player to play at a steady pace and doesn't
allow much control over how you spend your time.   

Even byo-yomi is less friendly to humans (and more favorable to
computers) than something like the Fischer clock because humans are very
skillful at allocating time where needed.   A skilled human can use a
LOT of time to advantage if it's a special position that requires a
carefully thought out move - computers are very poor at this.  

So if I were a computer, I would prefer time control systems in this
order:

  1. sudden-death  (fixed time for complete game, the faster the
better!)

  2. byo-yomi   (illogical for everyone - better for computers than
humans)

  3. Fischer clock  (terrible for computers - good for humans)

Sudden death of course is by far the number one choice for computers.

- Don



On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 07:41 +0900, Darren Cook wrote:
> >> I thought the point being made was that the games were played without
> >> byo-yomi. 
> > 
> > Isn't that a time control not usually played in serious games?
> 
> No, the other way round: all serious ama or pro games (at least, that I
> know of) are played with byo-yomi. In the two-day tournaments the
> byo-yomi is 1 minute per move, and something like the last 100 moves of
> the game are usually played in it. The NHK speed go TV tournament is 30
> seconds/move (throughout the whole game, but with 10 minutes of extra
> time they can use when they need to think more about a move).
> 
> Darren
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 11:59 +0900, Darren Cook wrote:
> > I think Remi was making the point that the CrazyStone games were played
> > at a time control not usually played in serious games.   Therefore he
> > concludes the rating was inflated. ...  If you spend too much time
> > building up a won position, how can you claim a "moral victory" if you
> > lose on time?
> 
> I thought the point being made was that the games were played without
> byo-yomi. The humans lost on time because they simply couldn't play all
> the tedious post-endgame moves. To get a fair result you have to use
> byo-yomi, once main time is all used up, even if just a couple of
> seconds per move.

What planet are you from?   That's what I just said.   I'm trying to
make the point that the Crazy Stone games were played with a
NON-STANDARD time control that doesn't have byo-yomi and you keep saying
I'm wrong and then correct me by agreeing with me.

Please re-read the thread carefully - I am going to paraphrase this for
you taking some liberties to emphasize how silly this conversation has
become:


Don:  Remi was making the point that the CrazyStone games were not
played under standard time controls.

Darren: I thought the point was that the time control was not
standard.  

Don: That's what I said, The Crazy Stone time controls were NOT
standard. 

Darren: No, you are wrong, the time controls were not standard 

Look back at the thread and laugh - this is how you responded twice.

Do you agree or disagree that byo-yomi is standard and that the Crazy
Stone games were NOT played under byo-yomi?  


- Don




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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Darren Cook]

>> I thought the point being made was that the games were played without
>> byo-yomi. 
> 
> Isn't that a time control not usually played in serious games?

No, the other way round: all serious ama or pro games (at least, that I
know of) are played with byo-yomi. In the two-day tournaments the
byo-yomi is 1 minute per move, and something like the last 100 moves of
the game are usually played in it. The NHK speed go TV tournament is 30
seconds/move (throughout the whole game, but with 10 minutes of extra
time they can use when they need to think more about a move).

Darren

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 11:59 +0900, Darren Cook wrote:
> > I think Remi was making the point that the CrazyStone games were played
> > at a time control not usually played in serious games.   Therefore he
> > concludes the rating was inflated. ...  If you spend too much time
> > building up a won position, how can you claim a "moral victory" if you
> > lose on time?
> 
> I thought the point being made was that the games were played without
> byo-yomi. 

Isn't that a time control not usually played in serious games?

> The humans lost on time because they simply couldn't play all
> the tedious post-endgame moves. To get a fair result you have to use
> byo-yomi, once main time is all used up, even if just a couple of
> seconds per move.

The humans lost on time because they didn't allocate their time wisely.
They would have easily beat weaker opponents at this same time control.

I'm not saying this is a good time control for people but they did agree
on that time control and should plan accordingly.   

I would prefer something a lot more intelligent, like the Fischer clock
where N seconds get immediately added to the clock after each move.
For a relatively quick game it could be 5 minutes + 3 seconds per move.
You can even build up extra time on your clock for tougher moves by
playing a few move more quickly.

- Don


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Darren Cook]

> I think Remi was making the point that the CrazyStone games were played
> at a time control not usually played in serious games.   Therefore he
> concludes the rating was inflated. ...  If you spend too much time
> building up a won position, how can you claim a "moral victory" if you
> lose on time?

I thought the point being made was that the games were played without
byo-yomi. The humans lost on time because they simply couldn't play all
the tedious post-endgame moves. To get a fair result you have to use
byo-yomi, once main time is all used up, even if just a couple of
seconds per move.

Darren
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

  
On Sun, 2007-06-17 at 21:02 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Let's assume the game time is set at 10 ms. A random move computer
> program will win over any player in this sub-space of the universe who
> does not have a chip as well as an electronic interface in his body.
> Would such a champion mean anything?

Yes.  It would mean silicon is better at that time control.

I think Remi was making the point that the CrazyStone games were played
at a time control not usually played in serious games.   Therefore he
concludes the rating was inflated.I didn't understand this at first
because he made it sound like there was a glitch in time-keeping or
something - at least that's how I understood it.   

Of course I'm well aware of the fact that computers play better relative
to humans at faster time controls.   

I'm not as forgiving about games lost on time.   I consider that a valid
loss even if you have a won position.   If you spend too much time
building up a won position, how can you claim a "moral victory" if you
lose on time?Would you have still had a won position if you had
played quickly?   If the answer is yes, then why didn't you play more
quickly?

What if 2 human players had played at that time control and under those
rules and conditions?   What is the clock for anyway if time loss is not
supposed to be a valid way to lose?

- Don




> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Don Dailey 
> To: computer-go 
> Sent: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 9:19 pm
> Subject: Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!
> 
> On Sun, 2007-06-10 at 21:40 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > Just one comment. The statement that 'it (CrazySton) has a 2k rating
> > on KGS...' could be misleading. Crazystone never achived 2k rating
> > against human player in real gemes. It achieved the ranking by
> > basically winning on time.
> > 
> > Daniel Liu
> 
> I don't think I understand this.  Is there a KGS problem with
> time-keeping?  
> Did something happen that unfairly caused the player to lose on time?
> 
> Those games should be erased and the ratings retracted if that's easy
> for
> William Shubert to do.   Did the player(s) complain about this?
> 
> - Don
> 
>  
> 
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[compgo123]

Let's assume the game time is set at 10 ms. A random move computer program will 
win over any player in this sub-space of the universe who does not have a chip 
as well as an electronic interface in his body. Would such a champion mean 
anything?


-Original Message-
From: Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: computer-go 
Sent: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 9:19 pm
Subject: Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!



On Sun, 2007-06-10 at 21:40 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Just one comment. The statement that 'it (CrazySton) has a 2k rating
 on KGS...' could be misleading. Crazystone never achived 2k rating
 against human player in real gemes. It achieved the ranking by
 basically winning on time.
 
 Daniel Liu
I don't think I understand this.  Is there a KGS problem with
ime-keeping?  
id something happen that unfairly caused the player to lose on time?
Those games should be erased and the ratings retracted if that's easy
or
illiam Shubert to do.   Did the player(s) complain about this?
- Don
 
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Chris Fant]

Could a reasonably skilled human play a 19x19 games with 1 second per
move?  Let's say he starts with 5 seconds and 1 second is added to his
clock after each move.   I'm not asking for a high quality game, but
could he manage a non-silly plausible game using cgoban on KGS?


It seems like the strategy would still be there, but the tactics would
suffer horribly.  But I could be completely wrong since I'm not much
of a Go player myself.
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[steve uurtamo]

byo-yomi is important for go, or at the very least,
canadian time standards.

s.


- Original Message 
From: Jeff Nowakowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; computer-go 
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 10:42:50 PM
Subject: Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

On Sun, 2007-06-10 at 22:19 -0400, Don Dailey wrote:
> Did something happen that unfairly caused the player to lose on time?

No, but the games were absolute time games where CrazyStone was often in
a losing position but ended up winning on time.  The endgame in Go takes
a long time but is mostly just cleanup.  That is why a small amount of
time to play each move is usually allowed, even in fast games.
  
The 2k rank is not indicative of how well CrazyStone would play in a
typical game of Go.  It's like a 1 minute lightning game in Chess; you
wouldn't use that to rank a computer.  It just isn't very interesting.

-Jeff

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Sun, 2007-06-10 at 22:42 -0400, Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-06-10 at 22:19 -0400, Don Dailey wrote:
> > Did something happen that unfairly caused the player to lose on time?
> 
> No, but the games were absolute time games where CrazyStone was often in
> a losing position but ended up winning on time.  The endgame in Go takes
> a long time but is mostly just cleanup.  That is why a small amount of
> time to play each move is usually allowed, even in fast games.

It seems like it would make sense in GO (especially on big boards) to
add 2 seconds to each move, even if one is interested in getting the
basic feel
of a sudden death (absolute time) games without the tears.   This is
useful for computers too because it's hard to predict how many moves a
game is.  

  
> The 2k rank is not indicative of how well CrazyStone would play in a
> typical game of Go.  It's like a 1 minute lightning game in Chess; you
> wouldn't use that to rank a computer.  It just isn't very interesting.

I understand.   You can of course rank a computer and call it a
speed-chess or speed-go rating.  You just can't assume they would play
that well at longer time controls.Oddly, you CAN play fast  human vs
human and not have too much of this problem.   The problem is the fact
that humans improve more than computers do at longer time controls.
Otherwise, it would be fair to rate both computer and human at any
reasonable time control.  

I think it would be fair to give the human one additional second per
move no matter what time control they were playing - to compensate for
the hand-eye coordination handicap the human has to deal with.  

Could a reasonably skilled human play a 19x19 games with 1 second per
move?  Let's say he starts with 5 seconds and 1 second is added to his
clock after each move.   I'm not asking for a high quality game, but
could he manage a non-silly plausible game using cgoban on KGS? 

In chess, strong masters can play on a physical board, with a chess
clock, at much less than 1 second per move and still play high quality
moves (at least by the standards of club players.)It's  easier to
physically move a chess piece than to move one with a mouse on a screen.
But in GO you don't have to move a stone, you just need a single click
so it is probably easier.

- Don
 



> -Jeff
> 

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Jeff Nowakowski]

On Sun, 2007-06-10 at 22:19 -0400, Don Dailey wrote:
> Did something happen that unfairly caused the player to lose on time?

No, but the games were absolute time games where CrazyStone was often in
a losing position but ended up winning on time.  The endgame in Go takes
a long time but is mostly just cleanup.  That is why a small amount of
time to play each move is usually allowed, even in fast games.
  
The 2k rank is not indicative of how well CrazyStone would play in a
typical game of Go.  It's like a 1 minute lightning game in Chess; you
wouldn't use that to rank a computer.  It just isn't very interesting.

-Jeff

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Sun, 2007-06-10 at 21:40 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Just one comment. The statement that 'it (CrazySton) has a 2k rating
> on KGS...' could be misleading. Crazystone never achived 2k rating
> against human player in real gemes. It achieved the ranking by
> basically winning on time.

I'm still trying to figure this.   Did the player just lose interest in
an easily
won position and walk away while his clock was running?If these are
KGS rated
games why would a player let this happen?   

- Don


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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Don Dailey]

On Sun, 2007-06-10 at 21:40 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Just one comment. The statement that 'it (CrazySton) has a 2k rating
> on KGS...' could be misleading. Crazystone never achived 2k rating
> against human player in real gemes. It achieved the ranking by
> basically winning on time.
> 
> Daniel Liu

I don't think I understand this.  Is there a KGS problem with
time-keeping?  
Did something happen that unfairly caused the player to lose on time?

Those games should be erased and the ratings retracted if that's easy
for
William Shubert to do.   Did the player(s) complain about this?

- Don

 

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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[compgo123]

Just one comment. The statement that 'it (CrazySton) has a 2k rating on KGS...' 
could be misleading. Crazystone never achived 2k rating against human player in 
real gemes. It achieved the ranking by basically winning on time.

Daniel Liu


-Original Message-
From: Nick Wedd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: computer-go 
Sent: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 5:46 am
Subject: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!


- the winners of last Sundays tournament on KGS. My report is at 
http://www.weddslist.com/kgs/past/27/index.html. I expect people will soon 
report the many misprints in it, as usual :) 
 
Nick 
-- Nick Wedd [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Rémi Coulom]

Nick Wedd wrote:

 - the winners of last Sundays tournament on KGS.  My report is at
http://www.weddslist.com/kgs/past/27/index.html.  I expect people will 
soon report the many misprints in it, as usual  :)


Nick


Hi,

Thanks Nick for your report.

Here is what I found after analyzing the blunder of Crazy Stone against 
MogoBot19. In fact, the capture at F18 was not pruned. But White 
extension at F18 after Black L10 was. The reason is that F18 is a Ko shape.


The urgency of shapes was learnt from game records that contain many Ko 
fights. The consequence is that capturing in a Ko shape had a very high 
urgency, whereas extending in a Ko shape had a very low urgency. So 
black thought white would never extend to F18 before being captured.


I now have added Ko-related features to Crazy Stone pattern-learning 
algorithm. Crazy Stone now makes the difference between a Ko extension 
and a non-Ko extension in the shape at F18, and plays much better thanks 
to this additional knowledge.


Rémi
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[computer-go] Congratulations to GNU and to MoGoBot19!

[Nick Wedd]

 - the winners of last Sundays tournament on KGS.  My report is at
http://www.weddslist.com/kgs/past/27/index.html.  I expect people will 
soon report the many misprints in it, as usual  :)


Nick
--
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