On Thu, 2007-04-12 at 08:02 +0300, Petri Pitkanen wrote: > CrazyStone made appearance yesterday on KGS making rather impressive > record. I think it rank peaked at 1d and ended at 2k. It was playing > at speed limits of 10 minutes absolute, which seems hard for most > humans.
> Also it seemed that people did not escape from the games. Rather few > unfinished games. > > I think speed chess computers surpassed humans quite a while go? With > specific approach to go programming thats a frontier where progress > can be made? Speed chess isn't hard for humans at all, they play quite well. But it's been clearly shown that humans improve with time in a very similar way to computers in chess, but even more so. At really fast time-controls this improvement is very obvious and clear, but we just don't notice it as much at longer time controls even though it is there just as strong. One thing is clear, humans improve MORE at longer time-controls than computers, despite most people intuition that this doesn't happen, so at longer time controls humans have a definite advantage. It's also been shown that strong computers improve more quickly than weak computers. It seems that the quality of the evaluation function (both in humans and computers) is a factor. That's why in recent years much more emphasis is on the evaluation function of computer chess. In previous times you could just build a super-fast searcher and if it had a reasonable evaluation function it could compete. Not true any more. CrazyStone (any UCT program) is going to be relatively weak at the 10 minute time control. If you double the time-control to make it easier for humans, this will help but don't expect a major turnaround. CrazyStone will play a much stronger game at 20 minutes also. It's not clear how much it will help the humans, but I would not expect more than 1 kyu. If you make it more like tournament time controls you might make a 2 or 3 kyu difference (if that) but it won't suddenly drop to the high or mid kyu range. If it's realistically 2 kyu strength at 10 minutes, it's probably still stronger than 5 kyu at any reasonable time control. I would put it at 3 or 4 if 2kyu is correct at 10 minutes. However, there is also another factor. As more computers play and compete, humans will learn to beat them. I believe the UCT style will be much more difficult to take advantage of because they do not have idiosyncratic weaknesses to the extent of older generation programs, but still there will be this factor pushing their ranks down a bit. There was once a study of chess players and their abilites at 5 minute chess. The study started with a questionaire. It's extremely common for chess players to say, "I'm really quite terrible at speed chess, I blunder all the time and I'm just much better at longer time controls." The questionaire verified that many chess players feel that other players are better than them at speed chess. But the study showed with empirical data that your tournament ratings accurately predicted speed chess performance, even of the players who thought they were unusually weak. Also, the issue of "blunders" was addressed. Blunders are often cited as the problem with speed chess, that the extra pressure of the clock makes too many blunders and the games are somehow "not real" as someone here recently complained. Of course in chess everytime there is a blunder the ego says the game didn't really count, it was a "fluke", it was not characteristic of my usually strong game. I cannot remember the exact experimental setup of the study, but I remember that the "fluke" factor was shown to be false too. Of course you do blunder more, but so do computers. Humans always had the feeling they would stop blundering if there were give just a little bit more time but the fact of the matter is that humans will blunder at any time-control. They blunder less at longer time-controls but the blunder rate and quality of moves does not suddenly improve at some magic point. It's a very mudane and predictable fall-off. A lot of players (despite the fact that they feel they are weak at speed chess) somehow believe that their best chance against a really strong player is speed chess, because they might capitalize on a blunder. This is not the case. If anything, the experience (and better evaluation function) makes the better player even more superior. There are some players who specialize in speed chess so I'm not saying it isn't possible to better at one than the other. You can train specifically for speed chess and gain some skills that improve your results specifically for this aspect of the game. I'm taking well known concepts from chess and computer chess and extrapolating to GO. There is no reason to believe this is somehow completely irelevant to the game of GO. Even though GO is a unique game, it's still played in the same universe and these seem to be universal "truths" that apply to game playing in general. You get better when you are given more time - that is how it works in our universe. - Don > Petri Pitkänen _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
