Hi Jason, A few comments.
Area scoring is what CGOS does, Territory scoring is Japanese. Territory scoring doesn't make the game end any sooner, it just penalizes you for not doing so. I like the concept of not playing the game out to the bitter end but you can't stop players from doing this if they want to. I have considered implementing something like this in CGOS so that bots could stop playing early as an option. Would require a negotiation phase to make sure both sides agree on dead stones and so on. But I refrained for 2 reasons: 1. It makes everything more confusing and complicated. 2. There is a better way. In my opinion, since it's clear you can't force anyone to pass unless they want to, then there is no good solution based on agreement protocols that require the cooperation of both bots. However, since any solution is optional, there is a solution that does not require the cooperation of the other bot. I'll call it the resign protocol. If you are interested in "playing nice" and not dragging out the game - then you can resign if you are losing. If you are not losing there is nothing you can do to shorten the game if the opponent is not willing. In other words, if he won't resign, he probably won't pass either. It's far easier to resign than work out a pass/pass/negotiate phase. So to me this is really the most elegant solution. - Don Jason House wrote: > Personally, I'm ignorant on the subtle nature of Japanese rules. I > look it as territory scoring instead of area scoring. Area scoring > has the nice side effect that people can and should stop playing a > game once all territory is decided. > > Having run a "dumb" bot on KGS in the past, I became sensitive to user > needs... > 1. A bot that stubbornly plays 50 useless moves in endgame is highly > annoying... especially with sudden death time limits. Resigning a > lost game helps, but so would territory scoring with proper dead stone > marking. > 2. Byo yomi or canadian time are very popular, but a computer can't > take full advantage of byo yomi or canadian time in endgame without > frustrating the opponent. When a game is nearly over, the bot should > not ponder for 19 out of 20 seconds of byo yomi to play an obvious move. > > My usual method to solve #1 is to put up an approximate and hope I > don't piss off too many people while testing. #2 is usually pretty > easy to solve by adding a max time per move that decreases as the game > length gets longer. > > On Nov 6, 2007 3:45 PM, Jeff Nowakowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > On Tue, 2007-11-06 at 18:27 +0100, Lars Schäfers wrote: > > Hello Jeff, > > > > as far as I know there don't exist any formal and automatable > japanese > > ruleset. > > I would propose the GnuGO scoring as a referee. > > I don't see what is gained by converting CGOS to Japanese rules. You > lose the ability for programs to play out disputes and instead > depend on > a 6k computer program (typical KGS rank for GnuGO) to resolve > disputes. > It's also a needless complication for bot authors that aren't > concerned > about Japanese rules. If you want to implement Japanese rules for > your > program, great. > > This discussion has been had many times on this list. What's the new > compelling argument for having it again? > > -Jeff > > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org <mailto:computer-go@computer-go.org> > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
