maybe this doesn't sound right to everyone, but i thought that suicide and filling one-point eyes were both things that could be highly useful in many corner positions where you either want to create a nakade (fill the eye), or threaten one (with suicide).
s. ----- Original Message ---- From: Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: computer-go <computer-go@computer-go.org> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 1:54:30 PM Subject: Re: [computer-go] Suicide question David Doshay wrote: > There are two reasons to consider suicide and its detection.. > > 1) Some rule sets allow suicide. In such a rule set a suicide can > be the best move because it can be a huge ko threat. > > 2) As David Fotland has pointed out many times, when competing > under rules that allow suicide, some programs will do one just to > see if your program refuses to play when you detect its suicide. But there are very few arguments for putting suicide in the play-outs. You can still design your program to accept and even play suicide without putting these moves in the play-outs. The play-outs are imperfect by nature - they try to take a statistical sample of many possible ways the game might proceed. The path to improve the quality of this statistical sample is to not play moves that represent very UNLIKELY continuations. Adding these moves randomly to the play-outs doesn't improve it's ability to statically measure the likely outcome. For instance since is "legal" to resign, we could randomly include this possibility in the play-outs, but it would not increase the resolving power of the play-outs. Moving into 1 point eyes is also legal, but virtually all Monte Carlo programs forbid this as it's well known to be incredibly stupid in the vast majority of cases. But in some rare cases it is actually good - but we still would not want to add it to our play-outs. Because of the 1 point eye rule, suicide in the play-outs probably isn't THAT bad. You are probably only suiciding a group that is already dead - but you are weakening the play-outs. It may be worth it if you get enough speed in return. In my program I am always looking for an excuse to veto moves that are obviously bad. If I had such an obvious class of position like suicide, I would jump on the opportunity to remove them from the play-outs! - Don > > > Cheers, > David > > > > On 16, Jan 2008, at 5:52 AM, Don Dailey wrote: > >> I think suicide is insane myself. But I think the reason programs >> might use it is only for a speedup - it's faster with some >> implementations to allow suicide even though it makes the games longer. >> >> Of course you are right about point B. If suicide is illegal in the >> actual game, there can be no point in allowing it in the play-outs. >> It's almost certainly wrong to allow it in the play-outs even if you are >> playing by suicide rules - a lot of work has gone into finding good >> moves in the play-outs and this would be one of the prime candidates for >> removal! >> >> - Don >> >> >> Jacques Basaldúa wrote: >>> Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote: >>> >>>> Multi-stone suicide is allowed, single stone not. >>> >>> I hadn't even considered suicide.(It would be a major change for me, >>> as neither my Gui nor my board system allow such moves.) >>> >>> The question is Why do you do it? >>> >>> a. Just in case you wanted the entire program to support suicide go >>> >>> or >>> >>> b. Because that has some advantage as a random playout. >>> >>> If it was b, can anyone explain why suicide is a better evaluation for >>> a normal (non suicide) game. >>> >>> Jacques. >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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/ > > _______________________________________________ > 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/ ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
