There are 3 commonly cited problems and 4 commonly proposed remedies. Problems: 1) Human games remain interesting, even after the winner is clear, because the players just naturally switch to playing for maximum territory. Wouldn't MCTS bots be more fun to play against if they did that too? 2) Sometimes a bot has a win by a small margin, but thinks it's a win by a big margin (because it is misreading a seki or whatever). Consequently, the bot neglects to defend the space that matters and loses after all. 3) For a big enough handicap, the bot plays random, ugly looking moves in the beginning. Can't that be improved? Remedies: a) Play for maximum territory sometimes. b) Fake the Komi sometimes. c) Unbalance the playout strength sometimes. d) Worry about more important things. The vagueness in the "sometimes" part doesn't help in deciding which remedy is best for which problem.
Looking at the handicap problem alone, how can I pick the best remedy and justify my decision? Maybe I could take my engine at a reasonable time setting and experiment with all the remedies to try to find the highest handicap I can give Wally and still win 50% of the games. - Dave Hillis
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