Re: computer-go: perfect players

["Gordon Grant" <gordon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Pray, what would happen if two 'perfect' players played a lot of games with
one another.  Lots of draws, or equal numbers of wins foe each?

Gordon Grant

----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Dailey" <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <computer-go@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <computer-go@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <computer-go@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: computer-go: perfect players


>
> And one other  thing too.  The very   best Chess players  lose LOTS of
> games still.  They couldn't be very close to perfection.
>
> Don
>
>
>
>
>    Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 14:35:31 -0400 (EDT)
>    From: Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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>
>    Of course how far we are away from perfect play is opinion and subject
>    to huge amounts of error.
>
>    My personal feeling is that we are much farther than we think.  I
>    base this on these observations:
>
>      1. Human arrogance.   This is not directed to anyone as an individual
> but as a class we are all a bit like this.   We think we are much
> better at various tasks than we really are in my opinion.  We compare
> to other humans, or to the "average" human and are too easily impressed.
> We also romanticize the abilities of our hero's, and make them bigger
> than life.
>
> The problem is that we don't have a reasonable frame of reference, we just
> can't imagine someone playing a lot better than our own "great" players.
> We define greatness and perfection in these terms even though we don't
> really mean to.
>
> There will be players that come along later who will prove this, and
> yet they will be limited too.   This is similar to the great  Roger
> Bannister, running a mile as fast as humanly  possible ...  or so it was
> thought at the time.
>
>      2. Comparing checkers to chess is kind of like comparing chess to go.
> It's "easier" to reach perfection in checkers than in chess,  and
> it's easier to reach perfection in chess than in go as far as writing
> programs that play these games.   And yet, you will see that Chinook,
> the worlds top checker playing program is far from perfect.  It's may
> very  well be the case that Chinook is the best player in the world,
> maybe even the best player ever.  There is  room for disptute here,
> but I think anyone would agree that it is a close call.   Any yet
> if you talk to the author of Chinook (or read his book on the subject)
> you will see that he doesn't consider Chinook particularly close to
> perfection,  he is aware of numerous improvements that need to be
> made, and he would love to have a much faster computer to do a few
> extra ply.     If he considers the "best player" in the world as
> needing so much improvement, in a game tremendously simple compared
> to chess or go, then I believe it says something about our own human
> limitations.
>
> I did my own experiments along these lines.   I created an even
> more simplified game.  It is checkers played on a 6x6 board.  I
> run a huge series of autotest games at various depths of search.
> What I wanted to do was to analyze how hard it would be to create
> a perfect player.   Although I did not get a definitive answer,
> I kept being surprised at how useful a single extra ply of lookahead
> was.  I was going almost 40 ply deep in my "most fit" individual.
> Remember, this is a very tiny game where just a few moves puts you
> deep into the endgame.   In the end, I could not predict how much
> depth I would need to play perfectly, because even at the highest
> level I tested (I think it was 38 ply) it was beating the previous level
> by several percent  (like 54%.)    It was tapering off (2 vs 1 was
> a much bigger crush than 38 vs 37) but only  very slowly.  If I played
> versions 2 or more levels apart, I would get huge crushing victories.
> (I played 200 game series to muffle most of the statistical noise.)
> The deep level were mostly drawn games, an indication that perfection
> was being approached, but every few games would end in a victory,
> usually for the side looking ahead a single measly move deeper.
>
> It's hard  to draw  firm conclusions from  this, becaues  I don't
> have a simple  way to relate this to human  skill.
> Still, I felt  like I was exploring a bottomless
> pit of possible  skill levels, and I am  pretty convinced that at
> the bottom (perfect play) would be a player very much better than
> any human  is likely to be.   This is a trivial  game compared to
> chess and go and even 8x8 checkers.
>
> In Chinooks experience, Chinook would often play a losing move
> and not know it for many many moves and then suddenly wake up.
> In these cases, the human master it was playing usually sensed
> the error right away.   Even though this was happening, Chinook
> was winning tournaments and beating the best players.   The lesson
> here is that even though humans were better at some things, Chinook
> was better at other things and neither was very close to perfection!
>
>
>
>    Don
>
>
>
>       Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 17:24:15 +0100
>       From: Nick Wedd <Nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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>       Fant, Chris <chris.fant@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>       >It has been said by at least one chess player that they could beat
a perfect
>       >player, given a one pawn advantage.  Has this ever been tried
against a
>       >computer player?  I am interested in knowing how close computer
players are
>       >to a perfect player, how close the best human players are to the
perfect
>       >player and how close the best Go players are to the perfect player.
>
>       This has been debated on rec.games.go.
>
>       The consensus seems to be that the correct handicap for the best
human
>       to receive when playing a perfect player is about three stones.
>
>       The question is complicated by the need to define "the perfect
player".
>       Is it one that makes the best move on the board in each position?
Or
>       one that can read its opponents mind, and take advantage of the
>       misconceptions that it finds there?
>
>       >  It is
>       >my conjecture that human and computer chess players are very close
to the
>       >perfect player relative to how close the best Go players are to the
perfect
>       >player.  I believe that Go programs will eventually surpass human
players
>       >and go on to absolutely destroy the best of the best.
>
>       They show no signs of doing this so far.
>
>       > I believe this
>       >because of the complexity of the game.  Computers can't be stopped.
They
>       >will continue to approach perfect player performance.  What does
the group
>       >think?
>
>       They will continue to get better, yes.  There's a way to go.
>
>       Nick
>       --
>       Nick Wedd    nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>