missed point? Re: [computer-go] Computer Go tournament at EGF

[William Harold Newman <william.newman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Feb 12, 2005 at 09:53:37AM -0800, David G Doshay wrote:
> 
> On 12, Feb 2005, at 9:40 AM, Don Dailey wrote:
> 
> >The point he is making is that you can't isolate the execution time of
> >the algorithm from the playing strength.  It IS in fact easy to write
> >a perfect go program given no time constraints (just search until
> >solution.)
> 
> Easy in theory. I again challenge you to do it. A 1 dan program does
> not exist. Please make one that will play a 1 dan level game in
> whatever time period you wish.

Another way to state the point is that software exists which has been
used to exhaustively prove things on tiny boards. See, e.g., [SK00] in
<http://www.markus-enzenberger.de/compgo_biblio/compgo_biblio.html>
about solutions on 4x4 boards. It is well understood how to write
software like that, and it doesn't require hard-coding "4" into the
program. So the original point was that it is straightforward to write
(or just borrow) such software, set the appropriate parameter to "19",
and wait. (And then, that if you find that that's not an satisfying
solution to the problem of playing computer Go, that you should think
about why, and in so doing perhaps develop some sympathy for people
who think of computer Go as a time limited problem.)
 
Despite my proposal for superfast tournaments, I'm mostly comfortable
with the de facto standard about-1-hour-per-side, but I'm reluctant to
lengthen it, and that seems to be something of a consensus position. I
would even go so far as to conjecture that after you have competed in
several tournaments with four or more contestants, or after you have
run one, the consensus group will be larger by one person than it is
now.:-|

-- 
William Harold Newman <william.newman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
If I thought anyone cared, if I thought anyone would even be reading this, I'd 
probably make an effort to keep up appearances until the last possible moment. 
But no one does, and no one will. So I can pretty much say exactly what I 
think. -- Olin Shivers, <http://www.scsh.net/docu/html/man.html>

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