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Ask HN: Who Plays Go?

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Re: Ask HN: Who Plays Go?

#21

Post by thangalin »

igravious wrote: post #14

Hi thangalin, I'm "grooviest" on KGS. I'm only 7 kyu so you'll need to up-skill me to 1 dan so I can give you a nice game (hint hint). My relationship with Go is turbulent. Currently we are in an addictive (God, it's sooo addictive) phase and she is breaking my heart. My one regret in life is that I was 30 years old before I learned how to play. All those wasted years playing chess. sigh I recently moved from my nati…

That's quite the adventure! Our time zones might not let us play in real time. Facebook has a Go playing app. I'd be happy to play a teaching game with you.

Re: Ask HN: Who Plays Go?

#22

Post by philh »

I'm philh on kgs, but these days I mostly play in person at my university club. One consequence of this is that I don't really know my rank. We have our own ladder, on which I'm currently 15.5k, but it tends to underrank people as compared to KGS. I'm probably not above 10k.

If anyone's interested in a game, I can play most evenings, British time.

Re: Ask HN: Who Plays Go?

#23

Post by spacemanaki »

This whole thread makes me want to start learning how to play again. I don't think I have played more than about half a dozen games but it is by far the on of the most compelling games I've encountered.

Re: Ask HN: Who Plays Go?

#24

Post by gjm11 »

I play, but not nearly often enough. I'm probably somewhere around 12k, far below thangalin's level. If there is any such thing as objective quality in board games, go is objectively the best game anyone has come up with yet. Wonderful, wonderful game. But also dangerously addictive. The fact that it's basically impossible to play a quick game doesn't help.

Re: Ask HN: Who Plays Go?

#25

Post by joshstrike »

thangalin wrote: post #17
mark_l_watson wrote: post #13

In the late 1970s I played both the women's world champion, and a year later the South Korean national champion in exhibition games. They both mentioned that I was about 2 kyu but experience getting bruised up by an 2 dan amateur makes me think that my rating is less than that - so I would not be a good opponent for you. My older brother taught me to play when I was eight, and we played fairly equally for about 10 ye…

I've had a design in the works for a few years that is a completely network-based Go AI. The idea is nothing new. It involves multiple computers, each assigned one problem from a board position. One computer might be responsible for calculating ladders, one solves tsumego problems, one to look at influence, one to apply joseki, another for yose, and so forth. Each of submits their top ten moves, in the allotted time,…

Wow. I really dig this idea of sharded / modular network problem solvers. It would be interesting to take it a step further and let the solvers themselves negotiate their own distribution over time, CPU use, etc. - e.g. replicate all the active solvers on all the clients but allocate chunks of variable size to each depending on which evolves to be the "dominant" solver on any given CPU. You'd need an algorithm to stop Montecarlos from becoming the dominant process everywhere, probably. Montecarlo is notorious for chewing up a processor, but in various applications it often does not need to be run constantly, so the free cycles could be used for something else.

I especially like the idea that this could be applied to anything, not just Go. I did something in this direction a few years ago with an a-life data processing platform that used SOAP to shard problems to groups of machines.

At that point there are two issues, firstly the protocol becomes a bottleneck if you're dealing in large datasets, and secondly if you're dividing something up spatially you still have to aggregate your results. It would be the same if you divided it problematically for Go moves, unless each algorithm could give a "confidence" indicator that could be used reliably so that the master engine would not have to montecarlo each result set. That could be done if the montecarlo was moved to the sub-servers to test their own moves before sending the moves back complete with percentage wins for direct comparison in the master engine. It would chew up a lot more cycles and mean more machines, but it would remove the post-processing bottleneck.

Re: Ask HN: Who Plays Go?

#26

Post by ludwig »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #3

I was once 11 kyu and improving, but I realised I was getting totally absorbed in the game. As a latent obsessive compulsive I gave it up. I'm pretty sure it was the right choice, but I retain deep respect and admiration for the game. Far, far better than chess. Deep down I wish I still played ...

You made the right choice :)

I got to about 7 kyu, and then it suddenly hit me. Balance is key. Therefore you should concentrate on those aspects of your life which have become more urgent. I haven't played very much after that realization.

In my view, Go (or any other hobby, really) would stand in one corner of the board. Your family, personal life, and work would be at the other three corners. As the situation on the board evolves, you would choose your best play. Focusing too much on any one area would leave you over-concentrated. It would be too inefficient. You'd easily secure one corner but lose the other three.

But then, if you spread yourself too thin all over the place, trying to please everyone, including yourself, that would leave you with a vulnerable position that could fall apart at any moment. That's clearly not good either.

However, if you patiently settle your stone formations before moving on the next area, if you gain strength in one corner/side before expanding towards another, if you are fluid in your decision making process when choosing a direction (life does throw you stumbling blocks doesn't it?), THEN you'd be a wise man indeed :)

I do make it a point to participate in a local yearly tournament (five games over two days) whether I feel ready or not. One day, though, I will come back to Go in full-force.

I'm also ludwig on KGS, btw. If anyone fancies a game, you can always reach me via twitter (@ludwig1024).

Re: Ask HN: Who Plays Go?

#27

Post by MK5 »

I started playing Go at 4 with dad and played a while of IGS (the Panda net thing) and got pretty high (around 2D). But felt in love with Starcraft which is for me, GO+Chess and in real time :p

Re: Ask HN: Who Plays Go?

#28

Post by ludwig »

kapilkaisare wrote: post #18

I was entranced with go via "Hikaru No Go", a Japanese anime about a boy who discovers the game through a spirit seeking the elusive 'hand of God'. I am currently at 9 kyu but am trying to better my game. Unfortunately there aren't too many Go players where I am, and this makes Go as a point of social focus difficult, as it often is in chess over here.

> Unfortunately there aren't too many Go players where I am

Put yourself on the map, just in case! http://igolocal.net/

Re: Ask HN: Who Plays Go?

#29

Post by edanm »

gjm11 wrote: post #24

I play, but not nearly often enough. I'm probably somewhere around 12k, far below thangalin 's level. If there is any such thing as objective quality in board games, go is objectively the best game anyone has come up with yet. Wonderful, wonderful game. But also dangerously addictive. The fact that it's basically impossible to play a quick game doesn't help.

"there is any such thing as objective quality in board games, go is objectively the best game anyone has come up with yet"

Could you please elaborate?

Re: Ask HN: Who Plays Go?

#30

Post by cjbprime »

thangalin wrote: post #17
mark_l_watson wrote: post #13

In the late 1970s I played both the women's world champion, and a year later the South Korean national champion in exhibition games. They both mentioned that I was about 2 kyu but experience getting bruised up by an 2 dan amateur makes me think that my rating is less than that - so I would not be a good opponent for you. My older brother taught me to play when I was eight, and we played fairly equally for about 10 ye…

I've had a design in the works for a few years that is a completely network-based Go AI. The idea is nothing new. It involves multiple computers, each assigned one problem from a board position. One computer might be responsible for calculating ladders, one solves tsumego problems, one to look at influence, one to apply joseki, another for yose, and so forth. Each of submits their top ten moves, in the allotted time,…

You've described the architecture of a ~15-year old engine called NeuroGo: http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~emarkus/neurogo/

All of the different solvers ran on the same machine, as far as I know.

It turns out that the Monte Carlo engines are doing far, far better than the grand hierarchical neural net designs of the past, though.

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