Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Othello Is Solved?

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 285 posts

Re: Othello Is Solved?

#211

Post by elwell »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #118
mark_l_watson wrote: post #89

This is cool. I solved a simpler game about 15 years ago that my brother and I used to play: an African game with about 10 pits on each side of the board that hold stones. I coded up an alpha-beta engine for it, and discovered crazy always win strategies to match how my brother and I played. Suddenly I would win all the games, and then he never wanted to play again. This was a classic match up of a computer scientist…

Mancala and connect four are classic examples of solved games. computer scientist vs. an optometrist. What does being an optometrist have to do with anything?

> This was a classic match up

"classic" here is tongue-in-cheek

Re: Othello Is Solved?

#212

Post by passion__desire »

grensley wrote: post #187
mark_l_watson wrote: post #89

This is cool. I solved a simpler game about 15 years ago that my brother and I used to play: an African game with about 10 pits on each side of the board that hold stones. I coded up an alpha-beta engine for it, and discovered crazy always win strategies to match how my brother and I played. Suddenly I would win all the games, and then he never wanted to play again. This was a classic match up of a computer scientist…

I can't remember the source for it (help me out if you know it), but people only like to play games when they're in the band of 30-70% winrate. Win too much or too little, and they'll stop enjoying playing the game.

If your team always wins, there is no point in supporting it, no thrill. Everything in moderation, even winnings.

Re: Othello Is Solved?

#213

Post by amelius »

dzolob wrote: post #95
amelius wrote: post #45

Ok, so we just have to keep adding rows and columns to the game in order to keep the game from being "solved"?

Someday there might be a theorem. Something on the line of “for all nxn boards, a perfect game ends in a tie”.

Next challenge: (n+1)xn boards

Re: Othello Is Solved?

#214

Post by _justinfunk »

jhbadger wrote: post #193
buzzy_hacker wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, in monopoly you don’t have to pay rent if the property owner doesn’t notice.

And in Scrabble it's fine to use a nonsense word if nobody challenges it.

And in American Football it's fine to deflate the ball if no one measures it.

Re: Othello Is Solved?

#215

Post by furyofantares »

elwell wrote: post #210
sonofhans wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is super cool. I’ve played Mankala for years and would love to hear more. It’s instructive to see old Africans playing Mankala. They play very fast. It can become more like poker, where deceit is a part of the game. If you spam down your stones fast enough sometimes you can skip a bowl, or drop an extra stone, in order to gain advantage. I’m not facile enough to play this way, and I play with family and so don’t…

> It can become more like poker, where deceit is a part of the game. I wouldn't equate skipping a bowl with bluffing. Maybe, palming a chip as you put your bet in: which certainly isn't "part of the game".

I also wouldn't equate it with bluffing at all, but from the description, maybe also not palming a chip. It's possible for something that's cheating among one group to be a part of the game among another.

Sports have a lot of things that are in some sense against the rules, but standard penalties are applied if caught, and it's just a part of the game, like fouling a player in basketball. Nobody considers it cheating, it's a part of the game because the penalty is standardized. Of course you still try not to get caught.

Re: Othello Is Solved?

#216

Post by gmac »

mumintrollet wrote: post #175
gmac wrote: post #41

If anyone fancies playing the game, I made this for/with my kids: https://jawj.github.io/fliptiles (The ‘AI’ player is very weak)

Impressive! I used to play this all the time as a kid but I kinda forgot it existed for a while, so this was fun :) I scored 31 against the computer's 33 :/

Likewise! My daughter played it at a friend’s house and enjoyed it, which is what reminded me and prompted me to make this.

Re: Othello Is Solved?

#219

Post by jholloway7 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #89

This is cool. I solved a simpler game about 15 years ago that my brother and I used to play: an African game with about 10 pits on each side of the board that hold stones. I coded up an alpha-beta engine for it, and discovered crazy always win strategies to match how my brother and I played. Suddenly I would win all the games, and then he never wanted to play again. This was a classic match up of a computer scientist…

Now that you mention it, this might be why my family stopped playing Rack-O with me

Re: Othello Is Solved?

#220

Post by nemo44x »

weatherlight wrote: post #179
jonahx wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They play very fast. It can become more like poker, where deceit is a part of the game. If you spam down your stones fast enough sometimes you can skip a bowl, or drop an extra stone, in order to gain advantage. What you describe is just a talent at cheating, and I assume against the rules of the game. In poker, bluffing is an explicit part of the game allowed by the rules. I wouldn't even call it "deceit" in that…

Sometimes there's an implicit its only cheating if you get caught.

If you’re not cheating you’re not trying.
Post reply on HN