On a semi-unrelated note, is there a decent English-speaking online Go community anywhere? I would like to try my hand at playing but I can't find anything along the lines of FICS, or even a decent-looking client for Android.
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Crazy Stone computer Go program defeats Ishida Yoshio 9 dan with 4 stones
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Re: Crazy Stone computer Go program defeats Ishida Yoshio 9 dan with 4 stones
#12A note from near the bottom: For the benefit of readers who aren’t necessarily Go players, a four stone handicap means that black (the computer) was allowed to place four stones on the board before white (Ishida) made any moves. This may sound like a lot but, while it is a significant handicap, it’s not really as big as it sounds.
Would it be accurate to say those 4 stones are about equivalent to one pawn in chess?
As a back-of-the-envelope calculation, one pawn is 1/43 of your starting material in chess if the king is included as a four-point fighting piece. Four stones in Go comes to 1/45 of your expected endgame material as half of a 19x19 board.
Re: Crazy Stone computer Go program defeats Ishida Yoshio 9 dan with 4 stones
#13Wow, I was not aware that Go programs had gotten this good. That is excellent news. No a bunch of new papers to add to my list to read.
Re: Crazy Stone computer Go program defeats Ishida Yoshio 9 dan with 4 stones
#14Wow, I was not aware that Go programs had gotten this good. That is excellent news. No a bunch of new papers to add to my list to read.
Crazy Stone got 4 stones handicap, I think. It wasn't a level playing field yet.
Re: Crazy Stone computer Go program defeats Ishida Yoshio 9 dan with 4 stones
#15A note from near the bottom: For the benefit of readers who aren’t necessarily Go players, a four stone handicap means that black (the computer) was allowed to place four stones on the board before white (Ishida) made any moves. This may sound like a lot but, while it is a significant handicap, it’s not really as big as it sounds.
Would it be accurate to say those 4 stones are about equivalent to one pawn in chess? As a back-of-the-envelope calculation, one pawn is 1/43 of your starting material in chess if the king is included as a four-point fighting piece. Four stones in Go comes to 1/45 of your expected endgame material as half of a 19x19 board.
strength difference between pro 1 dan and pro 9 dan is only about 2 stones
Re: Crazy Stone computer Go program defeats Ishida Yoshio 9 dan with 4 stones
#16This news is about exactly one year old. Is there another game coming? (Edit: I found the 7th game here: http://jsb.cs.uec.ac.jp/~igo/eng/, it has passed, but I can't find the result.)
Re: Crazy Stone computer Go program defeats Ishida Yoshio 9 dan with 4 stones
#17A note from near the bottom: For the benefit of readers who aren’t necessarily Go players, a four stone handicap means that black (the computer) was allowed to place four stones on the board before white (Ishida) made any moves. This may sound like a lot but, while it is a significant handicap, it’s not really as big as it sounds.
Would it be accurate to say those 4 stones are about equivalent to one pawn in chess? As a back-of-the-envelope calculation, one pawn is 1/43 of your starting material in chess if the king is included as a four-point fighting piece. Four stones in Go comes to 1/45 of your expected endgame material as half of a 19x19 board.
It's hard to make a comparison like that because Go and Chess operate on fundamentally different models. Chess is about capturing a specific piece and putting your opponent in a position where they have no options but to lose; to that end, it's a war of attrition where players slowly lose resources until the game is over (note that I do not play chess at any significant level).
In contrast, Go is about capturing territory by fencing it in. Placing four stones on the board is like placing four free fenceposts; you can't really call it a tangible resource like a pawn, but it gives you more of a structure and gives you some influence over the rest of the board.
It's possible to remove resources from your opponent in go, since you can surround pieces and capture them. But it's not really an attrition thing like in chess; it's more about territory and control.
Trying to make it a numbers game and saying "four stones is 1/45 of your expected endgame material" isn't really relevant to go, because the position of the stones matters so much more than the number. If you have four more pawns than your opponent in a game of chess, that's pretty clearly an advantage; if you have four stones in a totally useless area of the board, or four stones in a really useless configuration, then they're not helpful at all.
Re: Crazy Stone computer Go program defeats Ishida Yoshio 9 dan with 4 stones
#18On a semi-unrelated note, is there a decent English-speaking online Go community anywhere? I would like to try my hand at playing but I can't find anything along the lines of FICS, or even a decent-looking client for Android.
www.gokgs.com is the server that's probably biggest in the English speaking world. The desktop client is Java based, there is an Android client, and we're waiting for an HTML client (it's in closed Alpha). There are several other servers that cater more to Asian players, but you can certainly play on them. There is also online-go.com, which is web-based. It has real-time games, but the majority of games on the server…
Didn't know you were in HN :D Hi!
Re: Crazy Stone computer Go program defeats Ishida Yoshio 9 dan with 4 stones
#19Wow, I was not aware that Go programs had gotten this good. That is excellent news. No a bunch of new papers to add to my list to read.
Crazy Stone got 4 stones handicap, I think. It wasn't a level playing field yet.
That's still significant progress in the past five years. 2009 was the first time AIs were able to reach dan level ranks on a 19x19 board. Crazy Stone is approximately 6 dan now.
Re: Crazy Stone computer Go program defeats Ishida Yoshio 9 dan with 4 stones
#20To put in more westernized chess terms, this would be like beating a 2100Elo master without bishops. Yoshio is a professional and very skilled, but he hasn't won a major tourniquet since 1989. Really not an achievement, its nice to see Computer Go advancing.
A 4 stone handicap between master's is massive. The difference between a 9d (dan) and 1d isn't actually 8 stones. With an 8 stone handicap a 1d will play a 9d off the board (provided both are profession dans not amateur). Source http://www.amazon.com/Kages-Secret-Chronicles-Handicap-Go/dp...
Generally I would say that this should put it around US 2-4d (for US Go Association, or KGS online). Maybe 2k-1d in professional amateur circles. I doubt it work warrant a 1-3p 'professional ranking'.