Number of legal 18x18 Go positions computed. One more to go • Hacker News Board

Re: Number of legal 18x18 Go positions computed. One more to go

#71

Post by antmldr » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 8:26 AM UTC

kazagistar wrote: post #55

darkmighty wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Dota for example the false complexity is what allows someone with not so great analytical thinking but great knowledge of the complexity (items and hero combinations) to fare pretty well. It helps level the field. Although comparing go to RTS is extremely misleading. RTS's have pretty deep of what I call 'continuous tactics' where you need to plan an optimal control of your character with a continuum rather than d…

I didn't get the counter strike example. It is an example of a non-obvious mechanic, but I didn't see where the "rich strategy" was coming from.

In a single round, perhaps not. In a best of 30 rounds on three different maps with asymmetrical teams and a team economy, you can see the elements of what the original comment was talking about, "interesting risk/reward and provoking you opponent to overextending type stuff."

If you haven't seen a Counter-Strike game played competitively, this weekend a "Major" tournament is being played in Katowice[0]. It's well worth watching a match to get a glimpse of the mechanics. It might also be fun.

[0] http://www.esl-one.com/csgo/katowice-2015/

Re: Number of legal 18x18 Go positions computed. One more to go

#72

Post by dmichulke » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 8:26 AM UTC

darkmighty wrote: post #27

everyone wrote: post #11

Anyone here play? It is pretty much the ultimate boardgame. Its like game-theory the game. From the very start you are embroiled in interesting risk/reward and provoking you opponent to overextending type stuff. Great place to play is gokgs.com I actually cant play many strategy games anymore because I realize this is like go with a load of crap thrown on it. My friend and I call this 'false complexity' the game isnt…

In Dota for example the false complexity is what allows someone with not so great analytical thinking but great knowledge of the complexity (items and hero combinations) to fare pretty well. It helps level the field. Although comparing go to RTS is extremely misleading. RTS's have pretty deep of what I call 'continuous tactics' where you need to plan an optimal control of your character with a continuum rather than d…

For a number of years, the common belief was that RTS Go = Starcraft Broodwar, especially in Asia.

You can maintain this belief until today if you measure "minimality/essentiality" by size (in MB).

Most probably there are other games out there that are even more minimalistic but for sure they're less popular and less known. You could make a case for DF (although there is no MP) or even C&C1 (just ignore the balance issues).

Re: Number of legal 18x18 Go positions computed. One more to go

#73

Post by Argorak » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 8:45 AM UTC

darkmighty wrote: post #27

everyone wrote: post #11

Anyone here play? It is pretty much the ultimate boardgame. Its like game-theory the game. From the very start you are embroiled in interesting risk/reward and provoking you opponent to overextending type stuff. Great place to play is gokgs.com I actually cant play many strategy games anymore because I realize this is like go with a load of crap thrown on it. My friend and I call this 'false complexity' the game isnt…

In Dota for example the false complexity is what allows someone with not so great analytical thinking but great knowledge of the complexity (items and hero combinations) to fare pretty well. It helps level the field. Although comparing go to RTS is extremely misleading. RTS's have pretty deep of what I call 'continuous tactics' where you need to plan an optimal control of your character with a continuum rather than d…

I'm not sure that kind of mechanical parts level the field. I'm terribly bad at learning repeatable, dumb, tasks - like checking your base at the beginning of SC2 for stray drones. For me, it's the lamest gameplay decision not to have the base fully covered with visibility at the beginning. It favors a different kind of player.

I'm playing a lot of CoH because it cuts all the base building ceremony down to minimum.

Re: Number of legal 18x18 Go positions computed. One more to go

#74

Post by hemmer » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 8:58 AM UTC

I wonder if this sort of thing might be appropriate for grid computing, e.g. BOINC? There are plenty of mathematically minded projects.

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

Re: Number of legal 18x18 Go positions computed. One more to go

#75

Post by Houshalter » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 8:59 AM UTC

For fun I did a search for approximations to the function with Eureqa. I get exp(0.0319x(naturalLogOfLastValue) + 1.056xn^2 - 0.184).

Some other approximations here: http://i.imgur.com/w84aPWs.png?1

Note they are all in the log domain.

Re: Number of legal 18x18 Go positions computed. One more to go

#76

Post by anewhnaccount » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:24 AM UTC

darkmighty wrote: post #27

everyone wrote: post #11

Anyone here play? It is pretty much the ultimate boardgame. Its like game-theory the game. From the very start you are embroiled in interesting risk/reward and provoking you opponent to overextending type stuff. Great place to play is gokgs.com I actually cant play many strategy games anymore because I realize this is like go with a load of crap thrown on it. My friend and I call this 'false complexity' the game isnt…

In Dota for example the false complexity is what allows someone with not so great analytical thinking but great knowledge of the complexity (items and hero combinations) to fare pretty well. It helps level the field. Although comparing go to RTS is extremely misleading. RTS's have pretty deep of what I call 'continuous tactics' where you need to plan an optimal control of your character with a continuum rather than d…

It doesn't have the richness of Go but I believe https://www.gnu.org/software/liquidwar6/ captures the essence of the "action/micro" side of RTSs.

Re: Number of legal 18x18 Go positions computed. One more to go

#77

Post by BSousa » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:36 AM UTC

pathikrit wrote: post #60

I want to learn Go. I would like to practice against a bot first before I get on KGS. What is a good Go program I can run on my Mac to practice against? The AI does not need to be very good at all since I am novice. Once I get familiar with rules, I will play online against players. What is a good Go client to play online on the Mac?

Not the answer you are looking for, but get on KGS even if you are a novice. There are many folks starting out as well, and you can always play more advanced players there and ask for teaching games.

I don't have much time now to play, but was around 4-5k in KGS and like me, there are always a bunch of folks ready to play with you while explaining the rules/strategy.

Re: Number of legal 18x18 Go positions computed. One more to go

#78

Post by b3n » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:58 AM UTC

cevn wrote: post #53

e12e wrote: post #51

I don't understand this quote: "[determining the number of valid positions is] sadly unattainable for Chess, where determining if a given position is legal is the essence of a class problems known as Retrograde analysis.". Is this due to some subtle distinction between valid moves/games and positions? Because since the starting position is given, and the rules are set, surely it's possible (in theory) to simply emula…

It seems that in chess, the (current) "best" way to figure out whether a move was legal is through retrograde analysis (1). As you can imagine, this becomes very expensive, very fast. Not only that, but the current position may be legal in chess given some previous conditions, but illegal given others (consider Castling). Therefore, given no extra information, you may not be able to tell whether a given chessboard is…

I'm not sure what ruleset OP is using for their analysis, but with superko in place you would also need the entire history of the board to know if a move is valid.

Re: Number of legal 18x18 Go positions computed. One more to go

#79

Post by nsajko » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 10:26 AM UTC

anewhnaccount wrote: post #76

darkmighty wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Dota for example the false complexity is what allows someone with not so great analytical thinking but great knowledge of the complexity (items and hero combinations) to fare pretty well. It helps level the field. Although comparing go to RTS is extremely misleading. RTS's have pretty deep of what I call 'continuous tactics' where you need to plan an optimal control of your character with a continuum rather than d…

It doesn't have the richness of Go but I believe https://www.gnu.org/software/liquidwar6/ captures the essence of the "action/micro" side of RTSs.

I prefer the old http://www.ufoot.org/liquidwar/v5 .

Re: Number of legal 18x18 Go positions computed. One more to go

#80

Post by crispweed » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 10:56 AM UTC

tlarkworthy wrote: post #25

DavidSJ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rotation and mirroring only buy you a factor of 8, and that's for positions that aren't already symmetric.

exactly, spatial symmetries occupy a vanishingly small proportion of the state space that its not worth the added complexity and runtime cost (unlike the color symmetry).

Well no, they occupy around 7/8 of the state space (if the symmetries buy you a factor of 8). But I guess the point is that the state space is so large that the factor of 8 still doesn't do a lot to make things tractable..