Crazy Stone computer Go program defeats Ishida Yoshio 9 dan with 4 stones

Post by asynchrony » Wed, Mar 26, 2014, 10:13 PM UTC

valarauca1 wrote: post #22

cruise02 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A four stone handicap in Go is way less than a four piece handicap in chess. Also, Crazy Stone is 6d on KGS.

True I edited it down to just bishops. And KGS is very inflated, a 6d on KGS vs. a 6d international professional wouldn't be contest. The normal conversion I hear is a 3d on KGS is around a 1k on Eastern Servers. Or that's my experience for people who play on KGS and eastern servers. I'm a 4k on KGS, but I know my knowledge is a bit amateur or a South Korean 4k.

Post by CocaKoala » Wed, Mar 26, 2014, 10:17 PM UTC

gcp wrote: post #41

CocaKoala wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 terr…

It's hard to make a comparison like that because Go and Chess operate on fundamentally different models It is very easy. The nature of the game is completely irrelevant. The question is what expectation of winning rate a 4 stone advantage gives to a Go player. For middle ranks, one stone is about 100 ELO-equivalent, or 64% winning rate. (I think it's closer at top dan ranks, would have to look up the statistics). 4 S…

Post by CocaKoala » Wed, Mar 26, 2014, 10:20 PM UTC

billforsternz wrote: post #45

89vision wrote: post #39

confusing title, I was expecting golang

Not confusing at all. Go laid claim to the name hundreds of years ago, and the title made it clear it was the game. If someone invented a computer language called chess and there was an article title "Houdini computer chess program defeats former world champion Garry Kasparov with knight handicap" would you expect it to be about the computer language ?

Post by jmulho » Wed, Mar 26, 2014, 10:32 PM UTC

dfc wrote: post #52

valarauca1 wrote: post #20

To 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 of…

> To put in more westernized chess terms, this would be like beating a > 2100 Elo master without bishops. This sentence is not helpful. A handicap is useless without a basic idea of the skill level of both opponents. Who is playing the 2100 master? My mom who has no chess knowledge, the casual player who knows how the pieces move but has never devoted anytime to study, or someone ranked 1500? |------------+---------+…

Post by jim-greer » Wed, Mar 26, 2014, 10:59 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #50

wtallis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of deterministic games more complex than Go, even turn-based ones. But Go is still a clear outlier due to its age and the simplicity of its rules - it's completely obvious how to enumerate the game tree. Things like a real-time strategy game aren't really a fair comparison, since they are designed to approximate a continuous game space-time as opposed to the discrete board and moves of Go. You can in…

> You can inflate the game tree complexity just by switching from single-precision to double-precision, but that doesn't really make the game any harder. I think that absolutely makes the game significantly harder, just like playing Go on a smaller board is easier than Go on a larger board.