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        Arimaa >> Off Topic Discussion >> let's go !
        
(Message started by: chessandgo on Apr 12^th, 2006, 12:18am)

Title: let's go !
Post by chessandgo on Apr 12^th, 2006, 12:18am

Hi everybody,

I'm new here, but from what I saw only chess and shogi were under discussion.

What about go ? Even if computer programmers have had as much time to think about as for chess, the strongest go program is still very weak : even weaker than I am. Looks far worse than for arimaa, doesn't it ?

Congratulations for the game (and website) designers : it's great !!

Jean

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by PMertens on Apr 12^th, 2006, 3:44am

David Footland is not only the programmer of our current champion "bot_bomb", but also of "many faces of Go", one of the strongest Computer Go opponents in the world.

I do not know if it looks worse, since obviously in the last challenge the arimaa-bot was severely crushed.
(Except for my ruined attempt of a camel-handicap game .... but what would be equal to a camel handicap in go ?)

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 12^th, 2006, 12:52pm

on 04/12/06 at 00:18:01, chessandgo wrote:

What about go ? Even if computer programmers have had as much time to think about as for chess, the strongest go program is still very weak : even weaker than I am. Looks far worse than for arimaa, doesn't it ?

We have touched on this topic in other threads, but not debated it thoroughly. My intuition agrees with yours, but Omar disagrees.

If you simply measure with ratings, there is a perfectly clear case that go is a deeper game than Arimaa, and that humans are further ahead of computers in go than they are in Arimaa. I believe that go has about 30 ranks of human players, and about 14 ranks between the best computer and the best human. A corresponding rank in Arimaa is about 200 rating points, so in the rating range of 1100-2300, we have 6 ranks, and about 2.5 ranks between the best computer and the best human. So go wins in the category of human domination by a margin of 14 to 2.5. (In each case the rank of the computer is determined by play against a human playing "naturally", as opposed to play against a human using anti-bot techniques.)

However, the issue is complicated by the fact that Arimaa is such a new game. We can't possibly know yet how much intrinsic depth there is to Arimaa, because it has been studied by dozens of people over three years rather than by millions of people over hundreds of years. Maybe Arimaa will prove to be so deep that there will eventually be players rated 3500 or more on today's scale, i.e. there are six or more ranks of hidden depth intrinsic to the game. Or maybe we will shortly discover that Arimaa is tapped out, and the best play humans are capable of is about 2500, only one rank beyond what we already know.

To complicate matters further, depth on a human scale does not necessarily equal computer resistance. Chess ratings accommodate about 13 ranks of human players, but apparently Hydra is now carving out a 14th above all the humans.

Not only do we not know what new discoveries humans will make regarding Arimaa strategy, we also do not know how hard those discoveries will be for programmers to encode. The uncertainty around Arimaa is enormous because it is young, there are only a few bot developers, and there are only a few human players.

I'm a conservative investor. If I had to bet whether Arimaa or go would hold out longer against the silicon monsters, I would put all my money on go in a heartbeat. We know go is extremely deep, and we know it is computer-resistant, and we have some plausible theories why. I guess that the same things are true of Arimaa, but on the basis of much less evidence.

Quote:

Congratulations for the game (and website) designers : it's great !!

Yes, all praise to Omar on both counts. And beyond that, he has my admiration for putting up the Challenge Prize. Omar is apparently not a conservative bettor: he's putting quite a bit of money on Arimaa being computer-resistant. This sort of confidence is a great promoter of the game; I doubt I would have encountered Arimaa otherwise.

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 12^th, 2006, 1:23pm

on 04/12/06 at 03:44:42, PMertens wrote:

(Except for my ruined attempt of a camel-handicap game .... but what would be equal to a camel handicap in go ?)

Go has a much nicer handicapping system than Arimaa in terms of a number of pre-placed stones for the weaker player. I guess that a camel handicap in Arimaa might be equivalent to a five-stone handicap in go. However, top go players can crush top computer players with a nine-stone handicap, the highest standard handicap allowed. Indeed, I understand top humans have won over bots at a twenty-five stone handicap, somewhat akin to an Arimaa handicap of MHHDDCCRRRR. (Come to think of it, I recall that 99of9 once beat ShallowBlue with only a horse and two rabbits.)

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by chessandgo on Apr 12^th, 2006, 7:54pm

hehe ... A Horse and two rabbits ??? Congratulations :)
shallow blue should be looking very deep ;)
It's only a guess, but I think that further juman understanding also lead to a slightly weaker computer's improvement, whatever the game. So i guess computer will forever stay as bad at go as they now are ... Arimaa bots might be luckyier ;)

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by 99of9 on Apr 12^th, 2006, 8:21pm

on 04/12/06 at 19:54:33, chessandgo wrote:

hehe ... A Horse and two rabbits ??? Congratulations :)
shallow blue should be looking very deep ;)

Thankyou. Here's a link to the game if you're interested:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/showGame.cgi?gid=9391&s=b

You are right that shallowblue does not look very deep. In fact it only looks 4 steps ahead... it's own steps, so does not consider the opponent's reply at all.

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 13^th, 2006, 7:03am

Wait, I thought Arimaalon was the four-step version of ShallowBlue. Isn't ShallowBlue even shallower than that?

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by 99of9 on Apr 13^th, 2006, 5:21pm

Arimaalon is 6 steps as far as i recall.

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by omar on Apr 14^th, 2006, 12:15am

Yes, bot_Arimaalon searches 6 steps. bot_ShallowBlue searches 4 steps and bot_Arimaazilla searches 8 steps.

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by IdahoEv on Apr 14^th, 2006, 3:12am

on 04/14/06 at 00:15:50, omar wrote:

Yes, bot_Arimaalon searches 6 steps. bot_ShallowBlue searches 4 steps and bot_Arimaazilla searches 8 steps.

They are otherwise the same algorithm? Remarkably how differently they play.

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by aaaa on Aug 11^th, 2008, 10:16pm

I have tried to get into Go on several occasions, but I just could never get that "aha" moment that should signify the moment one leaves the beginner stage. Chess and Arimaa have the advantage that one at least starts out with an inkling of an idea of how one should go about playing the game, as capturing enemy pieces immediately presents itself as an obvious subgoal towards eventual victory.

Undoubtedly the game of Go must be very rewarding to play but having both the motivation and the acuity to overcome that first hurdle aren't something everybody possesses.

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by omar on Aug 21^st, 2008, 2:05pm

I too feel like I am taking shots in the dark when playing Go. But I also have not read much Go literature on strategy and tactics.

Title: Re: let's go !
Post by pallab on Dec 26^th, 2008, 4:50am

I respect go players, but I feel similar and it is difficult to device a strategy to begin with.