Arimaa Forum - Print Page


    
      
        Arimaa Forum
        (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi)
      

        Arimaa >> Off Topic Discussion >> Big man vs. machine match in Go tomorrow
        
(Message started by: Fritzlein on Mar 20^th, 2014, 10:42am)

Title: Big man vs. machine match in Go tomorrow
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 20^th, 2014, 10:42am

It is really hard to find English language news about this, but tomorrow in Japan a 9dan professional will play against the top Go computers Zen and CrazyStone. (CrazyStone is developed by Remi Coulom, inventor of WHR.) Last year four stones was about the right handicap; I wonder whether that gets cut to three stones this year.

http://entcog.c.ooco.jp/entcog/densei/eng/densei-2nd.html

Title: Re: Big man vs. machine match in Go tomorrow
Post by chessandgo on Mar 20^th, 2014, 5:05pm

Wow, 3 or 4 stones to a 9p? That has to be very close to top amateur already!

Also, I lov ethe "written by Yoshio Ishida". Is it a namesake, or is the guy who writes about the event actually a bigger name than the guy who plays it? :)

Title: Re: Big man vs. machine match in Go tomorrow
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 20^th, 2014, 10:17pm

Well, it is a fast time control, which favors the computer, but yes, I gather that the top programs when running on big clusters are now 6 dan amateur. I would not have predicted the progress would come so fast.

Title: Re: Big man vs. machine match in Go tomorrow
Post by Janzert on Mar 21^st, 2014, 7:48am

Short reports on the outcome of the two games:
2nd Densei sen first game: Crazy Stone wins against Yoda (http://computer-go-adventures.blogspot.ca/2014/03/2nd-densei-sen-first-game-crazy-stone.html)
2nd Densei Sen game 2: Yoda beats Zen (http://computer-go-adventures.blogspot.ca/2014/03/2nd-densei-sen-game-2-yoda-beats-zen.html)

Janzert

Title: Re: Big man vs. machine match in Go tomorrow
Post by hyperpape on Mar 21^st, 2014, 8:59am

Yoda is a pretty big deal too: http://senseis.xmp.net/?YodaNorimoto.

Ishida also played an exhibition match at four stones, and also split his games: http://www.computer-go.info/h-c/index.html.

Title: Re: Big man vs. machine match in Go tomorrow
Post by Arimabuff on Mar 21^st, 2014, 9:58am

Do we know if there's a lot of AI involved (like structure recognition) or if it's just an ingenious way of cutting down the tree of possibilities.

Title: Re: Big man vs. machine match in Go tomorrow
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 21^st, 2014, 1:02pm

Thanks for the link, Janzert. Apparently four stones was the right handicap. It is interesting that both programs lost a significant number of points in the endgame. I am so used to Arimaa bots excelling in the endgame that I forget how chess bots were always weakest in the endgame (up to tablebases) and expect it to be the same for every game. I guess CrazyStone has the excuse of "playing safe" to insure the win, which I can understand based on my Arimaa style, but it sounds like Zen gave away a won game in the endgame.

It would be a huge coup for Arimaa if humans can hold out longer against computers than they do in Go, but the odds of that happening are pretty heavily against us unless we humans start seriously improving at Arimaa.

Title: Re: Big man vs. machine match in Go tomorrow
Post by hyperpape on Mar 21^st, 2014, 6:57pm

Since the top bots use Monte Carlo methods, they will squander points in endgame if they're sufficiently far ahead: playing defensive moves that lose points will look good because there are certain possibilities where those weaknesses are exploited.

In a tight game, bots play very good endgame, though I'm not sure if it's professional level. Endgame is also a flexible concept in Go. It can either mean the early portions, where professionals cannot perfectly calculate to the more settled portions where it's remarkable for them to lose even a point. So whether Zen's endgame performance against Yoda was just a little weak, or rather bad is hard to tell from the report.

Title: Re: Big man vs. machine match in Go tomorrow
Post by omar on Jun 5^th, 2014, 9:40am

Here is an article from Wired magazine that covers this match:

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-world-of-computer-go/

The author had done an hour long phone interview with me and had mentioned Arimaa in the original article. When he emailed me the link to the article he said the editor cut out the Arimaa material.

It's an excellent article with in-depth coverage of the event and lots of background material on computer Go.

Title: Re: Big man vs. machine match in Go tomorrow
Post by christianF on Jun 5^th, 2014, 3:29pm

on 06/05/14 at 09:40:40, omar wrote:

Here is an article from Wired magazine that covers this match:

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-world-of-computer-go/

It's an excellent article with in-depth coverage of the event and lots of background material on computer Go.

Thanks for posting it - I fully agree and I've put the link on our homepage (http://mindsports.nl) under the "On programmability" header.