[Computer-go] Are 4 'easy to avoid errors' common to all MC programs?

[Petr Baudis]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 09:51:49AM -0500, Don Dailey wrote:
> One idea I had and never tested in any kind of thorough way is to
> incorporate the actual final score into the least significant bits of the
> win/loss tally.    For example in 9x9 one could consider the game a zero sum
> game where 10000 points are at stake and the most you can get is 10000
> points for a win by 81 points.     So if the loser hangs on to a little bit
> of territory he would still get a small amount of credit for a fraction of a
> win.   However,  I believe the credit should be quite small for territory.
>  The little bits should be small enough that it would take a lot of them to
> equal a game,  but this could be tuned to whatever works best.
> 
> Has this idea ever been fleshed out well?

Yes, just recently I mentioned implementing this in Pachi. 0.00 to 0.04
and 0.96 to 1.00, respectively, are the ranges for losses/wins, with
the score difference (up to some upper bound) linearly encoded in these
ranges. I also tried some variations (range size, non-linar encoding,
none/different bounding), this came out as the best.

It is very long since I implemented and benchmarked this so I do not
really remember the gain, just that it is noticeable, but still small.

-- 
				Petr "Pasky" Baudis
Computer science education cannot make an expert programmer any more
than studying brushes and pigment can make an expert painter. --esr