[Computer-go] Computer Go and EGC 2012

Thu Jan 19 08:53:58 PST 2012

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 11:36 AM, terry mcintyre <terrymcintyre at yahoo.com>wrote:

> I took lessons from a Korean pro, Myungwan Kim; one of which was an
> analysis of choices made in yose, which was solidly based upon a
> probabilistic model of expected gains. Don't underestimate the mathematical
> skills of Go professionals.
>

Of course.  It's understood that Go professionals are probably fairly
intelligent in more aspects of life than just Go.

But even if they possess math skills it may not be that big a factor.
Risk aversion is a psychological factor which is difficult if not
impossible to quantify as it deals with the deep dark recesses of the human
mind, life experiences and fears that we cannot fully understand.

I would suggest that if my suggestion is used you give the target pro a
quick rationale for what was done and not a math lesson.   Probably most
pro's will immediately understand, either intuitively or logically.    They
should know why the payoff schedule is as it is anyway.

As I have posted here before,  I have found that in computer chess you
overcome risk averseness quite easily with a small payoff.   At the point
in time that most players were starting to become afraid to play the
computer,  even a trivial amount of hard cash would change their minds,
 even when there was no cash for losing.   (At the time I used $5 for a
draw,  $10 for a win.)    But with a small amount just for playing the game
you can take most of the "perceived" risk out of it - at least from their
perspective.     To most of us going home with a little is a whole order of
magnitude different than going home with nothing.

Don

>
> Terry McIntyre <terrymcintyre at yahoo.com>
>
> Unix/Linux Systems Administration
> Taking time to do it right saves having to do it twice.
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* Don Dailey <dailey.don at gmail.com>
> *To:* computer-go at dvandva.org
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 19, 2012 11:23 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Computer-go] Computer Go and EGC 2012
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 10:27 AM, John Tromp <john.tromp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 9:59 AM, "Ingo Althöfer" <3-Hirn-Verlag at gmx.de>
> wrote:
>
> > What I mean is the following:
> > The human player (in 19x19) determines how many handicap stones he gives
> > to the bot (either 2 or 3 or 4 or 5).
> >
> > When he selects a difficult task (=giving high handicap) he gets high
> > reward in case of a win. When he selects a more easy task (= giving low
> > handicap) he gets only small reward in case of success. So, the list
> > from the original posting (300 Euro bonus in case of a win at 5 handicap
> > stones) is what I mean.
> >
> > By giving him this choice under the reward system, I want to learn
> > what this special person thinks about his/her chances.
>
> Considering that the smallest handicap at which computers have beaten pros
> is 5 or 6, few pros would want the embarrassment of choosing less.
> Being the first pro to lose a 4 handicap game is not a particularly
> attractive prospect:-(
>
> I expect they will blindly go with the 6 handicap option, mostly due
> to professional pride,
> but also because of the higher reward and  because there is less
> embarrassment
> (even if a higher chance of) losing at the higher handicap.
>
>
>
> Of course this can be influenced by the incentive,  right?     I think if
> a pro were offered a million dollars to beat the computer with a handicap
> that only gives him a 10% chance of winning he would take it over a sure
> win that only returned $50.
>
> The expectation of winning for each stone handicap should be computed and
> the incentive for the human should be chosen to make it more attractive to
> play the higher handicap matches.      This should be clearly explained to
> the pro before proceeding so that he understands that the higher stone
> handicap is a better bargain but the lower handicap is a more certain
> payoff.
>
> Unfortunately I think you point still holds unless the pro thinks like a
> scientist or mathematician.    There is a factor called "risk aversion"
> which is a psychological concept and is different for each person.     It
> says that people tend to reject a clear bargain if it has a less certain
> likelihood of payoff.     In this case their investment is not monetary but
> in the form of embarrassment and pain,  thus they are likely to be
> extremely "risk averse" as you intuit here.
>
> But I have a solution that should change the players
> thinking significantly and cause him to make a slightly better decision.
>  The first step of course is to make it a bargain to play higher handicap
> matches.       The SECOND stage of the solution is to offer him different
> incentives for losing.      You can make this a "game"  in which his risk
> aversiveness (is that word?)  is a minor factor if he always comes away
> with something.      He should get more money for losing a high handicap
> match but still not enough that it is better to lose a high handicap match
> than win a low handicap match.
>
> Here is an example which may say something about your own risk averseness
> for anyone who has not heard of this concept.     You could also add an
> additional zero the monetary amounts in this example to see if you would
> change as this increases the risk:
>
> Which would you pay $10 for - if given only these 2 choices?  :
>
>    1.   1 out 2 chance of getting $100.00
>
>    2.   1 out of 2000 chance of getting $100,000
>
> Both would be a bargain,  because each are worth exactly $50 and you are
> asked only to pay $10.     Some people are so risk averse they would not
> pay $10  for a 50/50 chance of winning $100.00  simply because they fear
> losing $10.    However most people would immediately see this a bargain or
> opportunity.
>
> If you choose option 1 you have an excellent chance (50/50)  of going home
> $90 richer.   If you choose option 2 you will almost certainly go home $10
> poorer, but if you win you win really big.     Many people don't like the
> idea of taking a chance and losing $10 (this depends of course on their
> personality and their income) and are likely to choose option 1.      Many
> would see option 2 as stupidity, a way to give away $10 even though it's
> actually a bargain.
>
> The fact is however that both these options have equal value, an
> expectancy of $50.     In other words if you played this game every day of
> your life you could expect to average about $40 per day  on average to have
> a $40 a day extra income on average or about 1 million dollars over a 70
> year lifetime.     The second option is more granular and you might end up
> with substantially more than 1 million dollars or substantially less than 1
> million after your 70 years.      Which would you choose if you had to play
> this game every day?    Would you go for the very steady stream of income
> or the big 100,000 payday which you might only see a few times in your
> lifetime?    The second choice gives you a chance to do much better but
> risks doing much worse over a lifetime.
>
> Don
>
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