[Computer-go] Computer Go and EGC 2012

[Don Dailey]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 1:02 PM, Stefan Kaitschick <
stefan.kaitschick at hamburg.de> wrote:

> I'm with John on this one.
> Professional pride will prevail.
> 300$ won't make a pros knees go weak.
> Much worse would be the slim chance to lose a low handicap game.
> Zen will have to beat a series of pros with 5 stones, before any of
> them will consider going down to 4.
> And 2 or 3 stones don't really need to be on the menu at this point.
> As for Dons risk/reward example: the best way to look at this is as a
> bankroll management problem.
> It turns out that bankroll utility is logarithmic.(see kelly staking).
> So the bet with the lower deviation is actually better in a rational sense.
>

It's impossible to know in advance how much "value" a pro assigns to
professional pride and it will have a lot to do with his humility, ego and
other factors.   If the money is not enough to excite him then of course
profession pride is going to be an overwhelming factor.

I'm not totally convinced that professional pride can always be equated to
cowardice either.    This might depend much on the personality of the
player himself,  but a win with a high handicap is far more impressive than
a win with a low handicap.       So how do you think professional pride
comes into the picture when a pro is faced with press that says he
was offered the chance to play at a higher handicap with more money,  but
did not feel he was strong enough to prevail?      It's probably possible
to word this in a non-offensive way,  perhaps by how the match itself is
packaged  - it could be packaged as a dare - how much does
the professional believe in himself?     What is the highest handicap the
professional is willing to accept?    Make this dare a prominent and
integral part of the billing.

Having said all of that I don't think letting the player pick his own
handicap is that good an idea.    Perhaps better is if you can get him to
agree to a longer match and raise and lower the handicap after each game
depending on the results.    Start with something he will likely win such
as 3 or 4 stones and bump it up after each game.    When the player loses
you could play a second game and stop the match as soon as the computer
wins 2 games in a row at some high handicap.


Don




>
> Stefan
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