[Computer-go] Beating old ManyFaces at 29 handicap stones

[David Fotland]

I don’t want to compete in this contest.  Even if I were interested, the
conflict of interest is too clear.

The archived source I found is the version I took to the US Go Congress in
1998.  It was stable enough that I released it in IgoWin (9x9 only).  I
remember that Martin played Igowin then and went through all of its levels
without losing a game.

Later that year a slightly modified version won the World Computer Go
championship, so its strength was state of the art for the time.

The algorithm was a highly pruned one ply full board search (typically
looking at 10 to 30 moves), followed by an alpha-beta quiescence search.
The evaluation function estimated the score and returned the move that led
to the best score.  The top level pruning was done with a pattern database
and many rules related to group attack and group safety.  The quiescence
search tried to stabilize all groups to get an accurate score estimate.  The
evaluation function did local tactical search for all strings with 3 or
fewer liberties, and some four liberty strings.  It evaluated eyes of all
shapes and sizes, with some local reading, and determined group strength
using features such as eyes, ability to run,  nearby weak enemy groups, etc.
There was so much local search in the evaluation function that it only
evaluated about 5 to 10 positions a second on the hardware of the time.

I should be able to get it on KGS this weekend so it can get a rating.  I
expect it will be around KGS 12 kyu.

regards,

David

> -----Original Message-----
> From: computer-go-bounces at dvandva.org [mailto:computer-go-
> bounces at dvandva.org] On Behalf Of "Ingo Althöfer"
> Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 8:46 AM
> To: computer-go at dvandva.org
> Subject: Re: [Computer-go] Beating old ManyFaces at 29 handicap stones
> 
> Petr Baudis <pasky at ucw.cz>:
> > Ingo Althofer wrote:
> > > David Fotland is willing to provide the old bot - also for sparring
> > > sessions on KGS.
> >
> >   Will David also try to compete? :-)
> 
> Serious point. I did not have that in mind.
> 
> In principle I would allow him to participate - as long as
> he does not exploit the exact structure of the "pseudo-random"
> generator within MF.
> Knowing David for several years now as an honorable man,
> I would believe him when he gives his word on this.
> 
> >   Of course, for experiments it would be neat to have a binary of this
> > version, but maybe that would make the challenge too easy (or prone to
> > overtuning).
> 
> As long as MF would play randomly enough, it would remain a
> difficult task.
> 
> >   Anyway, sounds wonderful, and Martin Mueller's play in that game is
> > quite something. I'm looking forward to giving this challenge to Pachi.
> 
> I think, sophisticated "dynamic komi" will not be enough to achieve the
> level.
> You will need some sort of opponent modelling. But future will show.
> 
> And looking over the fence: When a win at handicap 29 is achieved how much
> further could strong bots go?
> 
> 33?
> or 37?
> or 49?
> 
> Ingo.
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