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

[Michael Alford]

On 1/27/12 8:39 AM, "Ingo Althöfer" wrote:

> Hello Michael,

Hello Ingo

>> Just fyi, when I attended the WYGC in Richmond BC, Canada in 2004, the
>> kids were doing this,
>
> Uhh. "The kids", were that "normal" Canadian kids or super-intelligent
> ones with Asian roots?

The WYGC is open to all. Many top pros today played in it when they were 
children (http://senseis.xmp.net/?WYGC). And while Gu Lingyi played in 
it that year as 3p, and China also had an 11 year old 1p in the lower 
division, Ilya Shikshin and Ondrej Silt were two of the non-Asians that 
played that year, there were others, but, yes, mostly Asian :)

>
>> they had a contest going, they were giving MF 26
>> stones but the time was 1-3, and they were racing to see who defeated
>> the program first.
>
> Unbelievable. Who had chosen the "26" parameter?
> Are there any records (sgf) from those games?

The 26 stone handicap was something they decided on among themselves. I 
doubt there are any kifu of those games, this contest was something they 
did to amuse themselves between rounds of the WYGC. It was obvious they 
were having a lot of fun with it.

>
>> I am not sure how much of a factor the fast time was,
>> nor how much stronger MF was in 2004 than in 1998.
>
> At least, it might have been the commercial MF-11.0.
>
> Ingo.

Michael

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