For your current strength, I would recommend Igowin HD. It plays much more gently at above SDK levels. Not weaker, just more friendly in the sense that its style is more human-like and closer to what you'll see when you play against other advanced beginners on KGS. It just plays less like a MC bot and you're likely to have more fun that way. (It just has the same awful stone clicking sounds as MFoG.)



The CrazyStone bot was rated on KGS last year in spring or summer, wasn't it? I loved watching those games. Would be awesome if the bot returned. If not on KGS, perhaps on Kaya.gs where there seems to be less unnecessary bureaucracy.

I believe that even for a cluster it is difficult to scale beyond a few machines.

Rémi

Crazy Stone just played one game on KGS against Catalin Taranu (5p) at 4 stones. There will be another game tomorrow at 4pm German time. These are demonstration games at the European Go Congress:


Rémi

Congratulations, Remi, looks like CS did really well!

Would you happen to know if the purchase of the 2012 version includes future updates? Or will the software have to be bought again when a new major version is released? I'm asking because I just saw that the 2012 version now comes with an analyse mode, but at $80 it's relatively pricey if it doesn't come with an upgrade option.

Unbalance is in charge of selling the program, and I don't wish to speak for them. This being said, they usually don't offer an upgrade option.

Rémi

The sort of thing that makes it so hard for us to compare prices (remember folks, when writing reviews, include details like that and the terms of the license (for one install, for multiple computers, etc.)

Rémi, that game just played. What was the hardware? Not just how many total cores but what chips.

Never mind, just saw it in the game comments.

Interesting, for some reason I was picturing something even more powerful (in terms of total crunch).

From ~move 90:

Sorry, the game will be at 6pm.

Rémi

Will it get posted here like the last one was?

Catalin won. He made some short comments at the end:

There we go. I think if CS just is about 1d strong on a normal PC I wouldn't want to buy it since it would also analyse just as a 1d wouldn' it?

One way to solve all the discussions would be if CS was able to play as a bot on KGS. Everybody could let play "his" CS on "his" computer at KGS and would know soon its strength. It would be a huge motivational thing if I'd knew my CS is e.g. 2d KGS and I (1k KGS) could beat it maybe 9 out of 10 times (which would make me basically a 2d KGS ). Does anyone know if CS is runable as a bot on KGS?

Describing hardware ......

An i7? An i7 what?

This is a perfect example of information that is at best partially useful. There is something like a 4.5 : 1 ratio in crunch power between the most powerful and least powerful i7's. There is something like a 3 : 1 ratio between the more powerful affordable* i7's and the least powerful ones.

* Not at all out of the question for one of us to have a desktop with say an i7-2600 or 2600k in it.

Thanks Robert.

And I suspect that CS on your machine is probably playing stronger than 2 dan. Significantly more iron there than a typical desktop.

But I disagree somewhat about the "eveness" of the programs. MCTS is not an AI, just works, and is based on probability. For a given effective rating, probably weaker than that rating in the strategic sense but stronger that that rating in tactical fighting. All we can tell from the play of bots against a range of opponents is the effective rating from the results of games. Remember, we all make the same moves as the 9 dan for many moves of the game.