That behavior will be true for almost all MCTS based programs. It also happens to be the super rational way to play go since there is no bonus for winning by more than 0.5 point and no consolation for losing "but at least it was close". As long as these programs simply counts wins vs losses ignoring by what margin in searching out the line with the highest winning percentage, this is how they will play.

BTW -- you must not turn off "allowed to resign" if that is an option when the program is MCTS. If the game ever becomes hopeless the algorithm will make ridiculous moves if forced to move. Having the computer resign instead of playing to the end is mainly an irritaion for beginners but no MCTS program is weak enough to be an opponet for beginners even at a 9 stone handicap.

Because this is a case of a "free software" application that is not distributed by its developers as an executable we need to discuss its cost differently. Let's call it for the moment undefined/unkown. People who can compile their own code can get it for free. For "end users" it costs whatever it takes to get somebody to compile it for them which could be anything from thank you to a decent bottle of wine, etc. Probably, if there were enough interest, somebody would step forward and make executables available (along with the source code; that's a license requirement for "free software") for nominal charge if not free. The point being (a major concept of "free software") that they could not charge excessively for this service or somebody else would undercut them. I'm just guessing, but say $10 might be about right (including packaging and shipping).

At least if you're on windows, there is a pre-packaged executable with GoGui here on the Fuego project site.

I was going by what Emeraldemon who had just reviewed the program said. It is not uncommon that free software projects refuse to make for MS operating systems (politics). In fact there is at least one free software project where that is what they do (provide a wide range of free apps for installation under MS all in one place*). However this refusal to recognize reality (see, my politics showing) has diminished the last few years and more and more projects provide run execs for Windows.

BTW -- besides initially posting reviews this forum topic would be a good place to post changes of this sort.


* "vetted" apps they consider ready for the real world, adequately stable versions, etc. The sort of thing that many "end users" can't seem to understand. I am on a number of support lists for some of these apps and you would be amazed at the number of users reporting problems not understanding that as users they should never have installed a beta or even worse, an alpha version!

Nope. We should report on how we see the programs behave at the user level. You gave an example of that. I was referring to speculation about what details of implementation might be responsible the behavior. As to the degree professionalism required to comment on that, well there are program design/coding issues that novices and hobbyists can understand and some that would challenge even most folks making their living in the cypher mines. This is one of the latter, a tough one even for the pros. Why do I say that? A little unfair advantage on my part. See, all the players in this game (those trying to write implementations) have access to the academic papers behind the algorithm. Nevertheless, even one of the people who was a leader in the race before the MCTS algorithm came along has failed to get his implementation of a MCTS version strong enough, fast enough. I know because I did volunteer beta testing for him and had to tell him "you are at least 2-3 stones behind". Part of that might be at the algorithm tweaking level (where to prune, etc.) but part is probably elegance in choice of data structures and method.

My "line of country" (though not with game playing software). Many were the times I ended up having to rewrite a program (designed and written by another pro) and sometimes managed almost two magnitudes improvement in performance (same language, just different design and coding). It is very hard to teach this (given this problem, how to recognize what are the data structures and algorithms that make an elegant/efficient solution possible). BTW, this does affect my attitudes about what is reasonable or unreasonable in terms of the price of software. In other words, I know what I expected to get paid per hour of this level of work.

I heard that almost all monte-carlo programs are set to play more aggressive and a little bit greedy, so that the game will not be come boring by computer winning 0.5 point. Weaker but funnier!

Misconception?

The MCTS programs aren't set to play in some particular way. The "choose the next move" evaluator isn't some kind of go knowledged based artificial intelligence. Leaving aside a great many important details (and the devil is in the details) the idea is that the computer is trying a large number of (semi) random games from each of the possibilites and then making the move which had the highest percentage of wins.

Think of it this way. If from a given position, with move A there is a higher percentage of wins than with move B when two very strong players (euqally storng) try 10,000 games we would conclude that move A was better than move B. Well how about if two very weak players tried those 10,000 games as long as they were equally weak.

Mike: Are the academic papers you refer to about Go and MCTS or just MCTS? If the former, could you post a link to some?

Do you know: Are some sort of "local tsumego reading" modules implemented in such programs as well? How does that interface with the MCTS?

Sorry for gumming up your reviews thread!

The former, but I'm not sure what help you need in finding the academic papers. Keep in mind that several of these programs are essentially academic projects even if now offering a commercial version.

For a starting point, go to the Crazy Stone main site. Or since it was his initial paper that started this, just look for papers by Rémi Coulom. Look at the other sites of the programs that were initially academic projects. And once you have identified the journals where these sorts of papers are being published you can search those for the topic.