I focused mainly on taking 3 out of 4 corners and attempting to break out from them. Couldn't do it for all of them, the top right corner got isolated. Tried to take the 4th corner with 3-3 point, just to see if it could be done. Of course it couldn't, due to white simply being too strong at that point. I knew I won anyway but it was close, maybe closer than it needed to be.

Congrats on the win. If you have the time, a few homework problems:

- 234 let you live. Instead of 234, what is the correct move for White ?

- If White did not play 232 or 234, what is the status of your C10 group ?

- Instead of 240 (M19), what happens if White descends to S17 ?

What Ed is saying is that you won because of some very bad mistakes made by the program in life and death situations, failing to kill your groups. Of course you were making the same mistake because you didn't see that your group(s) could be killed.

a) If you bought a MFOG license (can set it to other levels) try increasing the program strength to say 15 kyu and take three stones. Or 12 kyu and take six. It will of course still be making mistakes but hopefully not those typical of your level. When both players are making the same level mistakes it is hard to improve.

b) If you only have the free trial version that plays only 18 kyu you need to face the fact that you have possibly outgrown it. Of course perhaps this game was a fluke, but if you are winning even 1 out of 3 or 4 against a computer program in an even game you need a stronger program (and if winning 1 out of 3 at a particular handicap, adjust by a stone).

If you need a stronger free program, we can advise. But note that when asking for that sort of advice it is good to specify what hardware you will run on (an absolute must once you reach the MCTS programs -- the lower AI levels aren't taxing the machine very much).

Yes, I saw that too. B10 is the move that kills me here, so I was happy White didn't do it. If White never played those, the C10 group remains unsettled, and I can't play A12 because that gives me a dead shape (4 point square).
If White descends to S17, then the T15 vital point can be taken if Black descends from R16. Even if Black does not descend, the Black group will eventually die. One thing Black can try for is to play T17 and hope White, at his skill level, takes the bait so Black can have enough moves to make two eyes, sacrificing a stone in the process: W-S17, B-T17, W-T16, B-T15, W(captures)-T18, B(lives)-S16.
Of course, after that exchange, Black has to descend from Q17, or perhaps can attack from R18? I don't know. Interesting, those two Black groups were in real danger and I didn't really see it (although instinctively I knew I had to attack the R17 stone, just for different reasons).

Good.Good. Since W needs 2 moves to live, locally W is dead shape.Good.Instead of W T16, W turns at S16, then what happens?

I have GNU-Go, and I usually take a 9 stone handicap, and I lose most of the time, which is why I don't like playing against it. And there is no way to adjust the AI level in GNU-Go, at least that I have found. If anyone knows how, any help would be appreciated.
And I am not going to shell out almost 100 dollars for a Registered version of MFoG. Thanks.

Black dies. The only way to save them that I could see was the T17 "baiting" move.

Do you also play online, on servers such as KGS, IGS, Tygem, etc. ?

Yes, I have an account on KGS under the same name. Mostly I just watch high-Dan level games, but I will start playing more often eventually.

GNU-Go has command-line options that allow you to tweak its playing strength.

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnugo/gnugo_3.html#SEC31

I believe most GUI front-ends allow you to somehow specify which command-line options you want. If yours doesn't, get a non-suckful GUI.

_________________
Poka King of the south east.

Tynan perhaps needs more help than that.

a) Using a better GUI that allows supplying command line options is of course one solution.

b) But computer users can be shown how to supply command line options even though they don't ever work at the command line (even though they don't at present understand what they are doing when they click on a shortcut to a program)

Tynan:
1) What operating system are you using? (and folks, we can probably assume "not linux" etc. because in that case probably would know how to supply a command line option).

2) How do you start your gnugo? Is there a shortcut icon that you click on?

Once you have answered those questions we can begin to show you how to add a run time parameter (the command line option)

1) I am more familiar with standard Unix (like FreeBSD) than I ever will be with Linux.

2) Knowing that, I am capable of typing command line options.

Now that that is out of the way, we can get back to business. I am just plain lazy, and don't feel like reading documentation for a list of command line options for something I hardly use anyway. Ever since joining KGS, I am more inclined to use that instead.
But still, since someone here has demonstrated a willingness to tell me what the commands are, I see no reason to say no. My OS is win 7 64, and I use GoGUI for the GNU-Go GUI. I start GNU-Go by clicking on the GoGUI shortcut icon. The GUI itself is already attached to GNU-Go (I attached it to the GUI some time ago). Thanks for your help.

You probably already know that, but in gogui in the programs menu you can go to "Edit programs..." and in the program editing window you can specify the command that is used to launch gnugo, but I doubt it's a good idea to make gnugo even weaker than it already is.


As an alternative, I would suggest playing on smaller boards with less handicap, and also against stronger bots, since gnugo is pretty horrible (and in particular makes systematic mistakes which it will repeat every time. This doesn't happen with MCTS bots).

But you don't need MFoG, there's two excellent opensource projects which you can use inside gogui: (or any gtp-interface for that matter)
fuego and pachi.

On the homepage of pachi it says pachi is stronger than fuego if you use multiple threads. Anyway, they're both much stronger than gnugo.
Also, to tune these bots to your available hardware, you should configure them. fuego uses an external config file which you specify on the command line, while pachi uses command line options only, and they're mostly documented within the source itself. (See also README in the source.)