Good day.

After reading this thread, I felt compelled to create a personal experience. Even getting a game against a bot stronger than 7k or so was very difficult, and I was unable to get a game against the strongest ones. My first game was against the PS3 1d-bot on KGS, which I won by more than 160 points in even game. Then I gave it three stones and won by more than 50. After that I narrowly lost two games with two and three stones, then won even game by about 70-80 points. But by then I was tired and only played because I thought the bot was seriosly overranked, I would not play other people in that state. So at least that bot I believe is overranked.

I would love to test the "4d" zenbot, but just getting a game is too much trouble. I want to confirm its strenght myself, but if I have to sit for ours to try to be the first to challenge the bot for a game, then thats too much effort, and spending energy on that would make me play worse anyway.

I think the people who say that the people that thinks the bots are overranked should try playing them themselves, should try getting a game with the bots themselves. Or, if I am the only one experiencing difficulties with this, could someone explain to me how to get a game with a decent bot more easily?

Mildly amusing that someone would actually believe that a computer will not beat them in the next ~50 years..
(A computer 50 years ago..)

Computers will beat humans in Go much sooner than in 50 years, unless an unforeseen "wall" is hit. But it works both ways, we might make practical quantum computers, or maybe even something we can't even imagine yet, and solve the whole game for all I know.

And yet, I am rooting for the human in this bet. Woo.

I've found them very easy to play against except a blitz speeds where I can't move my mouse fast enough or in those cases where the computer takes lierally every second of its time and the game becomes so tedious that I start to mess around in the hope of triggering a quicker outcome (or I escape, and presumably the computer eventually gets the win).

I gather other people have the same experience and so I think quite a few computer wins are unearned runs. They count on the scoreboard but are not taken all that seriously.

Another factor is the weird style. A computer will play daft moves and so you start to expect them, only for you to be caught out once in a while by a proper move. More familiarity with the computer would probably obviate that.

As to arguing that if you are a 1-dan and the computer is a 1-dan you must be the same strength, I'd differ. You are just the same grade. We see a version of this paradox in human play. There are many players who have a certain reliable grade in even games but who go all to pieces when playing a handicap game. Substitute "computer" for "handicap game" and you get a similar distortion.

Why not try, and post the result here?

(I'm not saying you can't, but I would be interested to see the sgf)

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I managed to get a game with the zenbot of 4 dans. It was blitz and I lost by time close to the end. I tried to play out the last moves by myself, and concluded that I would have won, but it was close so I am not really sure. I think that if I just got used to its strange style, I would win more easily. There was a group that I could have killed several times, but the strange moves made me forgot about it.

But maybe I was wrong about the result if I had not lost on time, and perhaps the bot had read out the rest of the game, and knew it would win by 0,5. So it is either weaker than 4d, or it is actually trying to fool me.

That "unless" is a very big unless. As they say on mutual funds, past results do not predict future returns. If you had predicted the future of the automobile in 1950 on the basis of progress since 1900, you would have reasonably predicted flying cars by 2000... And you would have been utterly wrong.

(I don't think we disagree on substance... Like you say, maybe we'll get quantum computers or maybe we'll get no progress in anything but financing new computer purchases. And if there is huge technical progress, maybe that will translate into 9p go bots, or maybe not. But to describe pessimists as slightly amusing is both patronizing and shows a lack of historical perspective, no?)

Blitz is problematic.

I am close to certain that the reason many bots rank higher at blitz speeds is ........

a) Having less time means the bot must decide on the next move with less probability of that choice being the right one. But for the human not to have enough time to read anything out hurts worse.

b) Humans sometimes make an error in "time management" and so lose on time. Unless there is a bug in the program the bot will never get this wrong and so wins all of these games.

NOTE1: I would not doubt reports that this or that bot is somewhat weaker than its rating but would be suspicious of people reporting "by several ranks". One thing is very important. Need to disregard margins of victory one way or the other for some of these bots. Imagine playing under the conditions "the winner of the game will live; the loser goes before a firing squad". Humans have difficulty staying rational under a condition like that but the bot doesn't. Rational play (for humans too); if ahead, play so as to increase the certainty of staying ahead even if that decreases the margin of victory -- if behind, take any chance if that's the only way the game could conceivably be pulled out. The computer gets no satisfaction from "well I almost made it".

So disregard reports such as "If the bot was really 2 dan I should have needed 5 stones against it. I took only 3 stones and it beat me by just 9.5 points so it can't be 2 dan" or "I should have needed 5 stones against it. I took 6 and beat it by 40.5 points so it can't be 2 dan". That sort of thinking is Ok only against us irrational humans.

Idle thoughts:

If KGS ranks were analogous to a well functioning market, then there would be arbitrage. If bots were overranked, then players would know this and play them to boost their own rankings. This continues until the bots lose enough games to return to an accurate rank.

Why would this not happen?

1. The competition for games is sufficiently intense that arbitrageurs are crowded out by chumps who continue to lose to the bots.
2. There is too much of a stigma against playing bots--a 4d player who has played half his games against bots gets no respect, and has no incentive to arbitrage.
3. There are not enough players who believe bots are overranked to make the market clear.
4...?

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4. It isn't analogous to a well functioning market? I don't know, but does it have to be?

LOL, why on earth does that computer have a giant steering wheel?

Photoshop
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/computer.asp

A really interesting discussion.

I would like to understand more clearly the thinking/experience of those who believe the ratings of the bots available for play against on the servers is seriously infalted. One thing to claim "off somewhat" but quite another to believe off by several ranks.

a) Do you think it possible that this could be true only for some or would it necessarily be the case that if true for one then must be true for all of them? Since they play each other with reasonable frequency we do have evidence for their comparative rankings beng correct whatever their absolute ranks might be.

b) Depending on how you answer "a", how about the experience of those who get to play against (some) of these programs directly instead of on the servers? In many cases we do know whether the version on our own computers is the same as the bot is running and may even know the comparative power of the machines and how that could be expected to affect playing strength.

c) The time controls matter. As already discussed, the programs may play relatively stronger at blitz speeds. But not all bots are playing at blitz. But maybe that (slightly slower) speed is still too fast. But here we have to ask another question. At what speeds do humans choose to play other humans on the servers? In other words, we can't really object if the bot is playing at a popular speed.

It looks like the hardware has been decided for the first two games of the bet. Still no word on the software that will be used. http://dcook.org/gobet/details.html

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John Tromp has won the first game, the opponent is Many Faces.

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Game 1: Tromp won, summary from http://dcook.org/gobet/index.html :
It started off promising, but black played a few weak moves between about move 35 and 60; it still thought the game was close past move 80, but then its groups started dying. By move 140 or so its win estimate was around 15%, and it was probably behind by 100+ points.




Game 2: Tromp won, my own summary:
For a long time the game was peaceful, and then there was a huge trade of groups, black (Tromp) killing a group in the lower right, white (MFoG) killing a group in the upper left. After the trade White was leading, but White misplayed a fight in the upper right. After that Black had a huge lead and White played more and more desperate moves and eventually resigned.

Both games are pretty convincing wins by Tromp. Would be interesting to change computer opponents and see if another strong computer player has better luck.

Edit: Clarifying that I meant changing *computer* opponents, not changing out Tromp for somebody else.

Ah yes I forgot to add that they are going to use a better hardware tomorrow. They are going to rent something from Amazon (some sort of cloud compute time rental? I don't know). They said Tromp has allowed this change from the original rule that the hardware must be present. I don't know if they are still keeping with the $5000 value limit for the hardware.

I wouldn't characterize game #2 as a convincing win by Tromp. The computer could have won if it played better in the upper right fighting.

I think the computer made more mistakes - and stupider mistakes - than just the upper right fighting. After losing the group in the lower right, the computer kept coming back and making utterly stupid moves trying to bring that group back to life. Those moves didn't cost nearly as many points as the upper right loss, but they were moves that I'd expect from a 5k player, not a player that could give a 2d a decent game. In general the computer is making some good moves, but in both games it makes moves that do nothing except give John sente for free. That's why I call them both convincing wins - John's mistakes were too subtle for me to be sure of, but the computer made mistakes that jumped out at me.

Hopefully the better hardware will help the computer out. We'll see!

I can't imagine John Tromp plays moves like J14 and J16 in the second game or J18 in the first game against any human opponent. Basically the bot made a fool out of himself.

I'm not sure what you meant, tapir, but just to be clear, Tromp didn't play J14 and J16 in the latter game. The computer played as White.

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