Are there any bots that stronger bots that undo? It's frustrating as hell when I can't, especially when it's a misclick. Bots are useful for many things, but I can't get anything out of it if simple misclicks kill the entire game... If you know of any, esp. on KGS, let me know...

How do you expect a bot to know whether your undo request is a valid one or not? What stops you undoing and undoing every time you make a mistake? They can't, and nothing. So, given that, there's no plausible and abuse-free way of providing undo capabilities to bots.

Edit: it might be a nice capability to add to free games.

KGS: File > Set Preferences... > Mouse anti-slip system.

Other than that, you just really have to focus and pay attention to every click.
There is simply no notion of Undo in Go in my mentality, whether in real life or on a computer.
Just like there is no notion of "Uncut my finger" when I'm chopping a carrot, or "Un-hit a person" when I'm driving.

Of course, to err is human. Sometimes with very tragic results (cruise boats or ferries sinking, etc. )

An undo facility is a function of the interface program, not the engine. An engine is just a computer program that calculates the best move for a given position. For a free interface that lets you undo moves when playing against an engine, try Drago.

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Regards,

Peter

It might be better to step back just one bit. This was asking how to undo the result of a miss click when we should also be considering preventing/reducing miss clicks. And as has been correctly pointed out, not the bot we are talking about but the interface.

Just saying "concentrate" does not capture the entire problem. I know that in my case it is very rarely a matter of lack of concentration but of hand/eye coordination. I though I had moved the cursor to put the stone in a particular spot but it ended up on an adjacent point instead. So what might be the possible solutions, not just to correct afterwards (the request for an "undo") but perhaps prevention, or at least making misplacement less likely.

How about "ghosting"? As you move the cursor about a ghost image of the stone you are about to place appears on the intersection where the stone will go if you make the move.

How about a "show mode" that could be selected by those who are particularly challenged by hand/eye coordination problems? A mode where you would be asked to confirm the placement.

Of course with those go playing programs that are integrated with their display function (the commercial programs) the distinction might be less clear to you, but it is in the display finction and not the go playing engine itself that the change would need to be made.

BTW ---- I asked Fotland to put "ghosting" into MFOG and he agreed might be a good idea, but there haven't been any version updates to MFOG after I made the suggestion.

Your comparison is funny, and I get your mentality, but undos and accidents are only comparable because you have made a choice not to consider undos. If something is a matter of choice, then there may be good reasons for or against that choice.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Imagine you were driving and hit someone, injuring them. Now by some miracle of God/the Matrix/a time-machine/whatever a big undo button appeared in the air and you were able to undo the accident. Would you choose not to use it?

So Ed, if we developed Parkinson's, we'd have to give up go. And no point for anybody with Cerebral Palsy trying to learn the game.

As I indicated, "undo" might well be the wrong solution. But the initial question wasn't about the situation of carelessness in choosing the location or even necessarily of carelessness in getting the stone to go there but physical inability to always handle a mouse well enough not to ever jiggle while clicking or to even be sure exactly where the cursor is placed.

If you like, change the question to one about aids to allow the partially able to play go on the computer. Or imagine you were playing somebody across a physical go board, an opponent you can clearly see has hand tremors. Are you seriously meaning to tell us that if you saw this person trying to place a stone at some intersection, but the tremors resulted in him or her knocking it aside to the next one, you'd consider THAT their move?

Come on, just one intersection beside doesn't really change the result of a game is-it

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Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

Suppose you were playing go in real life, and your opponent went to make a move but fumbled the stone and it drops from his fingers onto a random intersection on the board. Would you really then say "No undo, that's your move"?

Ironically, something similar to a carelessness-induced misclick occured over-the-board. Partly due to nervousness, partly due to confusion; while the stone had not slipped from my slightly shaking hands, it turned out that it had been placed one point towards the right of the intended intersection, resulting in an immediate loss. It wouldn't have been clear at all that concentration had lapsed from an outsiders perspective, so it's reasonable not to ask for an undo.

The problem with online Go is that it is very hard to differentiate "butterfingers" from "Attention Defict", or especially, "mixing up two points".

Maybe the best solution (apart from having a pop up screen appear everytime you make a move, best saved for correspondance?) is to incorporate a triple-click based input function as an option?

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On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

Hi Mike, Uber, HH,

Hmmm... fallacy of the excluded middle , or, as pointed out in another recent thread , GIFT.

I suspect in real life, whether it's a casual club situation,
or a serious tourney environment, or online,
all of us here, including Cynosure, actually share the same,
or at least very similar attitude, toward undos and other Go etiquettes.

As I said, to err is human. Even pros sometimes drop a stone by accident.
Of course, it's OK to move it to the right spot. Don't be ridiculous.

If I've misunderstood Cynosure's original meaning and direction,
you could just point it out.

Why this need to paint someone in such negative light ?Classic False dilemma , and/or straw man, and/or, GIFT.

What middle was I excluding: the idea that you would allow undos in some situations? I thought you pretty much ruled that out with "There is simply no notion of Undo in Go in my mentality", or did I misunderstand you? I was asking a thought experiment, would you undo real-life mistakes if you were able? Perhaps your aversion to undos in Go was based on a "what happened was the natural order of things/God's will and we shouldn't change it", in which case you'd also say no the undoing the car accident. Or perhaps it is more based on the idea that in real-life you can't undo and have to live with your mistakes, and you want Go to train yourself for life's situations. So if undos did become possible in life and you chose to take them, would your view on Go undos change too? Or perhaps injuring someone is a more serious negative consequence and thus deserves an undo if it were possible, but a game of go is not so important?

Uber, I suspect we were both typing our last posts at the same time,
and I ninja'd you. I believe my last post already made my position clear.
If there are parts you and I disagree, that's OK.Mike, and daal, started with a nice, civil tone.

And then things suddenly changed... Or did they ?

Uber, HH: about your posts 7, and 10, I'm sorry I cannot read your tone of voice over the internet. To avoid (more) misunderstanding, what was your tone in those questions ? Would you say your tone was leaning toward:

• positive, supportive, inquisitive (nice) ;
• completely neutral (just the facts, ma'am) ;
• negative, attacking (nasty)

?

o.o lots of responses! I'm not gonna go undo willy-nilly, but I do want to have a bot interface/prog/whatever that accepts undos for experimental reasons, also. It's not just because I lose games for misclicks, etc. I've since put on the anti-slip, I didn't know that existed. Should help in regular people games too

More or less Ed wrote what I was going to write.

Let's keep it in mind: we are talking about playing a bot. Your finger slipped and you have to resign? So what? Play another against the bot if you feel like showing you are better than the AI. Or play against a human, it's slightly more fun.

The utter worst thing that can happen is that your rank gets a minor shake. So what...?

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

Well, they're free games, and as I mentioned I'm not necessarily playing to outright win. Bots can teach. I asked for bots/interfaces that allow undos, and the only answer I got so far was drago.

All the applications allow undo - many faces, drago, leela, etc. You specifically mentioned KGS, however, and that's where there is a problem, because its important to the integrity of the KGS rating system that the bots don't get abused. Bot abuse is impossible to avoid if you permit undo's (for rated games).

I fully disagree with this. Even in 9x9 learning from bots is close to impossible. In 19x19 bots play like, well, bots.

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

If the bot is strong enough relative to you to punish your misplays, you can learn something about fighting no? Even if it's just, that move doesn't work here.