Main Date: 03 Oct 2007 07:15:26 From: raylopez99 Subject: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go In an article in Science, 14 September 2007 p. 1519, written by the Chinook team that weakly solved the game of checkers (draughts), it's asserted essentially that chess is harder than Go. What is meant is that the "decision complexity" of chess (and checkers) is higher than for Go (actually Go-Moku was mentioned, which is not exactly the same as Go, but I take it the analogy holds for Go), while the game of Go has a higher "space complexity" (essentially non-repeating patterns--more such patterns in Go than Chess/Checkers). What is the consequence of this? It's harder for a computer to "solve" the game of Go only because there is more "stuff" the computer has to consider--even though, for each move, less thought is involved. From the author's paper, page 1519: "Checkers [and by extention, chess, mentioned in the article--RL] ...requires extensive skill [<--note that phrase--RL] to make strong move choices...and [has] moderate space complexity... All the games solved thus far have either low decision complexity (Qubic and Go-Moku), low space complexity (Nine Men's Morris...Awari).. or both (Connect Four)." So, let me translate for you Go players: Go is a game that even a monkey can play, the moves require little or no thought, you can't make a "one-move blunder" easily, like in chess, and, consequently, because so many possible patterns exist, computers with present day hardware are "fooled" into playing weakly. However, once hardware improves, Go will be weakly solved (meaning with 99.9999999...% probability, like checkers) and it will be seen that Go players are nothing but egotistical naked apes. Watching and playing pachinko is more interesting than Go. The true cerebral game of skill is, will be and remains, international chess. That's what SCIENCE sez, sucker. Don't blame me for reporting the FACTS. RL   Date: 01 Nov 2007 09:39:37 From: Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On 3 okt, 18:35, jazzerci...@hotmail.com (-) wrote: > > raylopez99 wrote: > >> ... --even though, for each move, less thought is involved. > Michael Alford <m...@aracnet.com> wrote: > > utter nonsense > > Agree. We don't need to discuss "what is thought" in order > to build a game-playing device. > > >> From the author's paper, page 1519: "Checkers [and by > >> extention, chess, mentioned in the article--RL] ...requires extensive > >> skill [<--note that phrase--RL] to make strong move choices...and > >> [has] moderate space complexity... All the games solved thus far have > >> either low decision complexity (Qubic and Go-Moku), low space > >> complexity (Nine Men's Morris...Awari).. or both (Connect Four)." > > >> [ ... ] > > Total bullshit. > > First of all, in order to discuss the Science Magazine article we > should have the author names cited. Next, at risk of treading upon > "sacred temple territory" of these Holy Go Spaces, the considerations > expressed are sound. Frank de Groot has also been here, a prophetic > champion of "gate arrays." There exists a hardware solution to the > problem of exponential fan-out, albeit that the hardware solution is > still elusive. Disinterest by much of a computer artificial intelligence > community should not be misinterpreted to indicate severe impossibility. > Instead we could examine the sociological aspect: what led computer > scientists first to attack Chess instead of Go? Was there a perception > that Chess is more highly respected as a decision-rendering tool for > purposes of conducting our state-of-affairs in World Diplomacy? > > As the Science Magazine authors note, a solved game may fall due > to low decision -OR- low space complexity. The decision side is more > difficult to visualize, and to devise in hardware, however it remains > true that the impenetrability of a game to machine analysis is the > result of a combination of both and not simply one aspect or the other. > The fact that many millenia of human history had elapsed prior to atomic > weapons does not invalidate the reality that atomic weapons exist today. > When the hardware devices are invented people may come to regard > that scientific team with awe and respect, as was accorded to Einstein. > > Go Players unprepared for the prospect that their favorite sanctuary > will someday be invaded, and overrun by electronic hoardes, share an > immaturity aspect which the Chess Community has long ago shed. It > will be interesting to observe how many Go Players continue once those > hardware devices gain an advantage: this would surely be a test of faith > once the rubber meets the road. Who prefers not to live to see that day? > > - regards > - jb > > --------- > Tamiflu mutates in sewage systems ...http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5johTPaZnrC32MSU6WyDgsQL4KcGA > --------- i`d love to see that day since i want to become very very very old   Date: 10 Oct 2007 03:27:57 From: shapenaji Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go Harry Fearnley wrote: > Using an analogy, I am pleased to report that I have found a > conclusive proof of your assertion: > A clock is an object. > A brick is an object. > All objects are of equal value. > A clock has many components, and a brick only one. > To have more components is to be simpler. > Therefore, a clock is simpler than a brick. > Q.E.D. (just to prove I know some Latin) > From this I can further safely conclude that a brick will offer > _you_ more intellectual stimulation than a clock. I'm not an rgg'er and this thread is quite obviously a troll, but I found this hilarious. I'd like to go one further though, All objects are of equal value Some objects contain components Components are also objects If all objects have equal value, then in order for two objects with different numbers of components to have the same value, all objects must have no value. Wow, makes go and chess seem rather pointless doesn't it? -Nicholas Jhirad   Date: 08 Oct 2007 07:20:36 From: --CELKO-- Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go >> I have often wondered why nobody seems to make a Go board with dimples like a Chinese checkers board; I suspect that this is because it would interfere with that satisfying click that you get with a good Go set. << I saw such a board decades ago at a folk craft shop that had Morris, Chinese Checkers, and a host of other games with identical pieces done with "marbles and cups". The boards were wood and the Go board was 2-3 inches thick. I have no idea how to find them. I have heard of but not seen a Korean board with wire inset into the lines so that you get a slight musical tone when you set a stone.   Date: 06 Oct 2007 19:30:45 From: help bot Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 6, 7:56 pm, "Roy Schmidt" <gosto...@insightbb.com > wrote: > HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OOH HAHAHAHAHAHA > Mr. Lopez, you have been trolled by the master troller (i.e., jb In another thread, I read a small portion of a post which attempted to describe how a master "troller" operates. Somewhere in that very long posting, it was said that the true master does not return to the thread once he posts his "troll"; yet this guy seems to be a relative newbie, having both returned and gloated. (Yawn.) Go back to school. > Although _Science_ is a famous publication, sometimes a lemon gets into > their pages. You posit a correlation between fame and accuracy? Naivete: look it up (and correct my spelling, if you like). > Remember the "cold fusion" debacle? No. Please elaborate: what was the cold fusion debacle? I do recall the mate-in-one debacle in which world chess champ Kramnik embarrassed humans the world over in front of every two-bit computer chess program -- even Sanny's GetClub program does not often overlook one of those. -- help bot   Date: 06 Oct 2007 00:50:12 From: help bot Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go raylopez99 wrote: > That's what SCIENCE sez, sucker. Don't blame me for reporting the > FACTS. After reading for years about how go is supposedly superior to chess, I went to Wikipedia.com and read up on that "other game" a bit. Although it is clear that there are more turns and less reliance upon a single "one-move-blunder" to, perhaps, decide a game of go, I was a bit disappointed by the dullness of the playing field. Just a flat board, with lines drawn across it, both the field of play and the pieces/men are dull, boring. In sum, I think that both chess and go could easily be improved upon, a much more interesting and varied game invented. I'm not saying that *I* could do it, but someone who is very creative should have little trouble since these games are so one-dimensional, have such tiny playing fields and limited scope. Most likely, the invention and spread of the computer will -- eventually -- render old-style board games passe. Here are a few things I learned about go from the Wiki article: It is a game of territory, of surrounding men to capture them and remove them from the board. It is probably much easier to give odds in go than in chess, without mucking up the original character of the game. One powerful sneeze and countless hours of work disappear in the blink of an eye, for the men are small plastic "stones" that just sit loose upon a wooden board. Strategy consists largely in surrounding "space", while not allowing one's own men to get surrounded. (Dull as dirt; in online Star Trek style games, you *explore* new territories, fight unknown enemies, etc.) Like chess, you play one against one, taking turns. (Again, dull as dirt; in reality, one can be overtaken by faster opponents, like on approaching a freeway exit and five people cut in front at the last minute.) As I have said before, I should give up chess. The only thing stopping me is my amazing results; I am by far the greatest player ever on GetClub; undefeated on ChessWorld; able to save many lost games with Superman-like powers OTB. In sum, both chess and go bore me, yet I am seemingly, hopelessly addicted to chess. -- help bot     Date: 07 Oct 2007 14:02:13 From: Guy Macon Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go help bot wrote: >the original character of the game. One powerful sneeze and >countless hours of work disappear in the blink of an eye, for >the men are small plastic "stones" that just sit loose upon a >wooden board. Those boards are like the chess sets with the super-lighweight hollow plastic men and the red/black board. A good Go set has ceramic, porcelain, clamshell, slate or glass stones, and a wood surface that, with years of play, develops indentations on the playing surface, which adds to the value of the board. I have ofen wondered why nobody seems to make a Go board with dimples like a Chinese checkers board; I suspect that this is because it would interfere with that satisfying click that you get with a good Go set. I am told that Yunzi stones from the Yunnan province of China are really nice - sintered jade and sintered quartz. BTW, I consider Renju to be a far superior version of Gomoku. It isn't up there with chess or Go in my opinion, but it is a serious game, at least as deep as Backgammon. More info: [ http://www.renju.net/study/rules.php ] Also, [ http://senseis.xmp.net/?StartingPoints ] is a really nice Go site. -- Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/ >     Date: 06 Oct 2007 17:48:55 From: Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Sat, 06 Oct 2007 00:50:12 -0700, help bot <nomorechess@hotmail.com > wrote: > After reading for years about how go is supposedly superior >to chess, I went to Wikipedia.com and read up on that "other >game" a bit. Although it is clear that there are more turns and >less reliance upon a single "one-move-blunder" to, perhaps, >decide a game of go, I was a bit disappointed by the dullness >of the playing field. Just a flat board, with lines drawn across >it, both the field of play and the pieces/men are dull, boring. Some find a minimalist esthetic more appealing. >One powerful sneeze and >countless hours of work disappear in the blink of an eye, for >the men are small plastic "stones" that just sit loose upon a >wooden board. Very few players use plastic stones for a more immediate reason: they are too light, and stick to your finger when you try to play one on the board. Glass is by far the most common go stone material. -- Roy L   Date: 05 Oct 2007 18:42:10 From: help bot Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 5, 8:38 am, raylopez99 <raylope...@yahoo.com > wrote: > Dam bot, I thought you were a chess professional, the way you posted > inside stuff?! Maybe you just hang out at the Manhatten chess club > so much that you've become a regular and equal in playing strength to > a grandmaster. I visited the MCC once. It was late, and the only person I saw was someone who wanted a visitor's fee, so I left. Bad timing, I guess. The New York crowd seems to have gotten in a bit of a huff over the USCF moving its headquarters to a backwoods state (Davy Crockett!). Look, if I had the playing strength of a grandmaster, would I have lost two games as help bot and a few more as nomorechess against the GetClub program? I don't think so! Just recently, I played and drew a game which was "unrecorded" there, on account of having run out of credits to play rated games for free. I was basically forced to repeat the position, because I had a Queen against an army of invaders, as lost as a cabbage, I was. And what on earth do you mean by "inside stuff"? Did I write about the time I overheard GM "Karmink" whisper to his second: "what was I supposed to do after 31.K-h8 in this line again"? Or the time that GM Larry Evans demanded $5,000 "up front" when he learned that BF had not yet signed a contract? No. I have never to this very day revealed the real bust to the King's Gambit, how BF will likely never have to admit the French Defense is sound, or any other such things I have learned over the years. Loose ships sink lips. -- help bot   Date: 05 Oct 2007 18:21:27 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go newsgroups trimmed. raylopez99 wrote: > In an article in Science, 14 September 2007 p. 1519, written by the > Chinook team that weakly solved the game of checkers (draughts), it's > asserted essentially that chess is harder than Go. > > What is meant is that the "decision complexity" of chess (and > checkers) is higher than for Go (actually Go-Moku was mentioned, which > is not exactly the same as Go, but I take it the analogy holds for > Go) BZZZZT! Thank you for playing. -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/   Date: 05 Oct 2007 17:07:02 From: Guy Macon Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go raylopez99 wrote: >Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/> wrote: Replying after *claiming* to killfile me? "In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade; And he carries the reminders, of every glove that layed him down, or cut him till he cried out, in his anger and his shame; 'I am leaving, I am leaving', But the fighter still remains..." - _The Boxer_, by Simon & Garfunkel   Date: 05 Oct 2007 06:38:51 From: raylopez99 Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 5, 12:20 am, help bot <nomorech...@hotmail.com > wrote: > For some reason, when a player is a math teacher > everyone seems to know it, and over the years I > have played quite a few, many of them excellent > chess players, but certainly not all. My toughest > opponents were of course the professionals, the > players who travel around playing chess for a > living. But after them, I would put the people who > have a burning desire to win, along with enough > talent to keep that from being rendered irrelevant. Dam bot, I thought you were a chess professional, the way you posted inside stuff?! Maybe you just hang out at the Manhatten chess club so much that you've become a regular and equal in playing strength to a grandmaster. RL   Date: 05 Oct 2007 06:35:52 From: raylopez99 Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 4, 11:45 pm, jazzerci...@hotmail.com (-) wrote: > raylopez99 <raylope...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Reinfororcement Learning of Local Shape in the Game of Go > > David Silver, Richard Sutton, and Martin Muller > > Essentially, there is a crack in the GO facade of impenetrability--if > > trees exist in GO, GO can be solved like chess, since computers are > > good at solving trees (much better than pattern recognition it seems). > > You're walking up on a discussion which periodically washes > over this newsgroup. A lot of people have "been there, done that." > Gaming analyzes strong and weak, and there are inroads by computers. > Yet, among the three scales for Go Ranks -- kyu, amateur dan, pro da= n -- > known computer programs have not yet graduated beyond the kyu scale. > Kyu level is through high-school, amateur dan is college level, and > pro scale is competitve play at a very high level, to teach college. > Despite some very intense computer science efforts by the best among > the best, the Go Programs do not even have a high school diploma. You're so harsh...perhaps the next generation of Moore's law will change your thinking (though supposedly we're getting close to the limit for Moore's law). > > > "CHESS IS SHARPER"--this is what I was driving at. I've not played > > GO except on a Palm with a small 9x9 board, only a few times, but I > > somewhat got the feel each move is not absolutely critical, but it's > > the accumulation of moves (of course the same is true in chess, but to > > a lesser degree--think how often have you 'blown' a winning position > > by making a one-move blunder, meaning every move 'packs more punch' > > than in Go). But chess had a more tactical feel than (and chinese > > chess has an even more tactical feel than chess). > > > ... thus I prefer chess over more "complex" games like GO or > > imitating schoolchildren. I do have a 18x18 board and stones that I > > intend to at some point learn, but unfortunately there's not much > > computer help in GO as there is in chess, which hinders learning the > > game. > > The Japan Go Academy (Nihon Ki-In) is sometimes rendered by > machine translators as "the Chessman Institute." In practice most > Asians are not quite so much interested in competitive distinctions > among their many varieties of cognitive-skill boardgames. Games > each exist in their own right -- forms of mental sports martial arts= -- > and obtain intrinsic respect in that regard. In abstract, computers > don't care much what sort of gaming problem they're really solving. > If one were to examine code the initial appearance of a game gets > lost pretty quickly among those artificial intelligence entanglement= s=2E Interesting. I did not know that. I thought each game had it's own distinct "signature", with chess being distinquished by the "alpha- beta"/ min-max "signature". > > "raylopez99" <raylope...@yahoo.com> wrote in message > > jb is one of the pioneers of chess programming and AI--and he > > agrees with part of what I said. Who are YOU? (a nobody, that's who). > > I have been internet-cited on a dispute regarding copyrights and > game programming, and am published for some math conjectures, > but I am not even a minor contributor for game programming A.I. Well you're almost famous. I'll add you to the list of people I've flame-baited and trolled with over the years, including Marvin Minsky, back over 10 years ago when the internet was young and people actually thought monkeys were not typing at the other end! I think I was discussing randomness with Dr. M, if I recall. > > Luckily I obtained a copy of the _Science_ paper today. It is = not > particularly newsworthy but reflects much of the same information as > was on record 3-to-5 years ago. Authors delayed publication while > they conducted lint-checking and sanity-checking, and wordsmithed > it for _Science_. =20 Yes, pretty obvious, I saw that myself and don't even work in the field. But I learned a new definition from that paper: "weakly solved" means you can get to the end-game using an algorithm (alpha- beta/ min-max I think), without of course exhaustively searching each ply, 'breath-wise'. > The game of Go is mentioned nowhere in the article: > a sign to me which suggests that the authors intended to distance th= is > "solvability" concept from the Go game as much as they could. So > "raylopez99" breached the very wall that esteemed _Science_ authors > tried to carefully build, and paraded before our newsgroup luminaries > his unwarranted example of intellectual dishonesty and arrogance. There are no luminaries here but you jb. There rest of us are Go and chess bums with at best 'high school' (gymnastium?) degrees or less. > > The _Science_ paper is surely a marvellous coordination of geeks > arriving at "one of the longest running computations completed" in t= he > history of computer proofs. One wonders why it might be so difficult > to accept that best play on both sides produces a draw in Checkers. > Powerful forces sought to instill the notion that either one side or= the > other "must have" an irrefutable advantage. Against those powerful > forces their comptuers labored day-and-night for more than 15 years > to establish these ceaseless facts of dynamical balance in Checkers. > According to the publication rules at _Science_ magazine us ordinary > folks must wait one year before electronic document text is released. > Only then may we ingest their stale report without a trip to the lib= rary. Yeah, Science magazine is kind of expensive--I'm a businessman and I write it off my expenses, but even so I might cancel my subscription. The abstracts are good but who can read the detailed reports but a specialist in that field? And better if they release the detailed reports in electronic form, like you say, but there's money to be made in pulp wood sales. BTW, the same issue of science has a very cool paper on ethnic violence and boundary lines (Global Pattern Formation and Ethnic/Cultural Violence May Lim, Richard Metzler, Yaneer Bar- Yam* *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: yaneerATnecsi.edu Published 14 September 2007, Science 317, 1540 (2007) DOI: 10.1126/science.1142734) Basically it says that where ethnicities are "pure" or "completely mixed" there is no violence, but where there's a critical ratio of majority/minority, typically at a boundary between two groups, the majority beats up on the minority. I've tried to contact the author of the above but no reply--this looks very much in your field of expertise--kind of like a super sophisticated version of the famous LIFE program. > > More author-names are listed, than were supplied by the website > record of abstract: Jonathan Schaeffer, Neil Burch, Yngvi Bj=F6rnss= on, > Akihiro Kishimoto, Martin M=FCller, Robert Lake, Paul Lu, Steve Sutp= hen. > A "google" search on everything these guys have done might save > all of us needless muck-churning and then we can carry-on with this > ionospheric discourse already so familiar to the researchers spotlig= hted. > > - regards > - jb > Don't tell me jb that you're looking for intelligent conversation online? LOL, you won't find it here that's for sure! I use this name for flame baiting. My posts are somewhat factual only because those kind of posts draw the most replies I've found, from heuristic tests over the years. Not unlike the US (and maybe French?) evening news on the television, which are designed to keep your attention in-between commercial breaks (adverts). They are not really designed to inform you, since the average 30 minute newscast only has about two pages of hard information in it, which you could read in about 5 minutes. TV, like the internet, is usually only for entertainment. >From your website: "I mainly work on global optimization techniques (Genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, interval programming, branch and bound, neural networks, etc) applied to Air Traffic Management and Air Traffic Control. I co-organized a few conferences on GA EA95, EA94. We work on trajectory planning, conflict probe and conflict resolution, Free Flight, slot allocation..." I remember a standard "C" program assignment at university was to design an air traffic control simulator. Mine crashed, literally and figuratively, but I still got a passing grade. Then I decided there's more money outside of science. BTW the US FAA is very primitive, nothing like France or Canada's equivalent, which is much more advanced. THey don't even use GPS officially in the US for air traffic control, last I checked. Nice talking to you professor director jb... I bet you have a nice cushy job, and your pick of attractive students to tutor once in a while (French girls are very cute, if you swing that way)--good for you, viva la France. :-) Au voir, or goodbye, RL     Date: 05 Oct 2007 14:54:20 From: - Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go >> raylopez99 <raylope...@yahoo.com> wrote: >>> Reinfororcement Learning of Local Shape in the Game of Go >>> David Silver, Richard Sutton, and Martin Muller >>> >>> [ ... ] >>> >>> Essentially, there is a crack in the GO facade of impenetrability--if >>> trees exist in GO, GO can be solved like chess, since computers are >>> good at solving trees (much better than pattern recognition it seems). > (-) wrote: >> Despite some very intense computer science efforts by the best among >> the best, the Go Programs do not even have a high school diploma. raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com > wrote: > You're so harsh...perhaps the next generation of Moore's law will > change your thinking (though supposedly we're getting close to the > limit for Moore's law). I began, within this thread, speaking of futuristic hardware devices (extensions upon "gate arrays") which would crack a Go Problem that proves to be unmanageable by software (as presently understood). In the past I have also spoken of the "distributed computing" approach for addressing an online Go Program. Recently IBM is working on a new form of memory, speedier, more compact, and faster than disk drives. > ... I thought each game had it's own > distinct "signature", with chess being distinquished by the "alpha- > beta"/ min-max "signature". Alpha-beta minimax is a common component of most game engines. Other el techniques are also included, with their own nomenclatures. > ... I'll add you to the list of people I've > flame-baited and trolled with over the years, including Marvin Minsky, > back over 10 years ago when the internet was young and people actually > thought monkeys were not typing at the other end! I think I was > discussing randomness with Dr. M, if I recall. I exchanged some email with Dr. Minsky when he stated that elderly people past their usefulness should be summarily terminated. I assume he was the real Dr. Minsky ... appearance of a legitimate stanford addr. > I learned a new definition from that paper: "weakly solved" means you > can get to the end-game using an algorithm (alpha-beta/ min-max I think), > without of course exhaustively searching each ply, 'breath-wise'. Doesn't visit all leafs of the game tree but, through mathematical argument, establishes that entire classes and branches are uninteresting. > There are no luminaries here but you jb. There rest of us are Go and > chess bums with at best 'high school' (gymnastium?) degrees or less. If I were the only luminary then what why would I read what others write? > BTW, the same issue of science has a very cool paper on ethnic violence > and boundary lines (Global Pattern Formation and Ethnic/Cultural Violence > May Lim, Richard Metzler, Yaneer Bar-Yam* *To whom correspondence > should be addressed. E-mail: yaneerATnecsi.edu Published > 14 September 2007, Science 317, 1540 (2007) DOI: 10.1126/science.1142734) > > Basically it says that where ethnicities are "pure" or "completely > mixed" there is no violence, but where there's a critical ratio of > majority/minority, typically at a boundary between two groups, the > majority beats up on the minority. We don't need a _Science_ article to read the police blotter. > I've tried to contact the author of the above but no reply--this looks > very much in your field of expertise--kind of like a super > sophisticated version of the famous LIFE program. Maybe the other way around: John H. Conway is a flesh-and-blood person who -imagined- the LIFE program, and then there are variants. > Don't tell me jb that you're looking for intelligent conversation > online? LOL, you won't find it here that's for sure! I use this name > for flame baiting. My posts are somewhat factual only because those > kind of posts draw the most replies I've found, from heuristic tests > over the years. Not unlike the US (and maybe French?) evening news on > the television, which are designed to keep your attention in-between > commercial breaks (adverts). They are not really designed to inform > you, since the average 30 minute newscast only has about two pages of > hard information in it, which you could read in about 5 minutes. TV, > like the internet, is usually only for entertainment. You've been sheepled by the controlled mainstream-media TV culture. Internet can offer for us alternatives to mind-numbing tune-out droning. > From your website: "I mainly work on global optimization techniques > (Genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, interval programming, branch > and bound, neural networks, etc) applied to Air Traffic Management and > Air Traffic Control. I co-organized a few conferences on GA EA95, > EA94. We work on trajectory planning, conflict probe and conflict > resolution, Free Flight, slot allocation..." No, this was somebody else ("james") claiming to be that guy. > Nice talking to you professor director jb... I was called "professor" in the Army, but for different reasons. - regards - jb ------- Pressure Is Finally On US Germ Labs http://www.rense.com/general78/pressure.htm -------       Date: 05 Oct 2007 15:15:53 From: - Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go jazzerciser@hotmail.com (-) wrote: > I exchanged some email with Dr. Minsky when he stated that elderly > people past their usefulness should be summarily terminated. I assume > he was the real Dr. Minsky ... appearance of a legitimate stanford addr. Oooops! Strike that. Was John McCarthy at Stanford, not Dr. Minsky.         Date: 05 Oct 2007 18:36:41 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go - wrote: > jazzerciser@hotmail.com (-) wrote: >> I exchanged some email with Dr. Minsky when he stated that elderly >> people past their usefulness should be summarily terminated. I assume >> he was the real Dr. Minsky ... appearance of a legitimate stanford addr. > > > Oooops! Strike that. Was John McCarthy at Stanford, not Dr. Minsky. > > > So, what are we to make of the strange circumstance that Marvin had a Stanford e-mail address? -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/   Date: 05 Oct 2007 00:20:52 From: help bot Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 4, 8:21 am, Harry Sigerson <harrysiger...@ntlworld.com > wrote: > There's that divide and rule thing in action. > Take the middle one first, mathematics. [I'll infer possibly wrongly that > your 'real-world value' relates to financial gain] Ah, that had slipped my mind. I was rather thinking of science, and all the real good that can come from mathematics as it is used in science. Now, there are some who talk about the "science" of economics as something really great, but of course they just happen to have lots of money, so they /would/ think that. > The music one, is almost simpler in that you can't turn your ears off; you > can look away from a tv set but the ears keep on hearing the crap ads. If you > live alone you can dump the goggle box but few do. I keep mine around "in case of emergency"; a real dust collector. That reminds me: in a year or two, all air signals will go digital, so I need to unload it before it's too late. > The present day stories are told by moving pictures, to millions at a time > with minimal recourse to language; it's all there in the coloured pictures. Even > to the bullets battering through the baddy's sternum and, nowadays, you can even > watch them squirting out through his back. > Who needs literature in such an society; as for those 'illiterates', now > there's a very flexible demarcation line all ready and renewed for addressing. > /Flashing digression alarm noticed/ Let me just say that I have never read any poem in Chinese; never read the greats in French, nor in German. Even when I go to read titles in English which I have read or heard about for years, I am often let down and come away thinking I would not have missed out on anything, had I never done so. Much is empty hype. > The old-fashioned way is still the best, That's almost a dead-on quote from "Barbarella"! > The cartoonist has you looking at the backend of a large car of the Rolls or > Bently variety, being driven sedately along by an old buffer, his wife sitting > upfront with him. > They are being overtaken by a Mini going hell-for-leather, up in the air a > couple of feet above the tarmac (asphaltic concrete) as both cars breast a rise. > The old gent says... > "If the good God had intended little cars to go that fast he'd have given > them bigger wheels." The more things change, the more they stay the same. Bentley is still (nearly) tops in horsepower and heft. > > ...But there are always a few who strive but > > fail, in spite of any accomplishments in other fields. > > Look at Dr. Einstein and Dr. Blair, for instance. ;>D > > I can't recall the names in this possibly apocryphal tale about Albert. It > seems that he had a friend who was a good or even great violinist and Einstein > had some pretensions as a player. They played together. > The friend, irritated at some point in their duet admonishes, > "No, no, no, Albert! It's 'One two three; One two three,...' > > To make comparisons across such a boundary as that between Einsteinian > mathemtics and anything else he did is normal; celebrity has to pay its dues but > it is to some extent pointless. I used this particular example because it is well- known that AE was no great chess player, though he was friends with someone who /was/. Chess, it seems, goes well beyond the realms of theory or calculation. "Dr. Blair" was a reference to the fastest, meanest, shootingest, hard-ridin'est quote bot that ever rode a horse around these here parts. Supposedly a Class C player, despite sporting a PhD. in math. For some reason, when a player is a math teacher everyone seems to know it, and over the years I have played quite a few, many of them excellent chess players, but certainly not all. My toughest opponents were of course the professionals, the players who travel around playing chess for a living. But after them, I would put the people who have a burning desire to win, along with enough talent to keep that from being rendered irrelevant. > There is a play in which Marilyn Monroe really wants to meet Albert and does > eventually meet him in his hotel room, in New York I think She needs to be more careful about the men in her life. Better still, avoid men altogether since, after all, /diamonds/ are a girl's best friend. > > Um, no. That is a well-worn path into a deep, dark > > forest, leading nowhere. > > That's good to know; though I get the impression there are a lot of players > well-treed in that deep dark. Advanced players would do well to learn the layout of the forest, but as for beginners, they would do well to learn not to travel at night, to carry a compass, and to keep their eyes pealed. -- help bot     Date: From: Subject:   Date: 04 Oct 2007 23:42:39 From: help bot Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 4, 9:16 am, gaga <g...@gaga.se > wrote: > > A battleship is infinitely more complex than a car. > > Therefore, we should all drive... battleships? > > I live in Germany. majority if not all of battleships that were > registered here were sank very fast during traffic accidents. This makes > me believe that it is dangerous to drive (German) battleships. Besides > this being Germany i.e. a country of zillion laws would make a life of > battleship driver a hell. Look, what police officer is going to try and pull you over if you run a red light, "roll through" a stop sign, or pass on the right? The real problem is the taxes and of course, refueling (do you have any idea what it costs to buy three metric tonnes of Uranium238 pellets?). Oh, and you can just forget about finding a place to park in the city. -- help bot   Date: 04 Oct 2007 22:36:46 From: raylopez99 Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 4, 2:11 pm, james <ja...@nowhere.org > wrote: > David Richerby a =E9crit :> C'mon, guys. Anything cross-posted between r= ec.games.chess.* and > > rec.games.go is almost certainly a troll. Just leave it alone > > already. > > > Once one person's pointed out that Go and Go-Moku are totally separate > > games, there really isn't anything else to say. > > > Dave. > > Right. You missed jb's reply, which essentially agreed with me (see below). jb is one of the pioneers of chess programming and AI--and he agrees with part of what I said. Who are YOU? (a nobody, that's who). RL On your point concerning "decision-complexity per move" my jury is out. There are several methods for obtaining a measure of this: the phrase refers to "state-of-the-art" heuristics. On balance, if tournament prize money were equal, number of rounds equal, number of players equal, then the fewer moves in Chess appear to argue for "higher decision complexity per move" because we acknowledge that Chess is sharper. We may also state that, beyond the opening, few Chess continuations appear obvious while, at times, Go presents rather obvious urgencies.     Date: 06 Oct 2007 19:56:23 From: Roy Schmidt Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go "raylopez99" <raylopez99@yahoo.com > wrote: > jb is one of the pioneers of chess programming and AI--and he agrees > with part of what I said. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OOH HAHAHAHAHAHA Mr. Lopez, you have been trolled by the master troller (i.e., jb). And on top of that, you thumbed your nose at one of the top researchers in AI: http://www.recherche.enac.fr/~alliot Although _Science_ is a famous publication, sometimes a lemon gets into their pages. Remember the "cold fusion" debacle? I am sure everyone would grant that chess is deeper than go-moku. Just because go-moku uses the same equipment as igo/weiqi/baduk does not make it the same game. The authors of that article just revealed their ignorance by assuming the games were identical. Ta! Roy -- my reply-to address is gostoned at insightbb dot com ------ The Bradley Go Association meets every Wednesday evening at Kade's Coffee on War Memorial Drive (opposite the Target/Cub Food/Lowe's/Best Buy center).       Date: 07 Oct 2007 18:50:44 From: Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Sat, 6 Oct 2007 19:56:23 -0500, "Roy Schmidt" <gostoned@insightbb.com > wrote: >Although _Science_ is a famous publication, sometimes a lemon gets into >their pages. Remember the "cold fusion" debacle? I am sure everyone would >grant that chess is deeper than go-moku. Just because go-moku uses the same >equipment as igo/weiqi/baduk does not make it the same game. The authors of >that article just revealed their ignorance by assuming the games were >identical. No, the Science article just didn't say what Ray said it said. -- Roy L       Date: 07 Oct 2007 13:08:30 From: Guy Macon Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go Roy Schmidt wrote: >Although _Science_ is a famous publication, sometimes a lemon gets into >their pages. Remember the "cold fusion" debacle? I am sure everyone would >grant that chess is deeper than go-moku. Just because go-moku uses the same >equipment as igo/weiqi/baduk does not make it the same game. The authors of >that article just revealed their ignorance by assuming the games were >identical. It was our resident troll who confused the two. The chances of the creators of Chinook mistaking Go-moku for Go are vanishingly small. -- Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/ >       Date: 07 Oct 2007 05:08:15 From: - Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go > "raylopez99" <raylopez99@yahoo.com> wrote: >> jb is one of the pioneers of chess programming and AI--and he agrees >> with part of what I said. "Roy Schmidt" <gostoned@insightbb.com > wrote: > HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OOH HAHAHAHAHAHA > Mr. Lopez, you have been trolled by the master troller (i.e., jb). Killfiler "Roy Schmidt" hasn't researched any background material. Though Roy won't need to pay attention to anything he killfiles ... > And on top of that, you thumbed your nose at one of the top researchers in > AI: http://www.recherche.enac.fr/~alliot He merely neglected to acknowledge that "james" claimed to be that guy. > Although _Science_ is a famous publication, sometimes a lemon gets into > their pages. Remember the "cold fusion" debacle? I am sure everyone would > grant that chess is deeper than go-moku. Just because go-moku uses the same > equipment as igo/weiqi/baduk does not make it the same game. The authors of > that article just revealed their ignorance by assuming the games were > identical. Par for the course, Roy hasn't read the _Science_ article nor much of anything that its authors have written. Pretty damn sad if you ask me. > Ta! Smelly fart from Roy ? > my reply-address is got-stoned at insightbb dot com Thanks Roy, you're definitely a business role-model. - regards - jb -------- The Blackwater Massacre http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1962 --------     Date: 05 Oct 2007 08:45:28 From: james Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go raylopez99 a écrit : > On Oct 4, 2:11 pm, james <ja...@nowhere.org> wrote: >> David Richerby a écrit :> C'mon, guys. Anything cross-posted between rec.games.chess.* and >>> rec.games.go is almost certainly a troll. Just leave it alone >>> already. >>> Once one person's pointed out that Go and Go-Moku are totally separate >>> games, there really isn't anything else to say. >>> Dave. >> Right. > > You missed jb's reply, which essentially agreed with me (see below). > jb is one of the pioneers of chess programming and AI--and he agrees > with part of what I said. Who are YOU? (a nobody, that's who). > http://www.recherche.enac.fr/~alliot   Date: 04 Oct 2007 22:34:16 From: raylopez99 Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 4, 9:09 am, jazzerci...@hotmail.com (-) wrote: > raylopez99 <raylope...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Were you trying to say something, or just teach us definitions? =20 > > THe latter I presume. Well jb, it seems you know this area better than I; my appologies but of course this thread started out as a flame. I did check out Mueller et al.'s works (three of them), thanks for the cite, and it seems, much to my surprise and delight, that indeed alpha- beta algorithm is used in GO, see "we incorporate a simple alpha-beta algorithm" below (copy and paste from inside Adobe--the repetitions are unintentional): ** Reinf Reinfor orcement cement Lear Learning ning of Local Shape in the Game of Go Da David vid Silv Silver er, Richard Sutton, and Martin M=A8uller Department of Computing Science Uni University ersity of Alberta In this paper paper, we return to the strate strategy gy that has been so successful in other domains, and apply it to Go. We de develop elop a systematic approach for representing intuiti intuitive Go kno knowl- wledge edge using local shape features. We evaluate aluate positions using a linear combination of these features, and learn weights by temporal dif difference ference learning and self-play play. Finally Finally, we incor incor- porate a simple alpha-beta search algorithm. ** Essentially, there is a crack in the GO facade of impenetrability--if trees exist in GO, GO can be solved like chess, since computers are good at solving trees (much better than pattern recognition it seems). ** On your point concerning "decision-complexity per move" my jury is out. There are several methods for obtaining a measure of this: the phrase refers to "state-of-the-art" heuristics. On balance, if tournament prize money were equal, number of rounds equal, number of players equal, then the fewer moves in Chess appear to argue for "higher decision complexity per move" because we acknowledge that Chess is sharper. We may also state that, beyond the opening, few Chess continuations appear obvious while, at times, Go presents rather obvious urgencies. ** "CHESS IS SHARPER"--this is what I was driving at. I've not played GO except on a Palm with a small 9x9 board, only a few times, but I somewhat got the feel each move is not absolutely critical, but it's the accumulation of moves (of course the same is true in chess, but to a lesser degree--think how often have you 'blown' a winning position by making a one-move blunder, meaning every move 'packs more punch' than in Go). But chess had a more tactical feel than (and chinese chess has an even more tactical feel than chess). Rest of your points are well taken. It does seem that Go has more "complexity" for solving than chess--the evolution arguments support this. But one could argue that passing the Turning test by imitating a six year old human baby is also more "complex" than Go--but I don't think, from a recreational point of view, that imitating a six year old is fun (except in this NG as this login), and thus I prefer chess over more "complex" games like GO or imitating schoolchildren. I do have a 18?x18 board and stones that I intend to at some point learn, but unfortunately there's not much computer help in GO as there is in chess, which hinders learning the game. Flame on! RL     Date: 05 Oct 2007 06:45:48 From: - Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go raylopez99 <raylope...@yahoo.com > wrote: > Reinfororcement Learning of Local Shape in the Game of Go > David Silver, Richard Sutton, and Martin Muller > > [ ... ] > > Essentially, there is a crack in the GO facade of impenetrability--if > trees exist in GO, GO can be solved like chess, since computers are > good at solving trees (much better than pattern recognition it seems). You're walking up on a discussion which periodically washes over this newsgroup. A lot of people have "been there, done that." Gaming analyzes strong and weak, and there are inroads by computers. Yet, among the three scales for Go Ranks -- kyu, amateur dan, pro dan -- known computer programs have not yet graduated beyond the kyu scale. Kyu level is through high-school, amateur dan is college level, and pro scale is competitve play at a very high level, to teach college. Despite some very intense computer science efforts by the best among the best, the Go Programs do not even have a high school diploma. > "CHESS IS SHARPER"--this is what I was driving at. I've not played > GO except on a Palm with a small 9x9 board, only a few times, but I > somewhat got the feel each move is not absolutely critical, but it's > the accumulation of moves (of course the same is true in chess, but to > a lesser degree--think how often have you 'blown' a winning position > by making a one-move blunder, meaning every move 'packs more punch' > than in Go). But chess had a more tactical feel than (and chinese > chess has an even more tactical feel than chess). > > ... thus I prefer chess over more "complex" games like GO or > imitating schoolchildren. I do have a 18x18 board and stones that I > intend to at some point learn, but unfortunately there's not much > computer help in GO as there is in chess, which hinders learning the > game. The Japan Go Academy (Nihon Ki-In) is sometimes rendered by machine translators as "the Chessman Institute." In practice most Asians are not quite so much interested in competitive distinctions among their many varieties of cognitive-skill boardgames. Games each exist in their own right -- forms of mental sports martial arts -- and obtain intrinsic respect in that regard. In abstract, computers don't care much what sort of gaming problem they're really solving. If one were to examine code the initial appearance of a game gets lost pretty quickly among those artificial intelligence entanglements. "raylopez99" <raylopez99@yahoo.com > wrote in message > jb is one of the pioneers of chess programming and AI--and he > agrees with part of what I said. Who are YOU? (a nobody, that's who). I have been internet-cited on a dispute regarding copyrights and game programming, and am published for some math conjectures, but I am not even a minor contributor for game programming A.I. Luckily I obtained a copy of the _Science_ paper today. It is not particularly newsworthy but reflects much of the same information as was on record 3-to-5 years ago. Authors delayed publication while they conducted lint-checking and sanity-checking, and wordsmithed it for _Science_. The game of Go is mentioned nowhere in the article: a sign to me which suggests that the authors intended to distance this "solvability" concept from the Go game as much as they could. So "raylopez99" breached the very wall that esteemed _Science_ authors tried to carefully build, and paraded before our newsgroup luminaries his unwarranted example of intellectual dishonesty and arrogance. The _Science_ paper is surely a marvellous coordination of geeks arriving at "one of the longest running computations completed" in the history of computer proofs. One wonders why it might be so difficult to accept that best play on both sides produces a draw in Checkers. Powerful forces sought to instill the notion that either one side or the other "must have" an irrefutable advantage. Against those powerful forces their comptuers labored day-and-night for more than 15 years to establish these ceaseless facts of dynamical balance in Checkers. According to the publication rules at _Science_ magazine us ordinary folks must wait one year before electronic document text is released. Only then may we ingest their stale report without a trip to the library. More author-names are listed, than were supplied by the website record of abstract: Jonathan Schaeffer, Neil Burch, Yngvi Björnsson, Akihiro Kishimoto, Martin Müller, Robert Lake, Paul Lu, Steve Sutphen. A "google" search on everything these guys have done might save all of us needless muck-churning and then we can carry-on with this ionospheric discourse already so familiar to the researchers spotlighted. - regards - jb ------------- New revelations in attack on American spy ship http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,66005.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout -------------   Date: 04 Oct 2007 08:18:00 From: raylopez99 Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 4, 3:43 am, "Dirt At Your Face" <HandfulOfD...@CheapDirt.com > wrote: > Modern chess has no pedigree. The chess as we know it now matured from > generations of "token" improvisation. > That's mighty stupid of you. > Chess as purely tactical game has only strict moves-order-sequence. Familiarity > with these sequence thru rigorous tactical training does not give you harder > "per move". Tactic in Go is different as you still need to consult the > surrounding conditions if your known "go sequence" still yield favorable result. This would be true if chess was all book (I trust you know this term) and GO had no book. But you own post admits that even Go has "opening sequences" (book). Fischer, a famous chessmaster, complained of chess book and invented a form of chess that helps eliminate book (Fischer Random Chess), but most people do not believe, like you apparently do, that chess is all book; nor does science say so. > > There is no obfuscation and confusion in go. Of course there is--feigns are classic in game theory. > Chess has literature made for specific readers where the game is popular. > Likewise how much oriental books on go do you know? None. I don't speak oriental. How many books do you go? RL   Date: 04 Oct 2007 08:14:41 From: raylopez99 Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 4, 6:59 am, Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/ > wrote: > - wrote: > Good point. > > Poker has three possible moves at each point. Roulette has 87. > Does that make Poker a simpler or easier game? > > -- Since you don't know the answer (it's clear this question is not retorical), I'll provide an answer as per Shannon's theories (Shannon was also a chess player and chess programming pioneer). Roulette has more data, but less information, because data is random but information is ordered. So Poker is more complex. RL   Date: 04 Oct 2007 08:12:26 From: raylopez99 Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 4, 5:59 am, Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/ > wrote: > raylopez99 wrote: > >Go has a smaller decision complexity per move than chess. > >One way of seeing this is to count the moves in an 'average' > >game of GO (to completion) versus an 'average' game of chess. > >In chess, good players finish in around 40 moves. I doubt > >the same can be said for Go. Chess packs more per move > >than Go. > > Slighly better trolling, but still not very good. > > So if I play you a game of high card (we each draw a single card > from a deck, high card wins all) that would have more "decision > complexity per move" than if we spent all night playing poker? > No. See the works by Claude Shannon, information theorist and chess programmer. There definitely is less information in high card (namely, only the first card carries information, the rest do not), while in poker every card carries information. Likewise, in chess every mode is critical (carries information) while in GO I doubt this is true--moving a little stone to the wrong intersection will rarely if ever result in losing the whole game (with few exceptions). Troll. RL   Date: 04 Oct 2007 08:08:19 From: raylopez99 Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 4, 12:50 am, jazzerci...@hotmail.com (-) wrote: Erudite trash; rebutted below. > > raylopez99 wrote: > >> In an article in Science, 14 September 2007 p. 1519, written by the > >> Chinook team that weakly solved the game of checkers (draughts), it's > >> asserted essentially that chess is harder than Go. > > >> What is meant is that the "decision complexity" of chess (and > >> checkers) is higher than for Go (actually Go-Moku was mentioned, which > >> is not exactly the same as Go, but I take it the analogy holds for > >> Go), while the game of Go has a higher "space complexity" (essentially > >> non-repeating patterns--more such patterns in Go than Chess/Checkers). > Jonathan Buss <jfbuss...@uwaterloo.ca> wrote: > > Go has at least the same decision complexity as chess, and possibly gre= ater. > > Surely it's a mistake by "raylopez99" to draw inferences about Go fr= om > article's mention of Go-Moku. Go-Moku, without initial starting rul= es, > was "solved" by Victor Allis in 1993. A "definition of terms" avail= able: > > "The decision complexity of a game is the number of leaf nodes in the > smallest decision tree that establishes the value of the initial posit= ion." > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game-tree_complexity > > Once paring away the Greek, this sort of definition can follow from = an > alpha-beta simplification, or as by labelling massive branches a win= for > Player A or Player B. Game-tree complexity uses "full-width" search, > a slightly different concept, though a key difference to keep in min= d=2E Thanks. Were you trying to say something, or just teach us definitions? THe latter I presume. > > It's not easy to obtain the article, in Microsoft Territory, so I se= ttled > for an abstract, supporting online material, a few google references. > Here's what Jonathan Schaeffer actually said, about Chess & Go: > > at: http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/go.html > > "If you want to understand intelligence, the game of Go is much > more demanding ... It doesn't have the silver bullet: deep search. > Chess has somewhat outlived its usefulness. It turned out to be > easier than we thought. > - Jonathan Schaeffer, in Chess - Man vs. Machine Plays Out > http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/go.html#wired Yeah, I think this same guy, who is prominent in AI research, said "bridge" is the next chess. You wanna play 'bridge' with grandpa's foursome, to test your mind? > > Our particular _Science_ article lists a -team- of author-names: > Jonathan Schaeffer, Akihiro Kishimoto, Martin Muller, Robert Lake ... > Crucial to recognize Martin Muller as a longstanding contributor to = Go > game algorithms, programming, and theorem-proving. That _Science_ > article was not intended to become some polemic for slandering Go. No, but my polemic was. And what exactly is M. Muller's contribution to go? Does GO have a algorithm? Or just lame pattern recognition? > > > (-) wrote: > >> ... we could examine the sociological aspect: what led computer > >> scientists first to attack Chess instead of Go? Was there a perception > >> that Chess is more highly respected as a decision-rendering tool for > >> purposes of conducting our state-of-affairs in World Diplomacy? > "raylopez99" <raylope...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > A short answer to a rather deep compound question: YES. > > Thank you for answering. Still, I'm rather curious how that percept= ion > plays out. In what way are Chess Players exerting a positive influe= nce > upon contemporary World Diplomacy? =20 > Read up on the literature stoopid. "Pawns" as a metaphor for puppet rulers is one. > >> As the Science Magazine authors note, a solved game may fall due > >> to low decision -OR- low space complexity. The decision side is more > >> difficult to visualize, and to devise in hardware, however it remains > >> true that the impenetrability of a game to machine analysis is the > >> result of a combination of both and not simply one aspect or the other. > > Agreed. But you have to acknowledge that chess has a higher decision > > complexity per move. THis is what the paper said. It's pretty > > obvious too--alpha-beta takes thought (whether in wetware or > > software), while moving little white stones around is child's play > > (pattern recognition, not unlike a baby recognizing her mother's > > face). > > Let's follow-up with a definition for "space complexity." This= is: > > "The state-space complexity of a game is the number of legal game > positions reachable from the initial position of the game.[1] Stay on topic shiitz for brains. The topic is decision complexity. > > "When this is too hard to calculate, an upper bound can often be > computed by including illegal positions or positions that can never > arise in the course of a game." > - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game-tree_complexity > What a wiki-idiot. > John Tromp and Gunnar Farneb=E4ck have conducted research > on the state-space complexity of Go, periodically publishing their > preliminary findings to rec.games.go for cases of smaller boards. > I must wait on the text of the article, which I haven't before me, b= efore > commenting on your claims concerning what the paper said. =20 OK, please cross-post to rec.games.chess and/or email me. I'd like to build, for fun, a simple "go" playing program, like I've done for chess. BTW the paper I quoted was on weakly solving draughts (checkers), not Go. > We think > that this _Science_ paper was comparing Go-Moku but not Go. The > decision-complexity definition supplied by Wikipedia refers to the > calculation of the value of a position. Because Go Positions must > be calculated within narrow margins there is much opportunity for > shifting flim-flams about each convergent _komi_ value of the game. > Unlike Chess the calculation of a positional values in Go does not > reduce to +/- for either player so quickly. So it is quite likely t= hat > decision-complexity for Go is also higher than would be for Chess. "Quite likely" is an opinion. I beg to differ. > When one game has both higher decision-complexity -AND- higher > space-complexity then you may infer an overall ordering relation. > Right. So the jury is still out. I say GO is for simpletons. You're entitled to your *opinion*, and, like an arse hole, everybody has an opinion. Opinion is not fact. > This result, however, is deceptive because it argues from the > definition of a term, and these term-definitions do not lead us towa= rd > much solvability direction in Go. It would be more productive to no= te > a positional value distribution of candidate moves, perhaps bell-cur= ve > shaped, and whether there was any flattening near the selection for > optimal move candidates. If, in Go, I can weed out candidate moves > to two dozen and then posit a half-dozen good moves which continue > forward from a position then perhaps my selection problem reduces > to a likelihood of 1/4th probability. Let's say, though, in Chess I= find > six candidate moves after weeding, but owing to the "sharpness" of > Chess only one of those moves is really "best" and "worth playing." > In this sort of thought-experiment my selection problem is then 1/6t= h, > offering me less opportunity of finding a good forward continuance, > meaning that a Chess task would be more difficult than the Go task. Well said. Sorry for the previous insults if you wrote this yourself. Again, I'm not familiar with GO and what algorithms they use in GO (if any), but I'd be curious to find out. It sounds a little like the game of LIFE, which is simple to program; a lot simplier than chess. Ergo, GO is simple. > > In either case the machine task is to play fairly well though n= ot > brilliantly, just maintaining a balance, and then winning the endgam= e=2E > Whether it's Chess or Go, the machine is dominant for the endgame. > Yet, for Go, perhaps it's a more difficult task just to keep a balan= ce. > Playing "approximately" would never suffice to raise the level of Go > machine-play toward pro level. =20 No, I disagree; they said the same thing about chess. If GO is a game of blunders, like chess is, then playing approximately is good enough. > > Playouts in MonteCarlo could be full-width or alpha-beta pruned. > With additional pattern-recognition a pruning might reduce awesome > decision-complexity into something more manageable: this was one > of Frank de Groot's visions. Recall that the machine task is not to= be > an overwhelming player but simply to find humdrum game balance > in order to apply CGT during _yose_. Prior to the CGT there may be > some sort of extensible pre-CGT phase which initiates the lead-out. > The problem concerns "sente" moves which are, typically, not in a > general vicinity of the move recently played. The phrase "not in a > general vicinity" tends to widen, not restrict, the candidate search. Did you cut and paste this from somewhere or are you trying to say something? What an idiot (sorry for my premature retraction of calling you an idiot before). > > Beyond a threshold, more playouts do not improve move selection. > The hardware I was attempting to describe is not a MC/UCT scheme, > however. Would be hardware from something like Hogwarts, actually, > where the particular configurations of switches, levers and tripwire= s, > were already calibrated for zapping electrons into proper pigeonhole= s=2E > Could be very fast, especially dart-like pieces that do not move aro= und. > The "moving around" aspects of Chess could later (future) prove to be > more intractably tenacious than the "sitting around" aspects for Go. > Metaphysics. You'd make a good high priest, or maybe a theoretical physicist. RL     Date: 04 Oct 2007 16:09:37 From: - Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com > wrote: > Were you trying to say something, or just teach us definitions? > THe latter I presume. Crucial to obtain definitions because you have been demonstrating an abysmal ignorance of the various complexity measures and how they each contribute to our understanding of what renders a game complex. > (-) wrote: >> Here's what Jonathan Schaeffer actually said, about Chess & Go: >> at: http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/go.html >> "If you want to understand intelligence, the game of Go is much >> more demanding ... It doesn't have the silver bullet: deep search. >> Chess has somewhat outlived its usefulness. It turned out to be >> easier than we thought. >> - Jonathan Schaeffer, in Chess - Man vs. Machine Plays Out >> http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/go.html#wired > Yeah, I think this same guy, who is prominent in AI research, said > "bridge" is the next chess. You wanna play 'bridge' with grandpa's > foursome, to test your mind? I don't suppose this topic concerns what anybody wants to play. We were attempting to discuss a relative complexity measure of games. Not whether some game is easy to play but whether it is easy to win. >> Our particular _Science_ article lists a -team- of author-names: >> Jonathan Schaeffer, Akihiro Kishimoto, Martin Muller, Robert Lake ... >> Crucial to recognize Martin Muller as a longstanding contributor to Go >> game algorithms, programming, and theorem-proving. That _Science_ >> article was not intended to become some polemic for slandering Go. > No, but my polemic was. And what exactly is M. Muller's contribution > to go? Does GO have a algorithm? Or just lame pattern recognition? Pattern recognition has been applied for Go, among many algorithms. You are invited to "google" search on Martin Muller for further details. >> In what way are Chess Players exerting a positive influence >> upon contemporary World Diplomacy? > Read up on the literature stoopid. "Pawns" as a metaphor for > puppet rulers is one. Though, in many games, a "pawn" becomes the deciding piece. Not exactly your "puppet" anymore ... :-) >>>> As the Science Magazine authors note, a solved game may fall due >>>> to low decision -OR- low space complexity. The decision side is more >>>> difficult to visualize, and to devise in hardware, however it remains >>>> true that the impenetrability of a game to machine analysis is the >>>> result of a combination of both and not simply one aspect or the other. >>> Agreed. But you have to acknowledge that chess has a higher decision >>> complexity per move. THis is what the paper said. It's pretty >>> obvious too--alpha-beta takes thought (whether in wetware or >>> software), while moving little white stones around is child's play >>> (pattern recognition, not unlike a baby recognizing her mother's >>> face). >> Let's follow-up with a definition for "space complexity." This is: >> "The state-space complexity of a game is the number of legal game >> positions reachable from the initial position of the game.[1] > Stay on topic shiitz for brains. The topic is decision complexity. The topic is what renders a game impenetrable, versus amenable, to machine analysis. Chess has fallen by the wayside. Go has not (yet). Earlier you "agreed" that it is a combination of both, not one aspect. On your point concerning "decision-complexity per move" my jury is out. There are several methods for obtaining a measure of this: the phrase refers to "state-of-the-art" heuristics. On balance, if tournament prize money were equal, number of rounds equal, number of players equal, then the fewer moves in Chess appear to argue for "higher decision complexity per move" because we acknowledge that Chess is sharper. We may also state that, beyond the opening, few Chess continuations appear obvious while, at times, Go presents rather obvious urgencies. This consideration for "space complexity" explains why alpha-beta pruning for Go is itself more intractable than for Chess, offering much evidence for why a "decision complexity" in Go cannot be so reduced as might be possible for Chess. Retrograde analysis in Chess/Checkers allows for closure when approaching the endgames. Computer Go is closed by Combinatorial Game Theory, not by any retrograde analysis. Here also, CGT rapidly falls apart much sooner in retrograde direction. >> "When this is too hard to calculate, an upper bound can often be >> computed by including illegal positions or positions that can never >> arise in the course of a game." >> - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game-tree_complexity > What a wiki-idiot. Which argued in your favor. The "actual proportional" state-space complexity of Go falls off more rapidly when excluding illegal positions. > I'd like to build, for fun, a simple "go" playing program, like I've done > for chess. BTW the paper I quoted was on weakly solving draughts > (checkers), not Go. Yes, and his "weak solution" resorted to mathematical arguments. To whet your whistle, I built a working Chess program as early as 1973. I do not yet have an adequate Go program. >> We think >> that this _Science_ paper was comparing Go-Moku but not Go. The >> decision-complexity definition supplied by Wikipedia refers to the >> calculation of the value of a position. Because Go Positions must >> be calculated within narrow margins there is much opportunity for >> shifting flim-flams about each convergent _komi_ value of the game. >> Unlike Chess the calculation of a positional values in Go does not >> reduce to +/- for either player so quickly. So it is quite likely that >> decision-complexity for Go is also higher than would be for Chess. > "Quite likely" is an opinion. I beg to differ. And who might you be? While game complexity is not necessarily locked in chronological discovery with computer science evolution perhaps there is, nonetheless, a compelling argument for correlation. >> When one game has both higher decision-complexity -AND- higher >> space-complexity then you may infer an overall ordering relation. > Right. So the jury is still out. I say GO is for simpletons. You're > entitled to your *opinion*, and, like an arse hole, everybody has an > opinion. Opinion is not fact. The authors of the cited _Science_ article say Go has higher decision complexity -AND- higher space-complexity overall. Your discussion concerning "decision complexity per move" is the point you wish to advance. I partially agree with you that Chess is sharper. We all support bringing your supercomputer powers to a Go question. >> In either case the machine task is to play fairly well though not >> brilliantly, just maintaining a balance, and then winning the endgame >> Whether it's Chess or Go, the machine is dominant for the endgame. >> Yet, for Go, perhaps it's a more difficult task just to keep a balance. >> Playing "approximately" would never suffice to raise the level of Go >> machine-play toward pro level. > No, I disagree; they said the same thing about chess. If GO is a game > of blunders, like chess is, then playing approximately is good enough. Unlike Chess, Go is not a game of blunders. The relative "dullness" of Go means that compensation for mistakes does not always go away. >> The problem concerns "sente" moves which are, typically, not in a >> general vicinity of the move recently played. The phrase "not in a >> general vicinity" tends to widen, not restrict, the candidate search. > Did you cut and paste this from somewhere or are you trying to say > something? A centrality of sente, in Go, prevents reduction of decision-complexity, because we reduce space-complexity for reducing decision-complexity. - regards - jb --- Arrested For Reading The Constitution http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2007/021007_reading_constitution.htm ---   Date: 04 Oct 2007 13:10:13 From: Guy Macon Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go ############################################################ # # # TROLL FEEDING IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. THIS MEANS YOU! # # # ###############(\##########################/)############### ((_)) ((_))   Date: 04 Oct 2007 12:59:40 From: Guy Macon Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go raylopez99 wrote: >Go has a smaller decision complexity per move than chess. >One way of seeing this is to count the moves in an 'average' >game of GO (to completion) versus an 'average' game of chess. >In chess, good players finish in around 40 moves. I doubt >the same can be said for Go. Chess packs more per move >than Go. Slighly better trolling, but still not very good. So if I play you a game of high card (we each draw a single card from a deck, high card wins all) that would have more "decision complexity per move" than if we spent all night playing poker? And if I started a chess game and resigned on the first move that would have more "decision complexity per move" than if I slugged it out for 60 or 80 moves? ------------- Troll 1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT. 2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait, that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a followup to troll postings. See also Kook. ------------- -- Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/ >   Date: 04 Oct 2007 14:53:22 From: Robert Jasiek Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:15:26 -0700, raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com > wrote: >In an article in Science, 14 September 2007 p. 1519, written by the >Chinook team that weakly solved the game of checkers (draughts), it's >asserted essentially that chess is harder than Go. > >What is meant is that the "decision complexity" of chess (and >checkers) is higher than for Go [...] From the followup posts I conclude that here "decision complexity" (and "harder") shall mean "(average or maximal?) number of next legal moves". >What is the consequence of this? The consequence is (BTW, not for the first time) that (some) articles in Science about game complexity deceive their readers. With measures of game complexity, one should estimate how hard it is for a human and / or computer to find the best move(s) throughout the game. Contrarily, the cited complexity measure does not do this because it cannot be decided what is (one of) the best move(s) by looking ahead only one move (unless we are already just one move before the game end with whichever might be the next legal move).     Date: 04 Oct 2007 14:28:13 From: David Richerby Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go Robert Jasiek <jasiek@snafu.de > wrote: > The consequence is (BTW, not for the first time) that (some) > articles in Science about game complexity deceive their readers. Not really. The article said `Go-Moku' and the reader didn't know the difference between Go-Moku and Go. Hardly _Science_'s fault in this case. Dave. -- David Richerby Portable T-Shirt (TM): it's like a www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ fashion statement but you can take it anywhere!   Date: 04 Oct 2007 10:48:06 From: David Richerby Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go C'mon, guys. Anything cross-posted between rec.games.chess.* and rec.games.go is almost certainly a troll. Just leave it alone already. Once one person's pointed out that Go and Go-Moku are totally separate games, there really isn't anything else to say. Dave. -- David Richerby Gigantic Toy (TM): it's like a fun www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ child's toy but it's huge!     Date: 04 Oct 2007 23:11:21 From: james Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go David Richerby a écrit : > C'mon, guys. Anything cross-posted between rec.games.chess.* and > rec.games.go is almost certainly a troll. Just leave it alone > already. > > Once one person's pointed out that Go and Go-Moku are totally separate > games, there really isn't anything else to say. > > > Dave. > Right.   Date: 04 Oct 2007 00:44:35 From: raylopez99 Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 3, 10:02 pm, "Dirt At Your Face" <HandfulOfD...@CheapDirt.com > wrote: > > http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/700/chessgeniuslt4.jpg > > I also have the image made into a nice wall-poster minus the text-message of > course. How much would you reckon the poster would sell? Of course, "minus" the text message, which belies your subliminal message. Face it--chess has pedigree. Chess is harder "per move". Chess doesn't relying on obfuscation and confusion (asian specialties) to make the game hard--it's simple Mandelbrot chaos theory embodied in a few simple rules. Chess has literature and lots of people playing it, even younger people today. WHat does Go have? Nothing but apeish pattern recognition--you might as well play bridge with the old folks. Further, I 'go' to the "GO" board and it's pretty dead--dead board, dead game! 'Nuff said. RL "YOu can learn a lot from a dummy" <--public service message re seatbelts in the USA, featuring a test crash dummy     Date: 04 Oct 2007 19:58:07 From: Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:44:35 -0700, raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com > wrote: >On Oct 3, 10:02 pm, "Dirt At Your Face" <HandfulOfD...@CheapDirt.com> >wrote: > >> http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/700/chessgeniuslt4.jpg >> >> I also have the image made into a nice wall-poster minus the text-message of >> course. How much would you reckon the poster would sell? > >Of course, "minus" the text message, which belies your subliminal >message. > >Face it--chess has pedigree. About 1/5 of go's pedigree. >Chess is harder "per move". Translation: because it is so completely tactical, it is harder to avoid losing a game of chess with any given move. >Chess doesn't relying on obfuscation and confusion (asian specialties) to >make the game hard--it's simple Mandelbrot chaos theory embodied in a >few simple rules. But far more complicated rules than go's. >Chess has literature and lots of people playing it, >even younger people today. As does go. >WHat does Go have? Nothing but apeish pattern recognition--you might >as well play bridge with the old folks. Obvious nonsense. >Further, I 'go' to the "GO" >board and it's pretty dead--dead board, dead game! Brain-dead... -- Roy L     Date: 04 Oct 2007 18:43:56 From: Dirt At Your Face Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com > typed: > On Oct 3, 10:02 pm, "Dirt At Your Face" <HandfulOfD...@CheapDirt.com> > wrote: > >> >> http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/700/chessgeniuslt4.jpg >> >> I also have the image made into a nice wall-poster minus the text-message of >> course. How much would you reckon the poster would sell? > > Of course, "minus" the text message, which belies your subliminal > message. I think I'll make the poster for mass production. Watch out for it in the coming months... Would anyone buy it at US$26.00 as a go player? > > Face it--chess has pedigree. Chess is harder "per move". Chess > doesn't relying on obfuscation and confusion (asian specialties) to > make the game hard--it's simple Mandelbrot chaos theory embodied in a > few simple rules. Chess has literature and lots of people playing it, > even younger people today. Modern chess has no pedigree. The chess as we know it now matured from generations of "token" improvisation. Chess as purely tactical game has only strict moves-order-sequence. Familiarity with these sequence thru rigorous tactical training does not give you harder "per move". Tactic in Go is different as you still need to consult the surrounding conditions if your known "go sequence" still yield favorable result. There is no obfuscation and confusion in go. Its beauty lies within your ability to construct living shapes (and obstructing your opponent's in a way beneficial only to your game) efficiently from the empty grid covering a space-size (or capturing the enemy stones) only limited by your playing skill. Chess has literature made for specific readers where the game is popular. Likewise how much oriental books on go do you know?   Date: 04 Oct 2007 00:40:22 From: raylopez99 Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 3, 7:14 pm, Ben Finney <bignose+hates-s...@benfinney.id.au > wrote: > raylopez99 <raylope...@yahoo.com> writes: > > Go games take more moves than the average chess game to conclude (a > > chess game takes about 40 moves to conclude). > > > Ergo, per move, Go is simplier. > > Chess and Go both take many more moves to conclude, on average, than > the average Tic-Tac Toe game. > > Ergo, per move, Go and Chess are both simplier than Tic-Tac-Toe. > THis would be true, if the number of moves in Tic-Tac-Toe was not so low. Go and Chess have roughly the same number of moves (or much higher than Tic-Tac-Toe), so my "thought per moves" point was well made. Thanks for playing with the troll. As a public safety message featureing a crash test dummy once said in the USA, "you can learn a lot from an idiot". RL     Date: 04 Oct 2007 19:52:02 From: Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:40:22 -0700, raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com > wrote: >On Oct 3, 7:14 pm, Ben Finney <bignose+hates-s...@benfinney.id.au> >wrote: >> raylopez99 <raylope...@yahoo.com> writes: >> > Go games take more moves than the average chess game to conclude (a >> > chess game takes about 40 moves to conclude). >> >> > Ergo, per move, Go is simplier. >> >> Chess and Go both take many more moves to conclude, on average, than >> the average Tic-Tac Toe game. >> >> Ergo, per move, Go and Chess are both simplier than Tic-Tac-Toe. > >THis would be true, if the number of moves in Tic-Tac-Toe was not so >low. Go and Chess have roughly the same number of moves The number of moves in a typical go game is at least triple the number in a typical chess game. >(or much >higher than Tic-Tac-Toe), so my "thought per moves" point was well >made. No, it was idiotic and wrong. -- Roy L   Date: 03 Oct 2007 23:59:00 From: help bot Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 4, 12:44 am, ro...@telus.net wrote: > > Many years ago, I played chess with a fellow who > >insisted that go was a far better game. He continued > >to insist this night after night, which he wasted playing > >chess, *not go*! (Presumably, he could find no > >monkeys against which to play, and this is why he > >continually pestered us to switch games.) > > Maybe he just wanted an opponent he could beat. Well, in that case, he would have done better to coerce some of the weaker chess players, boosting his odds a bit. > >> BTW, an old friend of mine was one of the early contributors to the > >> Chinook research effort, and he long ago acknowledged that go is so > >> much more complex than checkers that he could not even hazard a guess > >> how much more complex. > > > A battleship is infinitely more complex than a car. > >Therefore, we should all drive... battleships? > > Careful, you're giving the logical powers of chess players a bad name. A lot of talk has centered around which game is the more complex, chess or go. It seems to me that this is very similar to asking: who was the faster draw, Jesse James or Billy the Kid? Which would win in a fight, a bear or a lion? My point is that complexity is a poor measure of which is the better game; that such an approach is rather silly. > > Another drawback is the very limited playing > >field -- just 64 squares, along with only two types of > >men: expendable and not expendable. Kidding. But > >there are only a relatively few types of men in chess. > >The "terrain" is perfectly flat; > > Not so: the center is effectively the "high ground." Ah. But then, it is also the high ground in tic-tac-toe; I want complexly variable terrain, more like the real world. In the game Stratego there are two obstacles dividing the different sides from one another, creating three different possible routes for attack or retreat. I found even that to be a bit simplistic. In chess there are no terrain-obstacles; it is wide open, plain and simple. (One can create obstacles by locking the pawns, but this requires both sides to cooperate.) > Go's excellent handicap system effectively allows players of widely > divergent skill to play on an equal footing without totally changing > the nature of the game. The weaker player just gets a head start in > the places where he puts his handicap stones. An excellent aspect. In chess, if you force a top-GM to give up his Queen, he will still be a tactical monster, but all of his vast knowledge of the intricasies of the chess openings, all of his preparation, goes up in smoke. None of these guys got to the tip-top by just showing up and winging it. > >Where nobody has "prepared > >lines" against almost any reasonable approach you > >might try? I think so. > > In go, free placement of handicap stones allows the weaker player, if > he so chooses, to challenge the stronger with an opening position > unlike any he has seen before. Chess is much more rigid in nature. Remove my Queen, and I still "know" how to develop and castle. I still "know" that it is best to develop in a certain way, though now I must try to avoid even exchanges. Handicapping destroys the opening book, except when the handicap is small (like say, one pawn). > >I'm tired of the 90+% of chess > >that is chained to seeing all the tactics, merely > >calculating captures and checks; give me more > >deep strategy, more long-range planning and less > >check-and-pea-pick-that-pawn. > > You are effectively asking that someone teach you how to play go. No, I've read that game sucks. ; >D > It's much freer than chess because it is not totally dominated by > tactics, and there are consequently more good, playable moves to > choose from. It likewise gives greater scope for self-expression, and > a player's personal style is much easier to see in go than in chess. Sounds good. As soon as I can find someone to succeed me (I cannot be "replaced") as the world's highest-rated player (on GetClub, that is), I might have a look at go. "I lasted two hours against a go master before blundering horribly at my second turn. He replied immediately, capturing all twenty- seven of the handicap stones I had placed, plus the two I had played later. Realizing I was in a fix, I asked for a rematch -- but this time at ninety stones odds. I then set out to find -- and kill -- Edward Lasker, for convincing me that this was an easy game." -- help bot   Date: 04 Oct 2007 13:02:17 From: Dirt At Your Face Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com > typed: <snip nonsense > > > So, let me translate for you Go players: Go is a game that even a > monkey can play, the moves require little or no thought, you can't > make a "one-move blunder" easily, like in chess, and, consequently, > because so many possible patterns exist, computers with present day > hardware are "fooled" into playing weakly. However, once hardware > improves, Go will be weakly solved (meaning with 99.9999999...% > probability, like checkers) and it will be seen that Go players are > nothing but egotistical naked apes. Watching and playing pachinko is > more interesting than Go. The true cerebral game of skill is, will be > and remains, international chess. http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/700/chessgeniuslt4.jpg I also have the image made into a nice wall-poster minus the text-message of course. How much would you reckon the poster would sell?   Date: 03 Oct 2007 21:11:45 From: help bot Subject: Re: Computer Science Experts: Chess 'harder' than Go On Oct 3, 4:31 pm, ro...@telus.net wrote: > It is perhaps a significant datum that an apparently rabid chess > partisan (most chess players are certainly intelligent and civilized > enough to disown the sentiments raylopez99 expresses) would say that > about go players, but go players do not say that about chess players. > We simply observe that our game is better ;^) Hey, if go is better than chess, then why does it take so long to come up with a legal move? In chess, even a rank beginner can find some blunder after only a minute or two of miscalculation. Many years ago, I played chess with a fellow who insisted that go was a far better game. He continued to insist this night after night, which he wasted playing chess, *not go*! (Presumably, he could find no monkeys against which to play, and this is why he continually pestered us to switch games.) > BTW, an old friend of mine was one of the early contributors to the > Chinook research effort, and he long ago acknowledged that go is so > much more complex than c