Re: [gnugo-devel] Re: computer-go: Computer Go Ladder

[Evan Berggren Daniel]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2003, Arend Bayer wrote:
> (On computer-go) Eric Pettersen wrote:
>
> > Exactly.  I think Stefan's automated tournament probably satisfies most
> > programmer's curiosity as to how their program would do versus others.
> > If the ladder goes another year without challenges, I'll probably
> > retire it.
>
> I think we could well go ahead with challenges on 9x9.

On the more general subject of tournament play, I would like to propose a
--tournament option.  This would have (potentially) a number of effects
that attempt to get the strongest engine we can.  For example, we could
add a pattern classification to joseki patterns such that some josekis are
not played during tournaments.  For example, we could reduce the
probability of the high approach to hoshi, not play the avalanche, only
play one simple response to the avalanche (the solid connection), etc.  I
think having a varied engine that plays a larger variety of plays is
interesting in general, and allows us to find a wider variety of problems,
but for tournament play we should probably play the strongest moves we can
find, and avoid positions that may be difficult for gnugo.

Evan Daniel