[gnugo-devel] Re: GnuGo questions

[Daniel Bump]

Thanks for your letter. I'm cc'ing my reply to the GNU Go list.

Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:

> I've been fooling around with GnuGo and the GTP
> client posted to the devel list and got it working
> (with some modifications) to automatically play on IGS.
> 
> Are you interested in the games it played so far?
> If so, I'll tar 'em up and send them to you.

About the games, only if you see a game that you think
is really interesting. GNU Go plays constantly on NNGS and
have more of this sort of tuning material than we can
deal with.

Which gtp client are you referring to? I suppose Tristan
Cazenave's gtpclient but there is also Gunnar's
gnugoclient. It might be good to see your modifications.

> a) What's (approximately) the strength difference
> between the different levels? Even on my Athlon 1000
> GnuGo can take quite a while before moving at level 10.
> Is there any real gain from this over levels 6-7 ?

I don't know the difference in strength but there is a
clear difference in accuracy. Since GNU Go's main advantage
against (weak) humans is that although it is strategically
stupid it can sometimes outcalculate them, I imagine this
has a big impact. A lot of things are turned off below
level 8. Level 8 should give respectable play, for example
definitely stronger than GNU Go 2.6.

Subjective opinion has it that 3.1.11 is slower than 3.0.0.

> b) How do I undo moves when playing vs GnuGo with Jago?

Wolfgang Manner posted some changes to GNU Go 3.0 and to
Jago which allow you to use undo when using Jago. These
are at http://www.gnu.org/software/gnugo/devel.html.  It
is unlikely they work with 3.1.11. They haven't been
much tested except by him so we'd be interested in a
review of them.

> c) (not really GnuGo) I've noticed Jago sometimes produces
> SGF files with duplicated moves, which prevents GnuGo
> from reading them in. Is this a known bug?

You probably should ask Rene Grothmann if he's seen this.
Does anything in particular seem to trigger it? (Ko or
something?)

Dan