[gnugo-devel] Thinking on opponent's time?

[Trevor Morris]

It seems that GNU Go doesn't "think" on its opponents time.  A very
simple approach might really help with GNU Go's responsiveness and
NNGS strength.  Rather than sit idly while waiting for the opponent,
start up a thread to consider the opponent's best moves
(i.e. top_moves white), then for each of these, consider black's
best response.  So, if white moves as expected, GNU Go could respond
immediately, having already figured out it's response.

This could be implemented entirely in the GTP controller, without
changing GNU Go at all.  It wouldn't make GNU Go technically any
stronger (i.e. no increased look-ahead in the engine), but could
make it significantly faster.

It might be handy to put this feature into GNU Go proper, however,
as humans sometimes time a while to respond, and wouldn't mind if
GNU Go sat in a low priority thread in the background considering.

BTW, the link: "metamachine_1_3.1. Requires GNU Go 3.1.2." on the
dev page is broken.

-Trevor