The computer resigned when I played it today. The only other time I've seen it resign was in a 9x9 game where, in a fit of temper, I gave myself a huge handicap for the vengeful pleasure of kicking its microcircuits.

But the final board doesn't look that decided or uneven to me. And not having an actual score to compare is unsettling. I always remember the time the computer passed, then scored its own 140+ territory points as dame. So it's hardly infallible.

So, what do you think? Do I have my first legitimate 19x19 win against Gnu Go, or did the computer just freak out? (I played black.)

well, yeah... you control more than half the board. White's got nothing.

congrats.

But White approximately controls the other half and has way more prisoners if the Black groups dies, which is very likely. But maybe GnuGo has a scoring system a bit better than SE on KGS and was sure he had lost.



post scriptum:
Ha ha ha, nevermind, didn't see the eye in the corner ^^

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Awesome! Thanks! Maybe I'll manage to beat a real person one of these days....

As I understand it, bots will usually resign if they consider the status of every major group on the board to be settled and think they are behind by some large number (maybe 50?) of points. In this case, back of the envelope estimation: B's bottom half is 3x20 + 7x10, we'll call it 10 more in the upper left....140 points? White has 4x15 + maybe 15 scattered on top, We'll say 15 on the left side...that's 90? Pretty much everything looks settled, so 140-90 puts us in the ballpark for resignation territory...

Please remember that each "bot" is some particular program playing on some particular hardware. Really not a good idea to make overly general statements about what bots (in general) will or will not do extrapolating from the behavior of one particular program.

Thus is makes sense to say "gngo will do thus and so" (if that is your experience) but not jump from that to saying what other programs will do unless you have experience with their behavior.

That requires you to actually play against a real person!

(Actually, I enjoy playing vs. the machine, too. I prefer MFoG12's engine over everything else I've tried. I like that it adjusts to your approximate strength and it plays a varied (for an engine), not too computer-y style.)

Oh, I've tried. Every time i go online in Yahoo!'s beginner room, I get shredded. I played a rated game on KGS against a 5kyu player, and it was not unlike being dropped into a woodchipper. There's an old guy from the chess club who plays go, and we played three games, and it took me a handicap of six stones to achieve a draw. The only real people I beat are the ones I actually teach how to play, and as soon as I give them a handicap they kick my butt.

Sigh....

Playing the computer doesn't apparently provide much of a learning experience for playing people. Humans seem to play a much more aggressive game.

Have you tried playing on KGS? It is far more beginner friendly than yahoo, probably has a much better ranking system, and almost certainly has a better community to learn from. I say 'probably' and 'almost certainly' because I haven't tried yahoo, but it has a very bad reputation.

flyordie is also entertaining, and has a lot of beginners.

Don't be disheartened that playing a 5k is an easy loss. Frankly, they'll completely outclass you, as will anyone beyond around 10k (at a guess). This isn't a bad thing, it's perfectly natural, and finding a group of more closely ranked player is a less overwhelming way to learn.

Well, 5k is club player level. Have you tried playing against other beginners on KGS? You could play one of the low ranked bots to get an initial rank (say, around 20k), then just play people around that rank. Uase the Automatch feature to make it easier. You'll get the occasional sandbagger (a player who is much stronger than the low rank they maintain -- a form of griefing) and escaper (people leaving without finishing the game), but you'll also get some even opponents, especially once you're 12kyu and up. Looking at what you've posted so far, I think you'll do fine.

There is nothing wrong with playing against the computer (other than that it is like playing just one person who doesn't talk back, so you learn to play against that one opponent rather than more general aspects), but especially as a beginner you'd benefit more from playing "normal" people who share your level of experience. It's certainly more pleasant for the ego and definitely better for your motivation. You probably already play better than many beginners since bots tend to play a decent opening, so you might feel confused by what beginners do (and won't know how to respond, even if you know that their moves are "wrong").

The longer you wait, the stronger the "online gaming anxiety" will become. You'll never feel "ready", though you may wait for that moment. It won't come. The solution really is to jump into the fray and just play. It's very easy to get hung up on rank, and to feel stupid, hopeless and useless -- and eventually frustrated if you feel you're "better" than your rank implies (to yourself). For me, learning to deal with this (with myself) is one of the most important aspects I feel I can learn from Go.

I like to remember this citation when doubts poke and prod me: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. (Churchill)

Remember that the definition of the kyu ranks is that an X-kyu player and a Y-kyu player should have an even game if they play with (X-Y) handicap stones. If you've only beaten GnuGo once, you might be something like 13 kyu. You would have needed 8 handicap stones to have a good game against a 5 kyu. Don't be discouraged, just get back on KGS and try to play games that are more even.

(If you're having trouble finding games, you can ask in the L19 room, I'm sure some of us would be happy to play you.)

It happens to the best of us. Everyone here - including me - got shredded in their beginner days. Stick with it. It will be worth it in the long run.


Win or glitch? I say both. You got the win fair and square because there is a programming glitch. It looks like its build-dead-eyespace routine got to overrule its define-group routine.

This is the glitch: At move 104, any human should be able to see that black has effectively 2 groups, and the immediate goal should be to attack the upper one. But it let its define-group routine express an opinion only once - saying that there was one big black group. When the D14/C13 cut happened a few moves back, it should have re-invoked that routine for a more current opinion. It didn't, and missed the easy kill with 104 at B18

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Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

Thanks, all. Yeah, I'll stick with it, at least for a while. I don't think I have the right sort of brain to be really good at Go. All I want is to suck less...

When times get rough, just remember you can always come back to it later (just don't never do it, because if it's something you enjoy, even a little, you can always learn something, even from the hard times.) recently I've been having a hard time with my rank and I've been failing alot, but failing isn't the end, and technically, you tend to learn the most from your failures if you give it a chance. Just giving up is like saying "ok you beat me" at least that's the way I see it. It's hard, but I think people learn the most when they press ahead with whatever they decide to do.