Another milestone in computer Go. Zen19 is the first bot to hold a 3d rating on KGS for at least 20 games. Zen19 was also the first bot to hold 1d and 2d ratings.

You can see some more historical bot ratings here:
http://senseis.xmp.net/?KGSBotRatings

It's really too bad that I can't buy a copy of Zen19 and play it at home.

I only speak English.

-

I use Japanese software and I don't understand a word.

and where to buy the copy please? thanks

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Du hoc My | Du hoc Uc | My Ninja Works

You can (or could) buy zen at http://soft.mycom.co.jp/pcigo/tencho/index.html

But don't ask me what to press and so.

Did email Yamato (the creator of Zen) when we can expect an English version.

(or when can we buy the program at an english website)

But even then do you only buy the program on CD rom or can youi also download updates?

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Promotor and Librarian of Sensei's Library

Isn't that a link to the first version of the software? You can find the second version here:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/毎日コミュニケーションズ-天頂の囲碁2/dp/B003XFYTTC

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be immersed

sorry i don't know I cannot speak or read Japanese

Ps the link doesn't work but that is maybe becouse the japanese characters

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Promotor and Librarian of Sensei's Library

what about this link then?
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%AF%8E%E6%97 ... 003XFYTTC/

Zen is not just a 3 dan. KGS shows Zen to be half way between 3 dan and 4 dan.
Does KGS say what number Zen is in the list of all KGS players? I saw the 100th highest KGS player is 7 dan. Would Zen be ranked the 1,000th highest player in KGS?
Mark

Just out of curiosity, I have watched some of the computer programs playing on KGS yesterday.
I did not see Zend, but I have seen ManyFaces, ranked at 1d.

I was very surprised at the level it played. It seemed to be making plenty of completely retarded moves - and I mean REALLY RETARDED! Like pushing the losing side of a 3-move ladder which even a 15k should have seen as not working. And stuff like that. Repeatedly! And that should be the "strength" of the program, no? These few-move forced sequences which can be easily calculated. It made some moves which were not so bad, but the overall level was rather low, certainly not a 1d stuff. Not even a 5k stuff, most of the time, I'd say.

I had the impression that only the fast time controls (10 sec per move) allowed it to beat an opponent every now and then. I watched quite a few games and it only managed to win one - and that by what I assumed was a time-induced blunder by the opponent.

I watched another program which was 2k and two that were 4k - same story, pretty much.

Which makes me wonder... are these programs really playing at the advertised level?
If I buy MFoG and set it up at home, try to play a game against it on slower time controls, will it really play like a 1d? Or is that just a marketing gimmick? Is the rating skewed by the game timing or other factors (like playing a lot among each other, or something)? I do not wish to make a negative publicity for people writing Go programs here, but this is what I have observed on KGS. So I wonder...

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Was it behind when it played like that? That's when the really retarded moves surface.

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FusekiLibrary, an opening library.
SGF converter tools: Wbaduk NGF to SGF | 440 go problems | Fuseki made easy | Tesuji made easy | Elementary training & Dan level testing | Dan Tutor Shortcut To Dan

You can look at Zen19N, this is the same program but it plays 30+5x:30. It's currently on the border between 1k/1d.

Recently, ZenAuthor wrote in KGS chat that he intends
to make a western version of Zen available before
Christmas 2010.

Ingo.

Not really. It was sort-of throughout the game from what I noticed.
It might have been thinking it was behind, I cannot really say. The positions did not always look like that to me.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

The playing style of Monte-Carlo bots (Many Faces is one)
is completely different from human playing style. Therefore,
it is very normal that sometimes

(A) humans think that such a bot plays very poor moves from time to time

and

(B) bots think that such a human plays very poor moves from time to time.

Bots do not speak, so we see only reactions of type (A).

Ingo.

Well... it was more than just 'thinking' - these WERE retarded moves.

And while I grant you that it is certainly possible (and probably true) that programs view the game differently than humans, it would stand to reason that a 1d programs making retarded moves so much, would also have to make a fair number of really good moves which would balance out all the blunders. I am not sure I have seen any such moves, although it is certainly possible that they were there I am just not strong enough to notice them.

From my observation, the programs have had two advantages:
1) fast pace of the game
2) the ability (inherent to all programs, even the weakest ones) not to be psyched-out by the moves

Other than this - I have watched a lot of 1d games, and MFoG did not seem to play at that level.

It might be as you say, the program views the game differently than humans, but then the question is - what is its value as a sparring and teaching partner?

Anyways... I did not really wanted to harp about the weaknesses of computer programs in Go.
Just wondering if anybody has noticed stuff like that.

For example - has any dan player purchased MFoG and really gave it a workout at different time settings to see how it plays?

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

This is tricky.

Time controls -- as far as I know we have only one example of a single bot on the same hardware playing at under two different time controls. Manyfaces is playing at 30 minutes for all the moves and Manyfaces1 at 10 sec per move. Note that these aren't actually very different average times per move. If you look at the stats, MFOG is stronger against a human opponent under the 10 sec time control. Why? Probably because the human player sometimes needs longer to read out a position, using time saved by making other moves faster.

Bad moves, "not 1 dan moves", and similar comments. I think you need to go by the stats. If you have a large number of games between a bot and human 1 dan players (and stronger or weaker human players with the appropriate handicaps) and the bot wins half of them then it must be playing at 1 dan.

True.
And I am not saying it is not.
Except that the skill level a 1d displays at 10sec/move is slightly different that that of a 1d in slow games.
One of the reasons I think that ratings on servers should be adjusted for time controls, but that's another discussion.

What interests me is not if a MFoG with rating 1d plays as 1d in 10sec/move - I know that, this is what the stats say.
Does it also play as 1d in slower games? As I said - I don't want to trash computers here. I am just interested in how these ratings from KGS translate into real world under real tournament (or even club-game) conditions.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

That is normal. Monte-Carlo bots rely on a parameter called
"win rate". It is given in % and takes on values between 0 and 100.
The meaning of certain ranges of value, in the opinion of the bot:

50 % -- the game is about even

above 50 % -- bot has advantage
below 50 % -- bot is behind

above 70 % -- bot will very likely win (probability > 95 %)
below 30 % -- bot will very likely lose
(attention: these %-values are not exactly probabilities of win)

In the normal settings (like in MF on KGS), the bot will resign
when down to 30 %. Often it will start playing desperate moves
already when at 40 % or below.

The reason for this desperation strategy is that a loss with 0.5 points
is not better than a loss with 100.5 points.



I use Many Faces for instance to analyse games of strong players.
As an example, see my analysis of a 7-dan game from the recent
European Go Congress.

http://www.althofer.de/computer-analysi ... rates.html

In this game, Shikshin (who finally became winner of the Congress) was
clearly behind after move 130 (being at 30 % in the opinion of Many Faces).
In this hopeless position he played on until move 247.
Without Many Faces I would not have seen this so clearly.

Ingo.

One question: You claim to have account "Bantari" on KGS.
But there is no user with this name (and games) in the current list.

I have posted in a few places that Monte Carlo make very poor sparring partners. The amount of nonsense they play both ahead and behind makes them impossible to learn from, and a lot of their early midgame moves are very strange, designed to maximise chances in fights as opposed to actually find the best opening moves.

I also have not played any engine on normal hardware that is consistently stronger than I am. This includes Fuego, Mogo and MFoG (although I haven't played ZenGo). I believe the 1k/1d strength of ZenGo is much more likely than 3d against human opponents, and the time controls explain a lot - at 10 sec/move I will play a much much much worse game. It's not just reading, it's the confidence and time to look over the board and decide on flow and direction, which are often choices it is hard to have in the middle of a big fight unless you have the time to think.

Don't get me wrong, I still think it is impressive that bots have come so far, but I do not buy 3 dan for a second.

I also have scepticism (but less so), about the analysis feature.

Firstly, I would be interested to compare, over say 300 top games (7d vs 7d upwards), the bot evaluation at moves 50, 100, and 150, against a pro's opinion.

Secondly, I would be interested if it compared "who's going to win?" in games that were very close all the way up to the end - say, for example, pro games that didn't end in resignation - at the 100 and 150 move marks.

If it can do both of these with an 80%+ accuracy, I will change my opinion, but until then I doubt MC predictive algorithms, simply because if its evaluation was that strong, it would be a higher rank itself.