Man vs Machine article in wired

[Shenoute]

Here's an interesting tidbit from the article. Does anyone know anything more about this study?

According to University of Sydney cognitive scientist and complex systems theorist Michael Harré, professional Go players behave in ways that are incredibly hard to predict. In a recent study, Harré analyzed Go players of various strengths, focusing on the predictability of their moves given a specific local configuration of stones. “The result was totally unexpected,” he says. “Moves became steadily more predictable until players reached near-professional level. But at that point, moves started getting less predictable, and we don’t know why. Our best guess is that information from the rest of the board started influencing decision-making in a unique way.”

I'm checking his Google Scholar and can't really find it :/

Here but I don't know if it is accessible to all.

[RBerenguel]

Here but I don't know if it is accessible to all.

Not even my university has access to it (first time this has happened!) It's available for free, though, through one of the writers' page.

[Bill Spight]

According to University of Sydney cognitive scientist and complex systems theorist Michael Harré, professional Go players behave in ways that are incredibly hard to predict. In a recent study, Harré analyzed Go players of various strengths, focusing on the predictability of their moves given a specific local configuration of stones. “The result was totally unexpected,” he says. “Moves became steadily more predictable until players reached near-professional level. But at that point, moves started getting less predictable, and we don’t know why. Our best guess is that information from the rest of the board started influencing decision-making in a unique way.”

Not even my university has access to it (first time this has happened!) It's available for free, though, through one of the writers' page.

Thanks for the ref.

I took a quick look and my guess was right. The local configurations of stones come from joseki. (That was my guess.) So amateur dan players are better at playing joseki than kyu players and pros are better at not playing joseki than amateur dans.

From the paper:

In this work we focus on the 7×7 corner regions of the board where well studied patterns of moves, called Joseki, are played. Studying the move trees in this area provides an insight into how these well understood sequences of moves change with skill.

[RBerenguel]

According to University of Sydney cognitive scientist and complex systems theorist Michael Harré, professional Go players behave in ways that are incredibly hard to predict. In a recent study, Harré analyzed Go players of various strengths, focusing on the predictability of their moves given a specific local configuration of stones. “The result was totally unexpected,” he says. “Moves became steadily more predictable until players reached near-professional level. But at that point, moves started getting less predictable, and we don’t know why. Our best guess is that information from the rest of the board started influencing decision-making in a unique way.”

Not even my university has access to it (first time this has happened!) It's available for free, though, through one of the writers' page.

Thanks for the ref.

I took a quick look and my guess was right. The local configurations of stones come from joseki. (That was my guess.) So amateur dan players are better at playing joseki than kyu players and pros are better at not playing joseki than amateur dans.

From the paper:

In this work we focus on the 7×7 corner regions of the board where well studied patterns of moves, called Joseki, are played. Studying the move trees in this area provides an insight into how these well understood sequences of moves change with skill.

Meh! Not "so" interesting :/

[gowan]

I, too, am disappointed that they just examined how well players know joseki. In considering predictability of moves in general, I would expect very weak players to be difficult to predict and predictability to increase as the strength of the players increases, but after a certain point (amateur 1d?) I would expect the moves to be less predictable. The reason, I think, would be that moves are more and more predictable as players learn standard patterns (whole board, not just corner) but stronger players play forcing moves and interrupt patterns more often. Of course if we work with whole board situations the very idea of predictability becomes unclear (what is the predicted move?).

As an aside, there has always been a feeling that speed at playing through pro game records is an indicator of playing strength. It is also thought that this is the case because stronger players are better at predicting where the next move will be and so limit the search in the diagram.