Life In 19x19

Mike, thanks.

I asked the question because I'm interested in playing with the server engine on my iPad. I mean the paid subscription service by Crazystone. Anyone tried the subscription service? How's the stength? And is it possbile to load SGF to the server engine to continue playing? and can the game be paused at any time?

I have played against the server version. I would guess its around 3dan or 4dan on kgs scale.

$80 for PC version?!?
I don't even know what to ask to see if it's worth it.

quietimes wrote:$80 for PC version?!?
I don't even know what to ask to see if it's worth it.

Most of the top-end chess engines I've seen are around the £90 mark. Yeah it's a lot of money but it's a combination of the amount of effort needed to create these combined with the small markets for them that give you such prices.

The IOS version crazy stone is pretty weak

darkpolarbear wrote:The IOS version crazy stone is pretty weak

Not on 9x9 board. Can beat real 3 dan easly.

lobotommy wrote:

darkpolarbear wrote:The IOS version crazy stone is pretty weak

Not on 9x9 board. Can beat real 3 dan easly.

Wait really? One of my theories of why I was a really bad player is for the life of me I can't beat crazystone w/ a 2 stone handicap at its highest strength ..(I get the 2 stones).. This makes me not feel as bad.. I've been trying to work my up the 9x9 before moving to the larger boards.. perhaps this isn't really the the right way to do it?

-avi

bloosqr wrote:

lobotommy wrote:

darkpolarbear wrote:The IOS version crazy stone is pretty weak

Not on 9x9 board. Can beat real 3 dan easly.

Wait really? One of my theories of why I was a really bad player is for the life of me I can't beat crazystone w/ a 2 stone handicap at its highest strength ..(I get the 2 stones).. This makes me not feel as bad.. I've been trying to work my up the 9x9 before moving to the larger boards.. perhaps this isn't really the the right way to do it?

-avi

Yes, it is very strong on a small board. I can hardly win one out of ten and I'm 3k. On 19x19 it's weaker than real 6 kyu (by "real" I mean European ranking, to be more precise: Polish ranking).

If you have played a lot of 9x9 games already - move to 13x13.

lobotommy wrote:Yes, it is very strong on a small board. I can hardly win one out of ten and I'm 3k. On 19x19 it's weaker than real 6 kyu (by "real" I mean European ranking, to be more precise: Polish ranking).

What we are seeing here is the result strong non-linearity between computer power available vs playing strength for the MCTS algorithm.

The computational requirements per move for 9x9 are much less than for 19x19. This is a case where we are examining a program running on a machine where the hardware is adequate for 9x9 (into the region where it can play well and where strength increases only slowly with more crunch power) and inadequate for 19x19 (below the region where the play of this algorithm is consistent).

Remember, probability is involved. With probability, reliability falls off very rapidly below some critical sample size and increases only slowly as sample size is increased above the minimum. The sample size is proportional (linear with) the crunch power of the hardware being used.

lobotommy wrote:

darkpolarbear wrote:The IOS version crazy stone is pretty weak

Not on 9x9 board. Can beat real 3 dan easly.

I don't think it's stronger than igowin on 9 by 9 board

darkpolarbear wrote:

lobotommy wrote:

darkpolarbear wrote:The IOS version crazy stone is pretty weak

Not on 9x9 board. Can beat real 3 dan easly.

I don't think it's stronger than igowin on 9 by 9 board

I didn't made a direct comparison. PC or iOS version of igowin? I remember PC version was quite weak in pre-montecarlo times.

lobotommy wrote:I didn't made a direct comparison. PC or iOS version of igowin? I remember PC version was quite weak in pre-montecarlo times.

Depends on the definition of "quite weak". I believe it was around 6 kyu KGS playing 19x19. That's what was in ManyFaces 11 (and what is still in ManyFaces 12 for the playing strengths 6 kyu and weaker).

lobotommy wrote:Yes, it is very strong on a small board. I can hardly win one out of ten and I'm 3k. On 19x19 it's weaker than real 6 kyu (by "real" I mean European ranking, to be more precise: Polish ranking).

If you have played a lot of 9x9 games already - move to 13x13.

THis is a fascinating thread and explains quite a bit. I used to be quite good at defeating various go programs (older versions of mfofgo / gnu go) on the 9x9 before moving onto the larger boards (it was clear they were bad at looking at the whole board and you could just corner them into a small section). (10 years later of not playing..) this time I'm doing things a lot more systematically but it is almost disturbing watching crazystone beat me on 9x9 at its highest levels, w/out me having really a clue to how it seems to exploit me so well. I was initially thinking I've just managed to have forgotten strategy in a way I knew earlier.

lobotommy wrote:

darkpolarbear wrote:

lobotommy wrote:[quote="darkpolarbear"]The IOS version crazy stone is pretty weak

Not on 9x9 board. Can beat real 3 dan easly.

I don't think it's stronger than igowin on 9 by 9 board

I didn't made a direct comparison. PC or iOS version of igowin? I remember PC version was quite weak in pre-montecarlo times.[/quote]

Yes, igowin in PC is quite weak. I can beat it on 9 by 9 board even it has 3 stones handicap advantage. Mais, I haven't won a game with 2 stones handicap in IOS

darkpolarbear wrote:
Yes, igowin in PC is quite weak. I can beat it on 9 by 9 board even it has 3 stones handicap advantage. Mais, I haven't won a game with 2 stones handicap in IOS

Something is wrong here. Darkpolarbear, if you are really a 4kyu (and in this case won't matter by what standard) you would NOT be easily beating ManyFaces 12 on a PC at its higher levels. On almost any real PC, that would be about 1 dan KGS on the 19x19 board.

Are you sure about what you are running? You paid for MFOG 12 and so have it enabled and aren't simply running the free demo which is limited to about 18 Kyu KGS on 19x19? And of course confusion about the names of the programs comes in. I don't really understand what you might have meant by "igowin in PC" except as MFOG 12 (igowin is Fotland's version of MFOG for the little devices)

And bloosqr, stop responding in terms of "real" rank. You should have noticed that I was specifying the rank basis. That's how we should be talking, simply saying what we mean when we give a number. It's not that I consider KGS "real" rank but what you are doing is like insisting that Centigrade is more "real" temperature than Kelvin when what is required is to specify which is being used.