[computer-go] KGS online Go Tournaments: two suggestions

[Weston Markham]

On 6/3/06, Aloril <aloril at iki.fi> wrote:
> 1 move / day and 19x19 might be a bit too long tough unless something
> like this is possible: I wonder if it would be possible to allow
> updating bot to new version when *opponent* is thinking and has not yet
> submitted move? This would allow to do 2 things:
> 1) update bot when new version becomes available
> 2) fix bugs that game uncovers (once those errors/blunders have been
> made already on board ;-)
>
> However it would not allow to change code to make it play another move
> when it is its *own* turn.
>
> I think this would make participating much more interesting for authors.
> It also makes it much more challenging to be sure games are fair :-(
> No free lunch ;-)

I do not think that this is such a good idea, at least as presented
here.  Suppose I were to enter a program that plays its opening moves
from a database.  Each day, I can simply add my own responses to all
of the possible moves by its opponent.  The resulting sequence of
programs plays exactly like me!  This is, of course, the extreme case.
 However, the point is that competing in this manner might be too much
biased toward tuning one's programs to the individual lines of play
followed in the competition.  Consequently, it might not do much to
advance the state-of-the-art of computer go in general.

Weston