[computer-go] thoughts on 100,000 cgos games

[David G Doshay]

Reaching 100,000 games seems like a good milestone for reflection, so  
I hope that others will share their thoughts.

Of course, it is a great thing that Don has done to provide this  
service, and I thank him for his initiative and efforts.

I have more of a list of random observations than coherent opinions:

1) It looks like most any of the programs can have their rating swing  
by 100 or more points, and it looks like it is the distribution of  
other programs on-line at the time that is causing at lease half of  
these swings. It looks like it is programs that are involved in  
clearly non-transitive relationships with other closely rated  
programs that this effects the most.

2) With AnchorMan fixed at 1500, perhaps we should similarly fix  
Random at zero. It has shown that it tends to less than zero. I think  
this will really only change the scores of the programs that are not  
too much stronger than Random. While this really does not matter, it  
looks funny to have a program with a negative rating.

3) While I had hoped that we might be able to do some machine  
learning on SlugGo's parameters by having quick access to so many  
opponents on this server, I have decided that without knowing who the  
opponent is, any learning done in this context would not be  
meaningful ... winning a game against any of the lowest ranked  
programs does not mean that SlugGo's moves were any good and thus  
gathering statistics about the success of moves in such a widely  
varied field of opponents might be a big mistake. This is leading us  
to some interesting discussions about machine learning, but we have  
no deep conclusions yet.

4) It seems to me that there should now be enough data to determine  
if the komi being used is
the best one. My expectation is that the "best" komi will end up  
being different for different pairings, but hopefully something clear  
will come out of the analysis.

I would hope that this discussion does not just turn into a cgos wish- 
list, but if it does then please change the subject line.

Cheers,
David