[computer-go] opponent strength differences for testing komi

[Don Dailey]

I don't think strength matters for testing komi - when 2 programs
play with significantly different strength, it's just harder to
measure accurately - it takes more games.

For instance,  if you took a random program vs a very strong program,
it might take billions of games to ascertain which komi is correct.
But it could in principle be done.

The win ratio's of course would be much smaller.   If we image that
6.5 is the right komi  then 2 equal program might show black winning
55% but if you tested 2 programs of significantly different strength it
might show up as 50.1 %

So the data from really weak players is almost useless when playing
against strong opponents.  

In my own self-testing with botnoid I discovered that strength DOES
seem to matter when both players are equal.    A small komi seems to
work better for very weak programs and 7.5 seems to be the best komi
for programs like Lazarus - one of the stronger ones on CGOS.

Has someone ever done this test with random players?   It would be
interesting to see the results.

- Don

On Tue, 2006-05-02 at 20:42 -0700, Richard Lorentz wrote:
> GoMaster and GoJin are oblivious, period. So they are certainly komi 
> oblivious. But, if it matters, they have not been exactly the same 
> program the whole time.