[computer-go] Sylvain's results

[Tom Cooper]

There are multiple possible definitions of what it means for a player
to be the same strength on two different sized boards.  It is impossible
to pit a 9x9 player against a 19x19 player.  If two people
use different definitions of 'same strength', they are bound to disagree
about which size people are better at.

Off the top of my head, 'same strength'could be defined as
i) Same amount of experience of both games,
ii) Drops the same number of points over the course of the game
    when playing a perfect player,
iii) As ii), but scaled for the board area,
iv) Typically reads the same number of moves,
v) Same win rate on average when playing typical human players,
vi) Same win rate on average when playing Gnu Go.

At 05:42 12/04/2007, you wrote:

>On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 17:29 -0700, David Fotland wrote:
> > No, humans are much weaker on 9x9 than on 19x19.
>
>David,
>
>I saw this on Sensei's Library that indicates larger boards
>are harder:
>
>----[ snip ]----
>
>   In [ext]The Theory & Practice of Go, Korschelt describes an
>experimental 21x21 goban that he constructed and turned over to his
>Master, Murase Shuho, for testing. He describes a sample game that was
>played out to about 130 moves before ending. Only the first 57 were
>shown.
>
>Korschelt remarked that the game "took on a freer and more deeply
>involved character, but ... at the same time the difficulty of keeping
>command of the game grew at an extraordinary rate." He goes on to note
>that on a 19x19 board, "too many unexpected situations turn up for
>beginners," and speculates that if the board were to increase to 23x23,
>"not even the best players could any longer maintain a comprehensive
>view of the countless possible combinations."
>
>----[ snip ]----
>
>This seems to also match my intuition, even though I'm not as good a
>player as you are.   If you extrapolate backwards, to 7x7, 5x5, 3x3
>it seems clear that smaller boards are less complex and therefore
>easier to master.   I cannot believe 9x9 is harder than 19x19 and
>I don't care how strong the player is who says that - I don't believe
>it.
>
>- Don
>
>
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