[computer-go] an idea... computer go program's rank vs time

[Matt Gokey]

Been following this thread pretty closely and thought I would jump in 
with a thought and try to find some common ground.  I think there is 
truth to be found in both sides of this argument.

Of course people improve with time and so do computers with certain 
algorithms.  The question is about the curve and whether there is a 
significant difference in this curve between chess and go.

Don believes there is probably no difference and states a rule: doubling 
thinking time = linear improvement in play.

What if we look at it mathematically by looking at the branching factor? 
Go’s branching factor is generally considered to be about an order of 
magnitude greater than chess – perhaps a bit less, right?  That means 
that after each ply go becomes another additional order of magnitude 
more complex.  Now of course, in practice it’s not so simple, as 
breaking the game into regions and doing local reading and global 
analysis reduces the complexity somewhat, but in general go explodes a 
lot faster than chess and this fact is commonly used as one of the 
reasons methods used for computer chess don’t work on go especially 
combined with the lack of reliable evaluation.

For the sake of argument if we assume that doubling thinking time allows 
one to double the number of positions and alternatives that can be 
analyzed, this doubling would seem to have lesser impact in go where the 
explosion is much quicker than in chess and thus the same relationship 
may not hold.  The improvement may not be linear or it may not hold for 
very long.  The point of diminishing returns for a human due to this 
could be much earlier in go than in chess.  As go players get better 
they must learn to “sense” the board based on years of experience 
combined with our evolutionary tuned super parallel visual pattern 
matcher.  This provides the player shortcuts that otherwise would be 
impossible (for humans) to read out.  Assuming enough processing power 
and memory this problem would not necessarily hold for computer-go.  By 
the way, I think some of this very same thing applies to both chess and 
go, just a matter of different degrees.

 From my own experience with chess and go, I can say that I don’t feel 
overwhelmed when playing chess.  That is, I always feel like I can think 
and reason about the moves fairly deeply and use simple evaluation like 
piece counts, protection, mobility, etc. to decide between lines of 
play.  I may be entirely wrong but I feel like I can think about it 
anyway.  I’m not a real strong player, but I had a friend in high school 
and college whose Dad was a Grand Master.  His son was pretty good and 
we would play a lot of chess together.  Once in while I would play 
against his Dad and usually get slaughtered.  One time he was doing one 
of those events where he would play 30 people at once.  I played and 
managed to keep him challenged well into the middle game.  I could tell 
he was worried.  On one trip around I still hadn’t made my move and was 
forced to make the best one I had.  It was a blunder but I didn’t see it 
yet.  Immediately he took advantage of it and I didn’t have a chance 
after that.  He confirmed this after the game was over and set the 
pieces up as they were at that point and showed me what I should have 
done (I thought an amazing feat given he was playing 30 or more 
different simultaneous games). Anyway in this situation where I had a 
lot more time than he did I was able to challenge him and only after 
making a blunder was I in trouble.  So I see where Don is coming from 
with Chess.

Now with Go as a beginner still, on the other hand, I almost always felt 
and still feel quite overwhelmed without enough tools to understand how 
to plan and evaluate moves in all but the simplest isolated cases.  I 
know that giving me tons of extra time against a good player would not 
help.  The interactions between areas and the explosion of the game and 
lack of experience to be able to “sense” good shape and proper balance 
early enough to lead to life and territory just simply overwhelms me. 
The feeling is not as severe as it was when I first learned, but it is 
still there.  I wonder whether even for strong amateurs this is still 
the case, but just happens a bit deeper.  Is this the time limit that 
Ray talks about where any more time is not helpful?  It is that point 
when it becomes so terribly complex and overwhelming that no more 
thinking can help given your current ability to judge potential in the 
positions.