[computer-go] 19x19 CGOS

[Don Dailey]

Hi Edward,

I can give you the goals of CGOS since I wrote CGOS for my own reasons.   

As a chess programmer I noticed that serious events and competitions
were a huge impetus to making programming improvements.     A lot of
programmers told me the same thing,  that despite the testing they did
on the side,   actual competitions seemed to reveal problems and bugs.   

So what I thought would be useful to the computer go community would be
a forum for testing that could also stimulate competition and would have
some meaning.      In other words, I didn't make CGOS only as a way to
"test" your program or even just to get a rating, but as a way to
stimulate competition.     That's a big key to most improvements in most
fields,   and nothing brings this out more than real competition with
real numbers.     I wanted it to mean something if your program makes it
to the top 10 on CGOS,  etc.

You will probably notice that CGOS results have been used in papers
written about computer GO,  to verify that the techniques used in the
paper have some validity.     What I've always hated is unverifiable
papers.    There  is a summary section near the end where the techniques
being presented are "experimentally verified" with their own self-tests
- which nobody else can usually verify because the program is not open
to the public.     CGOS is superb for that too - it's a public forum to
expose your creations - good, bad or ugly, to the world.

In computer chess, and I assume also in computer go,   there is more
status associated with games which are played at time controls us humans
think are "serious."    Also, there is much more status associated with
games that are "public" as opposed to private testing.       Status is
good in this context for computer go.      It's why I made the choices I
did and why I think longer time controls are better for the computer go
community as a whole.

I agree that there are reasonable arguments for faster time controls,  I
don't discount those reasons,  but when all things are considered
together,  I think the reasons for having longer time controls make more
sense.     I believe even 30 minutes is fast, but it's a good compromise
in my opinion.

- Don

 

>
> Hi, maybe so, but can you name some programs which cannot cope
> with 10 minutes thinking time for 19x19?
> Note that my own program is a MC program which will play weaker
> in relation to for instance gnugo which the shorter thinking time, but
> I find that not important because as a programmer I want to see
> the relative progress over time.
>  
>  
> Maybe I am confused about the goals of CGOS? I thought that
> programmers could use it to get a good impression of improvements
> over time.
> And I also like to see the progress of other programs over time.
> I think this is also interesting to see for others.
>  
> Edward.
>  
>  
>  
>   
>  
>
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