Ask Go players about Go (come play Go with us)

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dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Did KGS just go down?

Dammit, and in the middle of a game, too!
Restarted the computer and was able to finish the game. I do not play well under the time pressure of KGS automatch's "fast game", apparently.

dirby fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Nov 7, 2015

# ¿ Nov 7, 2015 18:05

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 17:31

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Xom posted:

A website can be up while a game server is down.

But it wasn't for me. I think in my case something between me and both the site/server was having problems. When I restarted my computer I had no troubles with either and some people had no interruption.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2015 02:36

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

uranus posted:

Anyone who wants to be in a go hangout group for friends on skype pm me your skype name

What would be the benefit of that over ITGO?

# ¿ Nov 13, 2015 04:21

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Testiclops posted:

the whole stream is recorded on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFr3K2DORc8

there's a record at the end of this https://gogameguru.com/alphago-defeats-lee-sedol-game-1/

Also the AGA has their own YouTube video with commentary in English on much of the game while it was being played.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2016 22:15

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

IIRC, Michael Redmond said it was unexpected, unusual, [but upon reflection] a very beautiful move. Maybe Lee had invested a lot into the assumption that AlphaGo would have made a more conventional move.

-

Ok, so maybe AlphaGo is better than Lee Sedol. But Ke Jie is better than Lee Sedol, too, right? Has Ke Jie said anything about these games?

# ¿ Mar 10, 2016 16:01

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

King Pawn posted:

That guy is actively interfering with my enjoyment of the match. Is there any alternative English coverage?

The official AGA YouTube channel has the coverage you want.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2016 19:41

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Uncle Jam posted:

Redmond actually keeps up with the game, instead of Myungwan who goes off bizarre variations. Redmond is pretty good at locking in the future flow of the game too, just his companion interrupts him too much about stupid poo poo.

Also I find Myungwan's accent really annoying for some reason.

In contrast, I can't stand Chris Garlock, and Redmond's "this is the next move" or brief "here's what doesn't work" are not as interesting to me as Myungwan's digressions. To each their own, I guess.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 04:05

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

uXs posted:

Anyone know what strength Andrew Jackson is? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Andrew Jackson is a...3d amateur I think? He said his rank in a commentary of a non alpha go game.

Michael Redmond is a 9p, http://www.goratings.org/ has him at 542nd in the world, Fan Hui at 513, Lee Sedol at #4.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2016 15:05

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

I really love this portable roll up set but it seems like it's no longer for sale?

# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 02:16

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Because of the capturing rule, there are more like 2.1*10^170 legal board positions, not 1.7*10^172 (see https://tromp.github.io/go/legal.html). Captured stones don't make a difference at all under Chinese rules, so I think it would be silly to worry about that in the "go positions" question. Since the vast majority of positions look different at all 4 rotations (or 8 with reflections) you can divide by 4 (resp. 8) and be pretty darn close to the answer if you count rotated positions the same.

In any case, it's still about right. But also, everything the two posts above me said.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 23:28

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

I could sympathize with an argument from a pro like "all I care about is knowing the most about good play in Go, so since computers will soon know more about that than humans, the human search for good play is pointless", but that doesn't seem to be AS's argument since AS would never reach a top pro's understanding anyway and it doesn't relate to their point about commercial availability.

It seems like they're saying something like "low kyu and better strength/knowledge in go is a relatively rare commodity, and access to that knowledge will no longer be rare. Since the overwhelming reason I play go is to have direct access to something rare, there's little point to me playing Go anymore". If that's close, then I guess AS should just move on to a similar game that fewer people play, like Amazons.

Also, I agree with the majority that this doesn't change anything for me. Except it makes me more interested since the publicity in the west will make it easier to find people to play with.

dirby fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Mar 18, 2016

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 23:15

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Pander posted:

A 13k with over 500 games played kinda rules out the first two, you'd hope.

How do you play 500 games and only make it to 13k?

# ¿ Jun 2, 2016 20:01

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

I recently came into possession of a wooden goban. I bet you haven't seen anything quite like it.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2016 02:27

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Hint: Look for tengen. :ssh:

# ¿ Aug 25, 2016 02:33

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

House Louse posted:

I had to count twice to make sure. Where did you find it?

It was custom made for me.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2016 13:13

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Xom posted:

Having fun is of utmost importance. I love to study the micro-endgame, the phase of the game when moves are worth 2 points or less, even more useless than opening.

Have you read Mathematical Go? That's the key to perfecting your micro-endgame.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2016 03:37

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

In case anyone hasn't seen it:

from https://www.bamsoftware.com/go/board.html

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 03:17

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Jabor is right, but there's a nuance in the late endgame too. Since AlphaGo is coldly AI/probability-of-winning based and doesn't have a special algorithm for late endgames. Therefore, when even the weakest dan level amateur would go "okay, this is simple enough that all my future moves will be perfect", AlphaGo is thinking "well, [the obvious biggest move that any pro would make] feels like a 99.99% chance of winning, but [move that gives away some points] feels like a 99.9999736% chance of winning, so I'll do that instead". I suspect AlphaGo has uncertainty when humans and other programs designed to play endgames perfectly would play bigger moves.

Overwined posted:

So far only that one wedge move my Lee Sedol has managed to "fluster" it.

Remember that the version Lee Sedol flustered was not nearly as strong as the "Master" version, and almost certainly not as strong as this new version.

dirby fucked around with this message at 13:40 on May 24, 2017

# ¿ May 24, 2017 13:37

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Fuzzy Mammal posted:

Also the master version had 3 stones on the Lee Sedol version

Do you have a source for this?

# ¿ May 25, 2017 01:37

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Symbolic Butt posted:

There's something strangely insightful about trying to code the rules of Go, I recommend this to every programmer who also happens to play the game.

spoiler: it's not as simple as it looks like

This super-depends on what you mean by "the rules of Go". IIRC there is at least one pair of contradictory rulings on things by Japanese judges, for instance.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2017 00:20

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Doubleposting because I forgot about this great example featured in the book Mathematical Go:

"It is a rare example of a Go position which is apparently not yet resolved, but in which either player does better if [their] opponent plays first."
Some Japanese judges once judged this to be 3 points for black, and that agrees with every other ruleset. But then in the 1989 Japanese rules (which I think still apply for professional games in Japan), they say it's seki and worth no points at all.

dirby fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Jul 15, 2017

# ¿ Jul 15, 2017 00:39

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

silvergoose has the main idea, but the details of rating systems can get pretty hairy.

I'm simplifying a lot, but:
For KGS, the system basically tries to make sure that this is true for an even game: P(A wins) = 1 / ( 1 + exp(RankB-RankA) ) and simply assumes that one stone of handicap should be roughly like one point of rank (and as silvergoose points out, it's surprising how well that happens to work). And for AGA, it's similar in spirit but with even more complicated math.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2017 15:56

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

The essence of what you're saying is right. Unfortunately, a lot of 5-liberty points probably makes for a worse game, for the reasons VikingofRock laid out.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2017 11:37

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

PerniciousKnid posted:

What about toroidal Go, is that any good?

It's pretty playable, but you need to do a lot of work to build a base since you don't have corners/edges to build off of. Because of that, a lot of interesting opening theory gets thrown away without much interesting to replace it.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2017 04:01

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Your Loyal Vizier posted:

I'm really intrigued by Go, but kind of disheartened by the fact that this thread has only managed 149 pages in ten years. Why is the interest level so low?

In addition to what others have said, you don't see the thousands of pages worth of content of chat and people reviewing games for each other on KGS, etc.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2018 12:51

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Get games reviewed. I got to like 14k (or better?) in like 30 games on a full board but I got all but one reviewed by someone who could talk me through strategy and what I should focus on in my mext game.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2018 15:32

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Moxie posted:

Is there still a chat on kgs or discord? I'm getting back into it.

Discord chat still has people idling (and occasionally talking about non-Go stuff), so if you start talking about Go there, people will probably reply.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2018 19:36

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Xom posted:

Hey all, we're now parasitizing KGS room Study Hall for the purposes of goon battles, reviews, and seeing who's on KGS, since we didn't have enough activity to keep the ITGO room.

Non-ingame chat is still in https://discord.gg/0u4xNK5cYwzkmxCG

Whoops, the link above is invalid. See below.

dirby fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Jul 15, 2018

# ¿ Jul 15, 2018 20:53

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Game reviews from goons got me from like 23k to 13k in a month, and then I basically stopped playing and regressed to 20k or sth.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2019 19:22

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

AdorableStar posted:

I expect Go to be solved soon

What did you actually mean by this?

# ¿ Jan 26, 2020 14:00

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Sorry, I meant something more like "Chess may never be solved even in the ultra-weak sense. I don't get your joke/point."

# ¿ Jan 26, 2020 18:25

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

1. Could it have been a typo of "moyo"?
2. Was the board almost all white or almost all black at the end?

# ¿ Mar 30, 2020 03:03

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

VictualSquid posted:

Use Chinese rules, otherwise you might get into never-ending arguments on which stones are standing dead.

I don't have experience teaching kids quite that young. But after a lot of capture go so she really understands which groups can be captured and how, and once she can count well (though multiplication is better) you could do something like ancient chinese rules on a 9x9. Just fill up the board (except eyes) and count stones rather than territory and stones. It makes it slightly harder for white to win, but then you can separate the counting to determine winner stuff from the concept of territory.

dirby fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Mar 30, 2020

# ¿ Mar 30, 2020 13:10

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

I don't have an apple device, but from the OP, the nice tutorial is at http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/
Unfortunately, it uses Flash.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2020 00:57

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Asleep Style posted:

I disagree about correspondence being a good idea for new players…

I agree with the things in your post. Also, not everyone feels this way, but I feel like dealing with time pressure (e.g. making judgments about how much time it's worth thinking about a certain thing) is an important part of the game of Go. Someone I know who is maybe a 15k in correspondence loses to 20ks over the board because he gets anxious and makes far worse moves when there's a timer.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2020 13:34

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Fuseki is fashion now, I guess:

source

# ¿ Jan 15, 2021 18:48

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

Color Go Server opens in less than a week, and has some training wheels sort of features like showing influence and liberty counts.

Old/main trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW29U6RqcVc

And a new release trailer for people who don't already play Go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnA-Plkhxn4

# ¿ Jan 18, 2021 14:23

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

PMush Perfect posted:

poo poo, now all we need is for it to be released by PopCap with some twee music and theming and it'll sell eighty billion copies.

Now that it's up, it does have twee music and some light medieval-ish theming. But it doesn't quite look like the next Hearthstone or something. There only seemed to be about ~60 people playing right now, but I imagine it'll grow a bit before it dies.

dirby fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Jan 24, 2021

# ¿ Jan 24, 2021 17:58

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

silvergoose posted:

Next step is a 9 stone handicap and see how easy I need to go in order to make it not a blowout.

I don't know your rank, but I've seen things like a 13 stone handicap for this sort of purpose.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2021 17:22

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 17:31

dirby: Sep 21, 2004; Helping goons with math

silvergoose posted:

13 might be the way to go yeah, I'll have to see. He's not great at losing, what with being six, but if it's not too far apart it should be okay.

Then I guess just do that until he wins multiple games and start reducing it.

I just found https://senseis.xmp.net/?HandicapsBeyondNineStones

# ¿ Feb 28, 2021 20:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask Go players about Go (come play Go with us)

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