RE: [Bug-gnubg] Is it time for Gnubg 0.15? New positions for trainingdatabase

[Ian Shaw]

Achim Mueller Sent: 19 July 2006 17:27
> * Ian Shaw wrote on 17 Jul 2006:
> 
> > Another source of interesting positions would be to generate games 
> > from the Nackgammon start position. With more chequers back, there 
> > will be lots of interesting holding games, as well as a 
> decent share 
> > of backgames, which are another challenging area.
> 
> Frank Berger once told me that he tried to train a net from 
> nackgammon starting position. IIRC the new net turned out to 
> play slightly weaker in backgames than the original one, but 
> I don't have details about his experiment.

Interesting. That's a surprise to me. I would have thought there would
be benefits. I haven't played much nackgammon myself, so I don't know
how games evolve. Maybe with both sides having four men back, reasonably
timed one-sided backgames rarely evolve.
Maybe one should consider generating games from lop-sided starting
positions, such as normal vs. nack. 

Another approach might start from prototype holding games and backgames
such as found in Kit Woolsey's Encyclopaedia. The idea being that these
are common positions, so it is useful to have plenty of data for
accurate training.

-- Ian