Re: [gnugo-devel] The late phase of the release cycle

[Arend Bayer]

> Right now I think tuning is still important, though owl
> tuning should be avoided as I will explain. We may need
> some tuning because the recently made standard experimental
> influence code may have broken some tunings.
>
> Consider the recent game gnugo-3.1.26-journeyman-200203020154.sgf,
> available at http://www.lysator.liu.se/~gunnar/gnugo/nngs/.
> At moves 20 and 24 GNU makes knight's moves that are unsupported
> by the surrounding position. Probably 18 and 20 should both
> be at J5 or H3, and 24 and 28 are also good moves to tune at.
> I think it is safe to say that GNU Go 3.1.27 is stronger in the
> late middle game than in the early middle game and late fuseki.
>
> Tuning that can be done by EJ patterns is good. Tuning
> that can have side effects is bad.
Just a short remark on this issues. In my opinion it is preferable, where
possible, to deal with these problems by tuning the influence pattern
databases. If this is successful, this is more flexible and (in my opinion)
better in the long run than adding some J-class patterns. The reason is that
influence tuning automatically reacts to the context. E.g., if the
surrounding is completely played out, a J pattern might still produce
its 30pt value; however, an additional influence source will not have much
effect.

I am currently rewriting influence.texi, in particular I want to add
a section with precise explanations of the effects of influence patterns.
I hope that this will help to make influence tuning more popular. Also,
I hope to find some time to actually do some influence tuning myself. I
completely agree that there are some urgent problems.

Arend