Re: [gnugo-devel] Difference between levels?

[Evan Daniel]

On 2/9/06, Sanghyeon Seo <address@hidden> wrote:
> What are the difference between levels of GNU Go?
>
> I found that --decide-dragon results sometimes vary a lot between
> levels. In one of my position:
>
> Level 1: can be defended
> Level 2: can be defended (uncertain)
> Level 3: can be defended with bad ko (uncertain)
> Level 4: can be defended with bad ko
> Level 5-11: can be defended
> Level 12: can be defended with bad ko
> Level 13: can be defended
> Level 14-15: can be defended with good ko
> Level 16-20: can be defended with bad ko
> My reading: can be defended with bad ko
>
> Seo Sanghyeon

The major difference is how deep different forms of reading go. 
Higher levels read deeper, and are therefore slower.  They should also
be stronger, but that is less guaranteed.

Level 10 is where most development work is targeted.  Levels as high
as 12-15 are generally considered to work well and be stronger than
level 10.  Higher levels sometimes behave badly (ie I've seen GNU Go
think for 24+ hours on a single move on level 18 without producing a
result before I killed the program).

If the position is relatively clear, then it would make a good
testcase.  Care to send it in?

Evan Daniel