8 ms·

the point is that his winning position was a 64 move convert and he was correct. Lots of players believe they will end up in a winning position, but overlook s

the point is that his winning position was a 64 move convert and he was correct. Lots of players believe they will end up in a winning position, but overlook something while "not bothering with the details". it's less about how much he calculated in that moment and more about the accuracy of his confidence and the work he had to have put in alongside his talent prior to that moment to achieve that confidence and back it up.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> it's less about how much he calculated in that moment and more about the accuracy of his confidence and the work he had to have put in That is a matter of opinion. Looking a certain number of "moves ahead" is an important metric in game engines and also something that human players will tell you that (1) they are consciously doing and that (2) is important to them. So it's worth discussing on its own terms.
- Closi 4y ago
  Eh, sometimes you aren’t ‘looking ahead’ that many moves, just that you can calculate the number of moves from a known-winning position. This is why chess programs usually say “mate in 24” but humans would more likely just be looking a few moves ahead to get in a ‘winning position’ which they know is an eventual checkmate. I’m not good at chess, and don’t calculate more than 5 moves ahead, but have ‘spotted’ a mate 20 moves ahead just because you recognise that a certain position is winning even if you don’t know every single possible move and response.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    How does your comment differ from my comment?
    - Closi 4y ago
      I mean you don't actually have to 'look ahead' 65 moves to know that there is a winning move, even if that move is 65 moves ahead. You can just go 'this move is winning, and I can infer that because of these logical points'. This isn't really 'looking ahead x moves into the future', you can just know a position is winning and will cause a cascade of moves of a predictable-length that will end in an eventual checkmate. If you call this 'looking ahead x moves' or not depends on the definition I guess, but I just mean they might not be actually evaluating / imagining all those positions (because you can either use logic or pattern-match to previous situations).
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        > I mean you don't actually have to 'look ahead' 65 moves to know that there is a winning move, even if that move is 65 moves ahead. > You can just go 'this move is winning, and I can infer that because of these logical points'. This isn't really 'looking ahead x moves into the future', you can just know a position is winning Yes, that's exactly what I said in my original comment.
- cupofpython 4y ago
  there needs to be work done and intuition developed in order for a human to look any amount of moves ahead. we do not look ahead in the same way a computer algorithm does we look ahead in ways like "doing this leaves this area weak, and the opponent has resources that can take advantage of that, and i cannot intervene on those resources in time" or "if i create a strong threat then the opponent will be forced to react to it, here are the ways they can react that make any sort of sense, here is what i can do in each of those situations" they are not doing things like "let me simulate moving every one of my pieces right now, and then every one of my opponents pieces in response to each of those moves, and then my options again, and review 10,000 possible scenarios in my mind individually for the best min/max situation" like a classical computer engine does. so i always find the "X moves ahead" phrase misleading at best. but as i originally stated, it is useful to know how many moves of perfect play are necessary for someone to convert a winning position when reviewing the players confidence going into that position. and even then you dont know if they got lucky or earned that confidence by looking at just the one game alone. Over the course of their career the amount of time that their confidence pays off or not tells the story there
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > there needs to be work done and intuition developed in order for a human to look any amount of moves ahead. we do not look ahead in the same way a computer algorithm does I mean, that's just plain wrong on both counts. You need to do work to do a good job at looking ahead. You don't need to do work just to be able to imagine what the board might look like after a particular move is made. > they are not doing things like "let me simulate moving every one of my pieces right now, and then every one of my opponents pieces in response to each of those moves, and then my options again, and review 10,000 possible scenarios in my mind individually for the best min/max situation" like a classical computer engine does. You don't understand what the computer is doing. Pruning its options is just as important for the computer as it is for the humans.
    - cupofpython 4y ago
      you're missing the point of my post. yes the computer prunes, but fundamentally it is attempting to review all possible scenarios indiscriminately as opposed to a human who is trying to make some sort of sense of the position. without work, as in developing an intuition for making sense of the game, a human looking ahead doesnt provide value. so im not sure why you think i was trying to say humans cant move pieces around in their mind. you also completely ignored that i was mainly addressing the scope difference of positions analyzed by a human player vs a computer, and that the talking point was someone looking "64 moves ahead" and trying to explain that no this guy did not literally see all variations 64 moves out - but that through (arguably more impressive) reasonable human ability he was able to to be accurate and confident in a decision that he had won while there was still 64 moves of depth left in the game
hosh 4y ago
That sounds a lot like Go Seigan in the Go world. Dude was ahead of his time and developed a style of play that was remarkably similar to AlphaGo. His intuitions on the importance and usefulness of a position fueled his fighting ability.
- astrange 4y ago
  Maybe his opponents were too confused by his name being Go.
  - hosh 4y ago
    Go is the Japanese reading of his Chinese name. He was born Chinese, and his surname is 五, the number “5”, pronounced Wu in Chinese and Go in Japanese. Not the same “Go” as in igo (… but the same “go” in “gomaku”, the game of five-in-a-row) His opponents who played him were sometimes mystified, though the reason often becomes clear many moves down the road. He was not afraid of starting complex fights, even ko fights, and the games often have huge swings in territory. He played in a way with great freedom. Opponents would play thinking they played a forcing move, only for Go Seigan to tenuki (play elsewhere on a board, often at strategically vital points). People have tried to replicate his style, but it is difficult to put into practice without Go Seigan’s reading skills.
    - junar 4y ago
      His surname is 吳. Not only is it a different character from the one used to write 5, but it's also pronounced with a different tone in Chinese. Also, his given name contains the character 源, which is read "gen" in Japanese, not "gan". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Seigen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Seigen
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        > Also, his given name contains the character 源, which is read "gen" in Japanese, not "gan". This may be way outside of your wheelhouse, but I have to ask - The Mandarin reading of 源 is yuán. The phonetics are something like [ʲyɛn]. A similar raising of the written vowel occurs in the pinyin syllable yan (e.g. 言, 严, 眼), which is [jɛn]. In other pinyin syllables, an "a" represents /a/, which is something sort of intermediate between the English PALM and TRAP vowels. It makes perfect theoretical sense that /a/ might be realized as [ɛ] when following a high vowel. But I've always wondered whether yuan and yan really do have a phonemic /a/ there or whether there might be an /ɛ/ phoneme. And it's interesting to me that the Japanese reading of 源, presumably taken from a much older Chinese, uses /e/ there instead of /a/. Can you provide any insight?
tetha 4y ago
It also strongly depends on the branching factor. Like, if you're in a chess midgame, there might still 6 major pieces and 4 or 6 minor pieces and tons of pawns on the board. It's tricky to calculate far into the future. At each node, there's easily dozens of possible moves, and 4-8 viable or not-horrible ones. That's becoming a lot of possibilities to consider very quickly. In an endgame, there's like, 2 kings, 2 pieces and 4 pawns or a similar constellation. There's 6 possible moves, 3 of them immediately lose and 3 are worth thinking about. 2 of them probably only have one possible answer. Suddenly even an utter beginner like me can calculate 4-8 moves. A master-level player probably knows the endgame entirely, or can see 10 - 20 moves into it easily, because the branching factor is a lot lower now.
shitpostbot 4y ago

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> it's less about how much he calculated in that moment and more about the accuracy of his confidence and the work he had to have put in That is a matter of opinion. Looking a certain number of "moves ahead" is an important metric in game engines and also something that human players will tell you that (1) they are consciously doing and that (2) is important to them. So it's worth discussing on its own terms.

Closi 4y ago
Eh, sometimes you aren’t ‘looking ahead’ that many moves, just that you can calculate the number of moves from a known-winning position. This is why chess programs usually say “mate in 24” but humans would more likely just be looking a few moves ahead to get in a ‘winning position’ which they know is an eventual checkmate. I’m not good at chess, and don’t calculate more than 5 moves ahead, but have ‘spotted’ a mate 20 moves ahead just because you recognise that a certain position is winning even if you don’t know every single possible move and response.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  How does your comment differ from my comment?
  - Closi 4y ago
    I mean you don't actually have to 'look ahead' 65 moves to know that there is a winning move, even if that move is 65 moves ahead. You can just go 'this move is winning, and I can infer that because of these logical points'. This isn't really 'looking ahead x moves into the future', you can just know a position is winning and will cause a cascade of moves of a predictable-length that will end in an eventual checkmate. If you call this 'looking ahead x moves' or not depends on the definition I guess, but I just mean they might not be actually evaluating / imagining all those positions (because you can either use logic or pattern-match to previous situations).
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      > I mean you don't actually have to 'look ahead' 65 moves to know that there is a winning move, even if that move is 65 moves ahead. > You can just go 'this move is winning, and I can infer that because of these logical points'. This isn't really 'looking ahead x moves into the future', you can just know a position is winning Yes, that's exactly what I said in my original comment.
cupofpython 4y ago
there needs to be work done and intuition developed in order for a human to look any amount of moves ahead. we do not look ahead in the same way a computer algorithm does we look ahead in ways like "doing this leaves this area weak, and the opponent has resources that can take advantage of that, and i cannot intervene on those resources in time" or "if i create a strong threat then the opponent will be forced to react to it, here are the ways they can react that make any sort of sense, here is what i can do in each of those situations" they are not doing things like "let me simulate moving every one of my pieces right now, and then every one of my opponents pieces in response to each of those moves, and then my options again, and review 10,000 possible scenarios in my mind individually for the best min/max situation" like a classical computer engine does. so i always find the "X moves ahead" phrase misleading at best. but as i originally stated, it is useful to know how many moves of perfect play are necessary for someone to convert a winning position when reviewing the players confidence going into that position. and even then you dont know if they got lucky or earned that confidence by looking at just the one game alone. Over the course of their career the amount of time that their confidence pays off or not tells the story there
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > there needs to be work done and intuition developed in order for a human to look any amount of moves ahead. we do not look ahead in the same way a computer algorithm does I mean, that's just plain wrong on both counts. You need to do work to do a good job at looking ahead. You don't need to do work just to be able to imagine what the board might look like after a particular move is made. > they are not doing things like "let me simulate moving every one of my pieces right now, and then every one of my opponents pieces in response to each of those moves, and then my options again, and review 10,000 possible scenarios in my mind individually for the best min/max situation" like a classical computer engine does. You don't understand what the computer is doing. Pruning its options is just as important for the computer as it is for the humans.
  - cupofpython 4y ago
    you're missing the point of my post. yes the computer prunes, but fundamentally it is attempting to review all possible scenarios indiscriminately as opposed to a human who is trying to make some sort of sense of the position. without work, as in developing an intuition for making sense of the game, a human looking ahead doesnt provide value. so im not sure why you think i was trying to say humans cant move pieces around in their mind. you also completely ignored that i was mainly addressing the scope difference of positions analyzed by a human player vs a computer, and that the talking point was someone looking "64 moves ahead" and trying to explain that no this guy did not literally see all variations 64 moves out - but that through (arguably more impressive) reasonable human ability he was able to to be accurate and confident in a decision that he had won while there was still 64 moves of depth left in the game

hosh 4y ago

That sounds a lot like Go Seigan in the Go world. Dude was ahead of his time and developed a style of play that was remarkably similar to AlphaGo. His intuitions on the importance and usefulness of a position fueled his fighting ability.

astrange 4y ago
Maybe his opponents were too confused by his name being Go.
- hosh 4y ago
  Go is the Japanese reading of his Chinese name. He was born Chinese, and his surname is 五, the number “5”, pronounced Wu in Chinese and Go in Japanese. Not the same “Go” as in igo (… but the same “go” in “gomaku”, the game of five-in-a-row) His opponents who played him were sometimes mystified, though the reason often becomes clear many moves down the road. He was not afraid of starting complex fights, even ko fights, and the games often have huge swings in territory. He played in a way with great freedom. Opponents would play thinking they played a forcing move, only for Go Seigan to tenuki (play elsewhere on a board, often at strategically vital points). People have tried to replicate his style, but it is difficult to put into practice without Go Seigan’s reading skills.
  - junar 4y ago
    His surname is 吳. Not only is it a different character from the one used to write 5, but it's also pronounced with a different tone in Chinese. Also, his given name contains the character 源, which is read "gen" in Japanese, not "gan". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Seigen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Seigen
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      > Also, his given name contains the character 源, which is read "gen" in Japanese, not "gan". This may be way outside of your wheelhouse, but I have to ask - The Mandarin reading of 源 is yuán. The phonetics are something like [ʲyɛn]. A similar raising of the written vowel occurs in the pinyin syllable yan (e.g. 言, 严, 眼), which is [jɛn]. In other pinyin syllables, an "a" represents /a/, which is something sort of intermediate between the English PALM and TRAP vowels. It makes perfect theoretical sense that /a/ might be realized as [ɛ] when following a high vowel. But I've always wondered whether yuan and yan really do have a phonemic /a/ there or whether there might be an /ɛ/ phoneme. And it's interesting to me that the Japanese reading of 源, presumably taken from a much older Chinese, uses /e/ there instead of /a/. Can you provide any insight?

tetha 4y ago

It also strongly depends on the branching factor. Like, if you're in a chess midgame, there might still 6 major pieces and 4 or 6 minor pieces and tons of pawns on the board. It's tricky to calculate far into the future. At each node, there's easily dozens of possible moves, and 4-8 viable or not-horrible ones. That's becoming a lot of possibilities to consider very quickly. In an endgame, there's like, 2 kings, 2 pieces and 4 pawns or a similar constellation. There's 6 possible moves, 3 of them immediately lose and 3 are worth thinking about. 2 of them probably only have one possible answer. Suddenly even an utter beginner like me can calculate 4-8 moves. A master-level player probably knows the endgame entirely, or can see 10 - 20 moves into it easily, because the branching factor is a lot lower now.

shitpostbot 4y ago