2008 European Go Congress – Computer Go
Leksand, Switzerland
Wednesday August 6th 2008
On Wednesday August 6th, the second rest day of the main tournament,
the 2008 European Go Congress
included two Computer Go Tournaments: one 19×19 and one 9×9.
Both events were held on KGS, with the
programs running on machines in the tournament venue in Leksand. PCs running
Windows Vista were provided, and entrants were also permitted to bring their
own hardware. However connections from remote links were not permitted (to
prevent cheating). Entry was free, and there were cash prizes totalling €300,
provided by Toshiba Tec Nordic AB.
The rules were Chinese, with 7.5 komi. The time limits were 30 minutes each
sudden death for the 19×19 event, 15 minutes each sudden death for the
9×9.
Entrants who would not be present in person in Leksand were allowed to send their programs
in, either to be operated by someone apponted by themselves, or in the expectation that
the organiser would be able to find them an operator.
19×19 tournament
There were eight entrants:
- Crazy Stone, written by Rémi Coulom, and operated for him by Esa Seuranen.
- First Go, written by Edward de Grijs, and operated for him by Henk Draaisma.
- FueGo, written by Martin Müller and Markus Enzenberger, and operated for them by
Basti Weidemyr. It ran on the hardware provided, but under Unix, booted from a memory stick.
- GNU Go, written by the GNU Go team, and operated by Gunnar Farnebäck,
a leading member of that team.
- Leela, written by Gian-Carlo Pascutto. Esa Seuranen kindly agreed to operate it.
- Many Faces of Go, written by David Fotland. Esa Seuranen kindly agreed to operate it.
- Valkyria, written by Magnus Persson. Gunnar Farnebäck kindly agreed to oeprate it.
- Wei2go, written and operated by Basti Weidemyr. It was the only entrant that
did not run on the hardware provided: it ran on Basti's laptop, under Unix. This is a new
program, and still has some problems with playing on-line. We had agreed that it would only
compete if it would make the number of players even.
The results, and the game records, are listed on the
KGS pages on the event,
which also offer all the game records. The cross-table is
| | CS | L | MF | val | G | 1st | Fue | w2g | byes | Wins | SOS | SoDOS |
|---|
| Crazy Stone | | +3 | +4 | +5 | +2 | +6 | | +1 | | 6 | 15 | 15 |
|---|
| Leela | -3 | | +2 | +4 | +6 | +1 | +5 | | | 5 | 18 | 12 |
|---|
| Many Faces of Go | -4 | -2 | | +6 | +5 +3 | | +1 | | | 4 | 19 | 8 |
|---|
| valkyria | -5 | -4 | -6 | | -1 | +2 | +3 | | | 2 | 21 | 4 |
|---|
| GNU Go | -2 | -6 | -5 -3 | +1 | | | | | +4 | 2 | 21 | 2 |
|---|
| First Go | -6 | -1 | | -2 | | | -4 | +3 | +5 | 2 | 15 | 0 |
|---|
| Fuego | | -5 | -1 | -3 | | +4 | | +2 | | 2 | 13 | 2 |
|---|
| wei2go | -1 | | | | | -3 | -2 | | | 0 | 10 | 0 |
|---|
In this table, + indicates a win, - a loss, and the number indicates in which round the game was played.
GNU Go and Many Faces of Go played twice, Many Faces of Go winning both times.
The results are also available, with downloadable game records, from the
KGS web site.
In round 1, wei2go tried to make an illegal move by playing a stone where it
would have no liberty. It was unable to continue play when the server rejected
this move, and eventually lost on time.
In round 2, wei2go again tried to play a stone where it would have no liberty,
and again lost on time.
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Crazy Stone vs Leela
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The position after move 118, marked.
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In round 3, wei2go again had a problem and eventually lost on time.
Fuego suffered some problem which caused it too to stop playing and lose on time.
To fix the problem and get it running again, its operator needed to reinstall Java
onto its Unix system.
The game between Crazy Stone and Leela had an eccentric fuseki, typical of MC programs.
However the standard of play was high, and this was the game that decided the eventual
winner. SGF
My reason for showing this move is because it surprises me. White needs to save
the three stones that are in atari, and this move certainly saves them; but so does a
capture of the five black stones. Any human player would prefer the capture to the atari;
weak players because they like to get prisoners into their lid, and strong players because
they like to reduce the aji of the dead black group. Of course, we should not expect a MC
program like Crazy Stone to prefer the capture just because humans prefer it; but I would
have guessed that it would prefer the capture because once those five stones are captured,
they are never going to come back to life in a roll-out, whereas the connection leaves them
with some probability of coming back to life again.
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First Go vs FueGo
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The position after move 150, marked.
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Wei2go was not launched again in time for round 4, so there were now only seven players.
GNU Go received the bye.
The game between First Go and Fuego was entertaining, with misread ladders, as seen in
the figure to the left. In the position shown, White has already chased one ladder which
it could not capture; and now it is doing it again, alongside the first ladder.
SGF
In round 5, First Go got the bye.
Fuego again crashed and lost on time. This time its operator failed to get it
running again in time for the next round.
In round 6, there were only six programs left, and no bye was needed.
The prizewinners, in order, were
| 1st | Crazy Stone |
| 2nd | Leela |
| 3rd | Many Faces of Go |
They received cash prizes of €120, €60 and €20.
9×9 tournament
There were eight entrants:
- Crazy Stone (as above)
- First Go (as above)
- FueGo (as above)
- GNU Go (as above). It played using the KGS name 'MonteGNU', but this version did not in fact use Monte Carlo methods.
- Leela (as above)
- Many Faces of Go (as above)
- Valkyria (as above)
- Steenvreter, written by Erik van der Werf and operated by Wesley Yarde.
The results, and the game records, are listed on the
KGS pages on the event,
which also offer all the game records. The cross-table is
| | L | CS | v | stv | MF | Fue | 1st | G | Wins | SOS | SoDOS |
|---|
| Leela | | +2 | -3 | +4 | | +5 | +1 | | 4 | 13 | 10 |
|---|
| Crazy Stone | -2 | | +4 | | +3 | +1 | | +5 | 4 | 12 | 8 |
|---|
| valkyria | +3 | -4 | | -5 | +2 | | | +1 | 3 | 14 | 7 |
|---|
| Steenvreter | -4 | | +5 | | -1 | +3 | +2 | | 3 | 13 | 6 |
|---|
| Many Faces of Go | | -3 | -2 | +1 | | | +5 | +4 | 3 | 11 | 4 |
|---|
| Fuego | -5 | -1 | | -3 | | | +4 | +2 | 2 | 12 | 1 |
|---|
| First Go | -1 | | | -2 | -5 | -4 | | +3 | 1 | 12 | 0 |
|---|
| GNU Go | | -5 | -1 | | -4 | -2 | -3 | | 0 | 13 | 0 |
|---|
In this table, + indicates a win, - a loss, and the number indicates in which round the game was played.
The results are also available, with downloadable game records, from the
KGS web site.
The prizewinners, in order, were
They received cash prizes of €75 and €25.
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Leela vs Xiao Ai-Lin
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The position after move 60, marked.
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Next day, Leela, as winner of the 9×9 tournament played a demonstration game
against Xiao Ai-Lin,
a professional go player from Taiwan. This was a no-komi game, with Leela playing Black.
The time limits were 15 minutes each sudden death.
SGF
After 60 moves, the game reached the position shown to thje right. At this point,
Leela had 141 seconds left and Xiao Ai-Lin had 29. The game is effectively over,
and White has won. The black group on the right side is dead. The two groups at
the bottom left have one eye each, and are both alive in seki, the ko there is
irrelevant. The largest group of each colour is alive, with territory.
Played continued for another 18 moves, which did nothing to change the result, or the
status of any of the groups. Now Leela had 115 seconds left, and Xiao Ai-Lin had 3. At
this point the game was terminated, and declared a win for Xiao Ai-Lin.
Other computer Go Tournament results
computer-go.info