Jellyfish Cheats
Steven
I love the way Jellyfish looks and plays, but I get so frustrated at
the incredable rolls it gives itself. I'm a very good backgammon
player and would appreciate knowing if anyone else feels the same way
I do.
Tom Keith
a common complaint of all backgammon programs. AFAIK there is no
major backgammon program that cheats with its dice. For more
information see: http://www.bkgm.com/rgb/rgb.cgi?menu+computerdice
Tom
Hardy Hübener
First let me mention: I very often feel the same. But I am convinced, it
is just a FEELING. Let me propose an experiment: Play a - let's say -
300 point match against JellyFish using manual dice. Then tell us the
outcome. Is it better than a 300 point match with JF-generated dice?
We have this discussion very often here. But I believe, it's a phenomena
of the human brain: If you roll well, you feel lucky, if JellyFish does
roll well, it cheats.
Do you play on FIBS? If yes: Whats your rating there? JellyFish was
playing as a bot on FIBS in the Level5-version a couple of years ago. It
had a rating of up to 2000 (average of 1900). JF plays at Level 7
nowadays. I don't even want to know it's possible rating at FIBS :-( And
playing on FIBS it was using FIBS dice!
You will find some nice articles about JF-"chaeting" here:
http://www.bkgm.com/rgb/rgb.cgi?menu
Regards,
Hardy
--
You'll find me as Hardy_whv at FIBS!
az-willie
if you allow it to use it's own generator. It almost never fails to roll
whatever it needs to hit any possible open man of mine.
So I got the dice from my game and put Jellyfish in manual mode and
rolled the dice myself and entered them. Like playing a completely
different game.
Then I found a program that creates lists of random rolls and now I use
that and set it to rollout 300 sets. Then I back out of Jellyfish and
make a new run with the program every game or two. Even then Jellyfish
hits open men much more often than it does when you manually roll dice
for each turn, but not as much as when generating the rolls itself. I
suspect Jellyfish is looking ahead when the random rolls list is loaded
and can make optimal choices knowing what you have coming. With manual
dice rolls it can't do that. But when Jellyfish is allowed to use its
own generator it can easily see where your open men are and roll what it
needs to hit them.
I've tried two or three backgammon programs and they all seem to be
looking ahead to some extent, except one called bgblitz.
I don't know how these various games are programmed but they [ shouldn't
] be allowed to look ahead at coming rolls but there is no way to know
if they do or not. But from the difference in using them in their native
mode ( rolling the dice themselves ) and importing lists and in manual
mode it would seem apparent that they certainly don't play fair because
in manual mode the level of the computers play falls about 500%.
Edward D. Collins
METHOD FOR VERIFYING THAT JELLYFISH DOES NOT
GENERATE DICE ROLLS TO ITS OWN ADVANTAGE
1) Record Jellyfish's current "seed" setting.
2) Play a game against Jellyfish, recording all the dice rolls and moves for
each side.
3) Reset the seed to its previous starting value.
4) Play a new game. The initial dice roll will be the same as before. When
it is your turn to play your first move, make a completely different play from
the previous game. Do the same on your second move, then play normally.
5) Record all the rolls and moves of this second game.
Notice that although Jellyfish is now faced with completely different
positions than before, the sequence of dice rolls is exactly the same. It is
not giving itself different numbers to benefit from the changed
situations. The dice rolls are entirely determined by the opening seed!!
------------------------------------------------
METHOD FOR VERIFYING THAT JELLYFISH DOES NOT TAKE
UPCOMING ROLLS INTO ACCOUNT IN DETERMINING ITS PLAYS
Since the sequence of rolls in the game is determined by the initial seed, you
might believe that Jellyfish adjusts its plays to take advantage of upcoming
rolls. Here's how to verify that this is not happening.
1) Play a game (or several games) against JF and record the rolls and moves.
(The simplest way to do this is to save each game as a *.gam file and print it
when the game is done.)
2) Pick a game where you think JF must have cheated because of its good luck.
3) Set up each of JF's positions in the game and, using the "Best Moves"
option, query as to what it thinks the best move is for the roll it had.
Note that it always made the best which its evaluation function thought was
best, not a play tailored to take advantage of upcoming rolls.
The above text is from this site: http://effect.webbie.net/dice.htm
Ed Collins
Peter Schneider
"Hardy Hübener" wrote, in a discussion about cheating JellyFish:
> If you roll well, you feel lucky
I think it's much worse: people (all of us to some extent) are more than willing
to attribute wins to their "good play". (To notice own luck would already be one
half of a sane attitude.) And in spite of their "sophisticated play", they are
losing again and again due to JF's (or any other opponent's) "incredible luck".
And if they can't see any dice like with a bot, they locate the reason to their
losses there, where it's apparently not controllable (thanks to Ed Collins for
addressing this error).
Sorry, Steven, if I am too harsh, but it's all in your mind.
Regards,
Peter aka the juggler
lmfback
(one toppost line for a reason: not moaning but looking at it in a way
I haven't seen here before :-)
> Doesn't the following two methods prove that Jellyfish does not cheat?
>
>
>
> METHOD FOR VERIFYING THAT JELLYFISH DOES NOT
> GENERATE DICE ROLLS TO ITS OWN ADVANTAGE
> ------------------------------------------------
> METHOD FOR VERIFYING THAT JELLYFISH DOES NOT TAKE
> UPCOMING ROLLS INTO ACCOUNT IN DETERMINING ITS PLAYS
> ...
> 3) Set up each of JF's positions in the game and, using the "Best Moves"
> option, query as to what it thinks the best move is for the roll it had.
Assuming they are playing with something better than the Light version,
right? And it's probably unlikely this is the case.
On a side note, I'll present something last that might be fun to
discuss (at least for cheating programmers :-).
Before that, I'm happy to announce someone I introduced Jellyfish too
has switched view from "Jellyfish cheats" to "Jellyfish probably cheats
sometimes". He has also advanced from level 2 to level 5 one pointers
(means he is about 50% in win/loss according to his own words on
statistics). That's probably too positive of him but whatever.
We did start a discussion on how Jelly SHOULD cheat. Which got rather
interesting. Although I've played thousands of matches against Jelly I
still sometimes "feel" it cheats :-). Yes, I should know better. We
both now attribute the feeling to the same thing. Quit a game before
it's played to conclusion and Jelly is likely to get a wow roll next
game. Bullocks. It's probably more that if you loose so badly that you
quit in disgust you play a bit worse the next games as you are
emotionally unstable. Or to loose that badly in the first place means
you are playing very bad today anyway :-). I actually run two Jellys
for months where I always quit when things went badly in one of them.
Yes, the quit-Jelly had worse statistics in subsequent wins after a
quit but not enough to warrant anything statistically IMHO (it was a
close call though).
Anyway, now to the issue of cheating so no one (few) would notice or be
able to prove it...
Well, my buddy did propose Jelly looks ahead which is effectively ruled
out using the approach you outlined above. Almost. If *I* would make a
computer program cheat I would make it really *really* ugly to detect.
Let's assume we can predict human behaviour somewhat. If you suspect it
cheats you will probably do certain things (not just play). Manual
dice, setting the seed (even looking at the seed :-) etc. Once a
players does *any* of these actions Jelly would revert to never looking
ahead again (or not for a long time at least). Also, when looking
ahead, use the next roll "WOW LUCKY" hits "inferior move" only if it
differs very little from the "best move". Hey, you could always say the
neural net has a certain randomness built in which makes it possible if
someone asks :-).
I would be surprised to see someone has conducted a test where all the
rolls are recorded manually on an "untouched Jelly", then compared
against another PC. Heh, if one of the "off" functions would be a
player playing slowly enough to record all rolls... or the cheat comes
into effect after your first 200 games... endless possibilities
anyway...
Anyway, my point is that if you are devious enough you probably could
make something that would be one hell of a thing to prove as cheating.
After which we fall back into the best reason I've seen. Why the hell
would Jelly cheat? Unless I buy into beneficial sales (that might
backfire anyway) I don't think so.
And finally. The programmer(s) of Jelly have my upmost respect. I got
back into backgammon in a big way because of it. If there would have
been a new version in the pipeline I would have bought it but since
Jelly versions seem dead I got Snowie Student (and a few others really
crappy programs before that). And as far as rollouts are concerned $380
*IS* too expensive so I'm happy there are alternatives.
Eskimo
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Scott Steiner
Hi Steven,
first of all, what you are feeling is perfectly normal, everyone playing
backgammon has gone through this phase before. As you improve your game
more and more, you will learn to shift your attention from dice rolls
you get (or don't get) to the errors you make during play. I am aware
that this could imply that you are not as good as you maybe think, do
you have a FIBS rating?
Secondly, I would like to put the topic of alleged cheating into
perspective. I say "alleged" because this has never been proven and it
is solely based on our "feeling". Why do you think that programmers
have to resort to cheating to implement a strong backgammon program?
There are a large number of chess programs out there that give the best
chess players in the world a very strong competition, I never heard
anyone accuse a chess program of cheating though. Chess is a far more
complicated game to implement than backgammon which has much more of a
predictable nature to it which can be calculated. If people can create
strong chess bots then surely they can create strong backgammon bots
too. Obviously this is no proof that backgammon bots don't cheat and
this posting isn't meant to be a proof of anything, it should just put
cheating allegations into perspective - backgammon bots are simply
neural net computer programs that play strong backgammon, they are not
sophisticated reusable rockets that fly to the moon...
Snowie
anyone thinking it doesn't. If it didn't, I'd kick it's sorry little
ass from Switzerland to Norway in one boot.
BTW, humans cheat too. If they didn't, do you think I'd EVER lose to
one of them?
Hank Youngerman
If JF were to cheat - in ANY way - it would look "lucky" to a Snowie
analysis.
For example, splitting and slotting an opening 2-1 are close plays.
JF always splits. Suppose it were to 'look ahead." There are 15
rolls with a 4. Suppose it were to randomize, and slot 25% of the
time when a 4 is coming up and 20% otherwise. Slight advantage to JF.
But........
Let's say that someone decided to play 1000 25-point matches, analyze
them in Snowie, and add them to account manager. One of two things
would happen:
a) The cheating built into Snowie would be so slight and subtle that
it wouldn't show up statistically - but also - JF wouldn't get a
meaningful advantage.
b) The cheating would be statistically significant, and basically
impossible for the JF programmers to deny
I'll discuss reasons people think it cheats in another post soon.
Michael Crane
cheats the weaker players!
JF has been around for donkey's years, and I can't remember one top player
complaining about it cheating :-)
Michael
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"Hank Youngerman" <red...@redtopbg.com> wrote in message
news:i48n4vsp4boq4b6kp...@4ax.com...
Jerry Donovan
news:330a7951.0302...@posting.google.com...
Jellyfish cheats only when it knows that it can. When it feels that
the human is catching on, it doesn't cheat so much. As you get
better and start to understand more on how it cheats, you will find
it only cheats occasionally. If you get really good, you can keep it
from cheating, but that takes years of studying the odds involved.
1/2 :-)
Jerry
Michael Crane
net thingies really are amazing, aren't they?
Michael
"Jerry Donovan" <jerry....@hp.com> wrote in message
news:3e4bc56c$1...@usenet01.boi.hp.com...
Jerry Donovan
When my daughter was playing Jellyfish on one of the lower levels,
it was cheating her left and right. But when I started watching (and
offering some advice), it didn't cheat as much.
The part I haven't figured out is why Jellyfish feels the need to cheat
11 year olds. It isn't like they are much of a threat to the program.
The Jellyfish programmers must be cold hearted.
Whether it is some neural net thingy, so some other technology,
I wouldn't know, but it is clever and devious.
Jerry
"Michael Crane" <michael.a.c...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:hBP2a.1105$Cb.1...@newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net...
Christopher Alvino
> often than it does when you manually roll dice for each turn, but not
> as much as when generating the rolls itself. I suspect Jellyfish is
> looking ahead when the random rolls list is loaded and can make
> optimal choices knowing what you have coming.
This is an illusion. In reality, Jellyfish makes good moves because it
considers not what it's *going* to roll, but instead *all* the
*possible* rolls for its next few turns and it averages the results from
the *possible* rolls. Jellyfish does this as part of its trained neural
network (i.e., its neural network is trained to know that certain
checker spacings are bad, like having your blot six away from your
opponent) and with its n-ply look ahead (which considers all of the
possible reasonable rolls and move combinations, making it a much
stronger tactical player). If you did this, looking at all the possible
rolls and all your opponent's possible and figure out which result in
good positions, you'd make good moves too. So it shouldn't be a suprise
that Jellyfish looks like it's lucky.
According to: http://jelly.effect.no/dice.htm ,
*
In our experience, many people who complain about Jellyfish's "luck" have
never had the experience of playing a truly strong opponent. Those who
play well appear lucky because they create positions where more of their
own rolls play well, while more of their opponent's rolls play badly. The
effect of this is that the strong player appears to roll better.*
az-willie
> ===========
That's all well and good, however if you get some dice and put Jellyfish
in manual mode and roll the dice for each turn you will find that
Jellyfish doesn't play anywhere near the game it does on automatic. It's
vaunted neural network doesn't work nearly as well when it can't see
what rolls both you and it have coming up.
Christopher Alvino
> Jellyfish in manual mode and roll the dice for each turn you will find
> that Jellyfish doesn't play anywhere near the game it does on
> automatic. It's vaunted neural network doesn't work nearly as well
> when it can't see what rolls both you and it have coming up.
>
subjective? Based on how many games?
az-willie
==========
By " anywhere near the game " I just mean it is much easier to beat or
at least not get whomped so bad you think you are playing blindfolded.
With manual dice rolls I saw many fewer instances of JF getting exactly
what it needed to hit open men. When allowed to generate the rolls
itself, JF hardly ever failed to hit any open man within 12 spaces, it
almost always comes up with just the right combination.
And the whole thing is just my subjective opinion. I didn't write
anything down. Just general observations and only based on a few games
maybe 20 or so.
Not statistically valid I know, but it seemed very apparent that things
were very very different when it wasn't allowed to roll it's own. Using
a list from an external generator was somewhere in between rolling it's
own and the human rolling the dice each turn.
It couldn't give itself exactly what it needed to hit your open men (
although it did as much as would be expected ) but it still could look
ahead and see what rolls were coming. Only the programmers, or people
capable of reverse engineering the program could ever tell us if JF can
look ahead or not. If it can, it should be reprogrammed to prevent it.
If it can't it's hard to understand the difference in play when you use
manual dice.
Doing multi-play evaluation is fine, but knowing what is coming is a bit
too much of an edge.
Then too, I've wondered about the neural net stuff. The program has
different levels of capability and I wonder how that is controlled. Is
the neural net given an exact number of megs of ram to work with at each
level or a percentage of available memory?
If a percentage it would explain why I see very little difference in JF
beween level 1 and level 5 or higher since I have over 700 megs of ram
available and if the neural net was designed to work with a computer
with 128 megs then giving it 700 would allow even the lowest level of
ability to be quite awesome because it would have more memory on the
lowest level of play on a high memory machine than the highest level of
play would have on a low memory machine.
Anyway just my opinions and wonderings .... YMMV.
Pete
etc. HOWEVER, the bot I use -- gnubg -- has an uncanny ability to roll
(for example) double fours, when it has two men in the air against my
5-point board, AND hitting one of my men in the outfield, AND covering a
blot in its inner board. This kind of a thing has happened to me at
least a half-dozen times, if not a dozen, in the past few months while
playing against gnubg.
Now, this kind of a roll has nothing to do with some deep analytical
analysis of a position where the machine is looking ahead 15 and a half
plies or whatever and making the best possible move. It is simply a
magic roll. And I don't remember it giving me this kind of a magic roll
even once during these matches.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Pete
PS Note that I am not even bringing up a game where gnubg was behind by
44 pips in a race against me, including two men on my six point, and it won.
Michael Strato
"Pete" <m...@here.net> wrote in message
news:v4om499...@corp.supernews.com...
> Pete
>
> PS Note that I am not even bringing up a game where gnubg was behind by
> 44 pips in a race against me, including two men on my six point, and it
won.
Same thing happened to me. Only I had a closed board and the two checkers
were on the bar. My first bearoff roll was 6-4. I had two men on my 6 point,
took one off and moved the other to the 2 point. Then she rolled 6-6 and
proceeded to win leaving me with a single checker on my 1 point. She smiled.
I was flabbergasted and stood up to give my place to the next person on the
chouette team.
In another incident, at the start of a live tournament, I watched Player 1
toss 6-2 on the opening roll. He played the usual 24/18 13/11 move. Player 2
rolled 6-3, hitting on the 18 with the 6 and moving 24/21 with the 3. Player
1 then rolled 6-6 to dance. Player 2 then rolled a 4-1 and made the 20
point. Player 1 then rolled 6-6 again. Then player 2 rolled a 3-1 and made
his 5 point and Player 1 rolled 6-5 to dance again. Player 2 doubled, Player
1 dropped and they started the next game. I felt bad for Player 1, a World
Champion, and this certainly was a good sign of things to come. I turned
around walked over to the next table directly behind me and watched another
player, miles behind in a race, win by rolling 5-5 four times in a row.
The following sequence is from a live match that was recorded (text boards
should appear below, if you do not see them properly and you are using
Outlook, go up to the top of the program and click on "View" and from the
dropdown menu items choose "Test Size" and then go to the right dropdown and
click on "Fixed") :
-------------------------- Move 47 O -------------------------
O to play (2 1)
+-1--2--3--4--5--6--------7--8--9-10-11-12-+
| O | | |
| O | | |
| | | | S
| | | | n
| | | | o
| |BAR| | w
| | O | | i
| | | | e
| X | | |
| X X X X X | | |
| X X X X X | | |
+24-23-22-21-20-19-------18-17-16-15-14-13-+
Pipcount X: 32 O: 29 X-O: 0-1/11 (2)
Men Off X: 4 O: 12
CubeValue: 2, X owns Cube
O: (2 1) Can't move
-------------------------- Move 48 X -------------------------
X to play (4 2)
+24-23-22-21-20-19-------18-17-16-15-14-13-+
| O | | |
| O | | |
| | | | S
| | | | n
| | | | o
| |BAR| | w
| | O | | i
| | | | e
| X | | |
| X X X X X | | |
| X X X X X | | |
+-1--2--3--4--5--6--------7--8--9-10-11-12-+
Pipcount X: 32 O: 29 X-O: 0-1/11 (2)
Men Off X: 4 O: 12
CubeValue: 2, X owns Cube
48. X: (4 2) 4/off 2/off
-------------------------- Move 48 O -------------------------
O to play (4 1)
+-1--2--3--4--5--6--------7--8--9-10-11-12-+
| O | | |
| O | | |
| | | | S
| | | | n
| | | | o
| |BAR| | w
| | O | | i
| | | | e
| | | |
| X X X X | | |
| X X X X X | | |
+24-23-22-21-20-19-------18-17-16-15-14-13-+
Pipcount X: 26 O: 29 X-O: 0-1/11 (2)
Men Off X: 6 O: 12
CubeValue: 2, X owns Cube
O: (4 1) bar/21* 2/1
-------------------------- Move 49 X -------------------------
X to play (1 1)
+24-23-22-21-20-19-------18-17-16-15-14-13-+
| O O | | |
| | | |
| | | | S
| | | | n
| | X | | o
| |BAR| | w
| | | | i
| | | | e
| | | |
| X X X X | | |
| X X X O X | | |
+-1--2--3--4--5--6--------7--8--9-10-11-12-+
Pipcount X: 47 O: 24 X-O: 0-1/11 (2)
Men Off X: 6 O: 12
CubeValue: 2, X owns Cube
49. X: (1 1) bar/24*/23* 5/4*(2)
!Alert! Joker (0.886)
-------------------------- Move 49 O -------------------------
O to play (4 3)
+-1--2--3--4--5--6--------7--8--9-10-11-12-+
| X | | |
| | | |
| | | | S
| | | | n
| | | | o
| |BAR| | w
| | O | | i
| | O | | e
| | O | |
| X X X X | | |
| X X X X | | |
+24-23-22-21-20-19-------18-17-16-15-14-13-+
Pipcount X: 43 O: 75 X-O: 0-1/11 (2)
Men Off X: 6 O: 12
CubeValue: 2, X owns Cube
O: (4 3) Can't move
-------------------------- Move 50 X -------------------------
X on roll, cube action
+24-23-22-21-20-19-------18-17-16-15-14-13-+
| X | | |
| | | |
| | | | S
| | | | n
| | | | o
| |BAR| | w
| | O | | i
| | O | | e
| | O | |
| X X X X | | |
| X X X X | | |
+-1--2--3--4--5--6--------7--8--9-10-11-12-+
Pipcount X: 43 O: 75 X-O: 0-1/11 (2)
Men Off X: 6 O: 12
CubeValue: 2, X owns Cube
50. X: Double
O: Pass
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
So there you have some examples of some very lucky and unlucky moments in
real life backgammon. If they did not happen when you play against a bot
like Snowie, JellyFish or GNU, then I would say whatever you are playing
with these bots is not the game of a backgammon. Luck is an element of the
game and part of what makes it so fascinating. We all have streaks of good
and bad luck, some say a bad streak can last for months, even years, so be
prepared, your luck might not change tomorrow but then again, you never
know.
Michael
Michael Crane
Michael
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"az-willie" <scl...@npole.com> wrote in message
news:TaW2a.845$zL6...@news2.central.cox.net...
Albert Silver
I have a worthy anecdote too. A true story. In my very first stakes
game ever online (at Gamesgrid) I opened with a simple 32 split (24/21
and 13/11), my opponent rolled 42 and pointed on my head. I danced
with a 64, he doubled, I took, and I never played another move until I
was solidly gammoned. He didn't even cover his board all that fast
either. It took him 3 more rolls to make another point in his board,
but I obligingly rolled 64 three consecutive times and a 66 to boot. I
finally got in when he had already borne off half his checkers. I'll
never forget it.
Albert
Gus
Live tournament (crawford game, so no cube action):
I need 5 4 from the bar to get in on the 5 and hit the only open blot in the
outfield. I got it! BUT
He needed a 2 6 from the bar to hit my man. He got it! BUT
Later I needed a 5-5 from the bar to hit him again. I got it! BUT
Later he needed a 5 3 from the bar to hit my last blot in the outfield. He
got it! BUT
That wasn't enough for him to win the game. He got that last man in and
started bearing off. BUT
I rolled 5 5, 6 6 and 5 5 to catch up. And eventually won.
________________
"Albert Silver" <silver...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:f9846eb9.0302...@posting.google.com...
Ric
On the basis of your deep analysis, we will send the Bot Police to arrest
the GNUBG programmers. However, we will need all the records you kept of the
games in order that we may confirm your analysis. Now, was it six times GNU
cheated with 44 or was it twelve times? Perhaps some number in between? Are
you positive you aren't simply remembering only the times you lost badly or
suspiciously and forgetting the good games you had? We assume also, of
course, that you have played several thousand games in the period you
mention so that the statistics you will provide will be meaningful. You have
played several thousand games against GNUBG, haven't you? As soon as you
provide the evidence and it is confirmed by our crack statistical squad,
we'll break into the strongholds of those vicious, conspiring GNU
programmers in New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and wherever else they
are hiding their cheating, cowardly butts, and we will arrest them and throw
them into deep dungeons where, until their trial when the bot wars are over
sometime in the future, they will have to play Jellyfish, which we all know
cheats without shame.
For a more rational discussion of these matters, please examine all the
posts of our favorite troll, Murat K. He will no doubt enlighten you with
his calm, rational, intelligent, and reasonable approach. Perhaps someday
you could become a protégé of his and further enlighten us on all matters
pertaining to cheating bots.
Happy Valentine's Day! ;-)
Ric
"Pete" <m...@here.net> wrote in message
news:v4om499...@corp.supernews.com...
Pete
Dear Ric,
Thanks for the Valentine's Day greetings -- from you and the others you
represent as "we, we, we...". I did not realize you were the appointed
lead poobah of the Defenders of the Faith of the GnuBG Anti-Defamation
League.
On a lighter note, no I do not keep accurate statistics of my play
against the bots. I don't even keep inaccurate ones. I make mental
notes. I am simply a reporter of facts as I see them. If your experience
is different, fine, so be it.
Let me just tell you that I have played probably 300 matches (normally
to 11) against gnubg in the past few monts. Between 1974 and 1982 I
played thousands of money games in clubs in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio,
California, and Nevada. The sheer number of great rolls that gnubg comes
up with in precisely the situation I described in my initial post is
close to mind-boggling.
I don't know who this Murat character is. I have read several of his
posts and I consider him to be either a lunatic or someone who just
likes to yank the chain of this newsgroup.
Yours truly,
Pete
Ric
Must be something you said. BTW, Poobah is capitalized. ;-)
Ric
"Pete" <m...@here.net> wrote in message
news:v4qblu7...@corp.supernews.com...
Pete
> Well, everytime I try to post my witty replies my email program crashes.
> Must be something you said. BTW, Poobah is capitalized. ;-)
>
Not according to my brand new EE CUMMINGS spell checker. :)
Ric
swallow
>It couldn't give itself exactly what it needed to hit your open men (
>although it did as much as would be expected ) but it still could look
>ahead and see what rolls were coming.
>>
>>
You're wrong....you can check it out yourself....
-jot down the rolls and moves of a game starting on a certain
seed/counter number on a piece op paper
-start a new game while entering the same rolls manually and make
exactly the same moves as you did the first time
You will see that JF will always answer your moves in exactly the same
way.
You can try this out as many times as you want..the result will always
be the same, that is, at the same play level.
Billie
Absolutely no knowledge of neural nets here.
1) About two months ago, I discovered Motif backgammon on the Internet
(before I knew about gnubg, JF, snowie, etc). I got soundly trounced
every time I played it, and was sure it was cheating because of it's
ability to roll doubles for itself, especially when it needed them. So
I kept a log of all the doubles rolled by both sides in 50 games -- I
rolled more than Motif did!
2) Since then, I've downloaded gnubg, and play it mostly in tutor
mode. What floored me are the open gnubg blots that I could hit with my
rolls, but don't see, until the tutor points them out. So maybe the
problem isn't so much that gnubg amazingly hits your blots, but that you
don't see all of his that could be hit.
Billie
PS. I can now play Motif nearly even, so even if gnubg cheats, it's
helping MY game!
Gregg Cattanach
news:3E4B7318...@nospam.nospam...
> Steven wrote:
> >
>
> Hi Steven,
>
> There are a large number of chess programs out there that give the best
> chess players in the world a very strong competition, I never heard
> anyone accuse a chess program of cheating though. Chess is a far more
> complicated game to implement than backgammon which has much more of a
> predictable nature to it which can be calculated.
I agree completely that Jellyfish, et al, do not cheat. But one question.
How in the world COULD a chess robot cheat??
Gregg C.
Scott Steiner
Hi Gregg,
I think you misunderstood my point or I didn't express myself properly.
A chess bot does NOT cheat, that was my point. Nobody complains about
chess bots cheating (and how could they?) and chess is much more
difficult to implement than backgammon so if it is possible to program
world class chess bots then why shouldn't it be possible to program
world class backgammon bots? I just wanted to make the point clear that
backgammon bots are no world wonders and having to resort to cheating to
play well is not necessary. I hope I was clearer now ;-)
Regards
Scott
Steve Harris
All of a sudden, your queen disappears???
--Steve
Pete
Didn't Kasparov accuse Deep Blue of cheating a couple of years ago when
Gaza got beat?
Just my 3 cents ...
Pete
Silverfox
don't believe he ever accused Deep Blue of cheating specifically.
~Silverfox
"Pete" <m...@here.net> wrote in message
news:v52hrks...@corp.supernews.com...
Scott Steiner
I can't remember anymore. I used to play chess and I was very
interested in my earlier days but I then I left the game. How did
Kasparov accuse Deep Blue of cheating? Did he suggest that at a
particular position one of the chess educated consultants called the
move instead of the program? I'd be interested to know what happened...
Scott Steiner
On a windows based system this might just happen.... :-)))
Pete
Positive. There were two accusations. One, the more benign one as far as
this thread is concerned, that the programmers changed DB's settings
between games. Two, the more pertinent one to this discussion, that at
certain positions (IIRC some very difficult end-game positions), there
was human - i.e., grandmaster, input).
Pete
Hugh McNeil
cheat... here, they suggested that the bot used a human to cheat.
"Pete" <m...@here.net> wrote in message
news:v52jjk2...@corp.supernews.com...
Jim Allen
Write down your seed and counter numbers. Write down the rolls for JF
and for you. Play several games. Post the seed, counter and rolls to
this newsgroup. Point out where JF cheated.
Then anyone with JF can set the same counter and seed and make "funny"
plays against JF. If JF cheats, it will have to produce different rolls
for the "new" situations.
Jim
Silverfox
Deep Blue couldn't cheat any more than any other chess software. Although I
can see your point about the bot using humans. I sort of turn it around
though. I don't believe Deep blue cheated as much as the humans in charge
did.
Even so, after denying that anything was taking place there was further
issue as to whether this was allowed in the rules of the tourney. It's all
pretty fuzzy for me now... too long ago.
Anyway... I'll take your word for it. :) Still doesn't change the fact that
jellyfish cheats. <wink> <grin>
"Pete" <m...@here.net> wrote in message
news:v52jjk2...@corp.supernews.com...
Silverfox
of times I've called them "cheating pieces of... " hehe)
But just for sport, what about this:
Bot uses timer as a seed. Picks a seed number and then records the rolls it
gets into the seed. This way if the seed is manually selected the numbers
would always be the same. Yet if it's the first time the seed is used the
bot can assign rolls as needed on the fly (using random numbers most of the
time). This assigned number could be written into the selected seed number
for future reference. This would defeat the "manually set the seed" proof
and be completely undetectable from an end user POV.
Another idea: There are only 32,000 seeds in the program. There are
millions if not billions of roll combinations. The developers could simply
comb the seeds for roll sequences that favor the bot and include the top
32,000 most favorable seeds. This is more plausible to do than the first
example. The first example could be detected by two machines yielding
different roll sequences for the same seed. The second idea here, I've no
idea how that could be detected.
Anyway... Just some stupid ideas. And again, I don't think anyone would
bother doing either of these. Or that anyone did. I firmly believe I get my
ass handed to my by these bots because they are better than I am.
~Silverfox
"Steven" <steve...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:330a7951.0302...@posting.google.com...
> Am I the person who knows that Jellyfish's dice rolls favor the game?
> I love the way Jellyfish looks and plays, but I get so frustrated at
> the incredable rolls it gives itself. I'm a very good backgammon
> player and would appreciate knowing if anyone else feels the same way
> I do.
Pete
are cheating. I accept the argument that the bots make the best overall
move in a particular TACTICAL situation; better than (almost if not
all) humans. My beef with the bots is that they consistently outroll me
in a frigging RACE. In other words, in situations where there are very
few decisions to be made. I can not begin to tell you how many times
gnubg has outrolled me when there is no more contact, and you just have
to move your pieces like a ... robot.
I have had gnubg come back from a 44-pip deficit. I am already bearing
off, and it has two men on my six-point. Several rolls later, I can't
even take the redouble.
That's just ridiculous.
So this is the area where I have a heartburn.
Derek Ray
Pete <m...@here.net> mumbled something about:
>I don't believe that the programmers (in my case, gnubg's programmers)
>are cheating. I accept the argument that the bots make the best overall
>move in a particular TACTICAL situation; better than (almost if not
>all) humans. My beef with the bots is that they consistently outroll me
>in a frigging RACE. In other words, in situations where there are very
Opinion: bots get into races more often than humans do, because humans
drop doubles more than bots do. The scale of the effect is twice as
large as you think it is, because you have to count the number of
doubles you make that you expect a drop or an outright win that the bot
takes, and the number of doubles you drop that the bot expects you to
take, where you had good chances of lucking into a race win after the
take.
>few decisions to be made. I can not begin to tell you how many times
>gnubg has outrolled me when there is no more contact, and you just have
>to move your pieces like a ... robot.
>
>I have had gnubg come back from a 44-pip deficit. I am already bearing
>off, and it has two men on my six-point. Several rolls later, I can't
>even take the redouble.
>
>That's just ridiculous.
>So this is the area where I have a heartburn.
I rolled double 3s over the board 4 times in a row against one of the
readers of this newsgroup to win one of the local weekly tournaments.
I'm sure he remembers it too, and THAT certainly qualifies as
ridiculous. It happens, but selective memory erases it.
-- Derek
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
- C. Darwin, 1871
Derek Ray
>Positive. There were two accusations. One, the more benign one as far as
>this thread is concerned, that the programmers changed DB's settings
>between games. Two, the more pertinent one to this discussion, that at
>certain positions (IIRC some very difficult end-game positions), there
>was human - i.e., grandmaster, input).
#1 involves humans cheating -- changing DB's settings.
#2 involves humans cheating -- input from a GM regarding endgames.
Neither of these is attributable to Deep Blue. =)
Albert Silver
As you know, chess games are played with a clock. If you exceed the
time, you lose. This brings about a technique based on Lucena's famous
text. First I should explain: Lucena was a player in the 16th century
who wrote a perennial
text on the game, including a number of 'techniques' to get an edge.
One of those 'techniques' involved placing the board so that your
player has the sun in his eyes...
Technique - have the program slowly reduce the brightness and contrast
of your desktop. Have it do so very incrementally so that the player,
concentrated on his game, will not realize and is more likely to
gradually begin squinting at the screen. Once the screen is
sufficiently dark, not black as it would be too obvious, have the
sceen go completely white with maximum brightness and contrast. This
is usually followed by a loud "ARGH! I'm blind!!" and the smacking of
hands going to the eyes. Once vision is recovered, the time should
have elapsed and victory guaranteed.
Albert Silver
Sanghabum
>As you know, chess games are played with a clock. If you exceed the
>time, you lose.
I used to be able to beat ChessMaster 5 (I think) every time in five moves or
less by setting the clock correctly.
I'd give us both one minute each to make 2000 moves. CM5 (or whatever) would go
into a blind panic at having only 3/100th of a second to compute each move.
It'd wave its Queen around like a raw rookie, lose it, and then resign with 58
seconds still on its clock. My ranking would increase nicely each time.
Maybe, just maybe, there is an equivalent set of settings in gSnowieFish
that'll trip it up so badly that a human can win without much skill.
Of course, the BHS (Bots Humane Society) would surely take action against such
abuse of a harmless bot.
Colin.
Douglas Zare
Pete wrote:
> Dear Ric,
>
> Thanks for the Valentine's Day greetings -- from you and the others you
> represent as "we, we, we...". I did not realize you were the appointed
> lead poobah of the Defenders of the Faith of the GnuBG Anti-Defamation
> League.
Ric's post was humorous. A lot of people are trying to respond with humor, in
order to amuse the regulars of rec.games.backgammon. The reason for this is that
you aren't the first, or the tenth person to erroneously accuse a bot of cheating,
and whether or not anyone takes the time to convince you, next month there will be
more people whining about how they are great players but the bots have
unbelievable dice.
Those who actually are great players (young or old)
1) Laugh at the horrible playing level that was standard at the time (1974-1982)
when you say you had a lot of experience playing.
2) Have uniformly learned a lot from the bots, directly or indirectly. Mostly
directly, with hours of study of what the bots play, rather than what they roll.
3) Don't think the bots cheat.
The fact is that a top backgammon player (human or bot) has a huge advantage over
one who is merely "advanced." Because of the probabalistic feedback, it can be
hard for weaker players to realize how much they blunder, and how frequently the
bot is right when the players disagree.
If you are really serious about thinking that the bots cheat with the dice, you
will find that there are many people willing to bet against you. If you think you
know a pattern, like that 4-4 will be rolled 1/10 of the time rather than 1/36
when you have the other 5 points of our home board made and the bot has 2 checkers
on the bar, offer to bet as though the fair probability is 1/15. If you are right,
you will almost certainly profit in a long test. If you are wrong, you will almost
certainly lose in a long test.
Of course, in the case of the Mersenne twister generator used by gnu, if a human
can detect real patterns in the dice, this would be the biggest news of the year
in the study of random number generators. There have been many tests in the
backgammon community and outside that have not only revealed no pattern in the
dice, but also have refuted particular claims. But please feel free to bet on
whatever you believe.
What's happened before is that people who claim that they have overwhelming
evidence that bots cheat don't actually believe their claims enough to bet on
them. If that's the case, maybe they don't believe their claims enough to
publicize them, or to try to convince others of them.
Does Jellyfish seem to roll too well? Jellyfish steamrolls many competitive human
players for 0.3+ points per game. I think Jellyfish level 7 is about 0.1 ppg
better than Jellyfish level 5. Does anyone want to back Jellyfish level 5 against
Jellyfish level 7, with level 5 rolling the dice? If not, maybe Jellyfish's
advantage is sound play, not great rolling.
Douglas Zare
Douglas Zare
Gregg Cattanach wrote:
> [...]
> I agree completely that Jellyfish, et al, do not cheat. But one question.
> How in the world COULD a chess robot cheat??
You trust its clock?
It could also go online and ask a better program for help.
Douglas Zare
Gregg Cattanach
Software Complaint Form, (thanks to Gary Wong):
Official rec.games.backgammon Software Complaint Form
-----------------------------------------------------
I want to make as much noise as possible and let the world know about a
gross miscarriage of justice concerning the following software (check all
that apply):
[ ] FIBS
[ ] GamesGrid
[ ] Netgammon
[ ] MSN Zone
[ ] TrueMoneyGames
[ ] Jellyfish
[ ] Snowie
[ ] GnuBG
[ ] other (specify) ______________________
in the following manner (check all that apply):
[ ] it has a biased random dice generator
[ ] intentionally coded by the author to give "better" rolls to the
computer to create the illusion of an superior backgammon program;
[ ] unintentionally coded by the author because he/she is too incompetent
to program one, even though satisfactory algorithms for generating
pseudo-random sequences have been published for decades;
[ ] a conspiracy between the (specify) ___________ backgammon server(s)
and (specify) _____________ bot operator(s) that gives the bot(s) "better"
dice than me (I'm sure Elvis and the Kennedy assassination are involved here
somewhere too, but I haven't discovered how yet);
[ ] a conspiracy between the (specify) ___________ backgammon server(s)
and (insert names of players who beat you) ______________ which gives them
"better" dice than me;
[ ] deliberately coded by the author to give weaker players better rolls
to encourage them to continue paying to play there;
[ ] deliberately coded by the author to give stronger players better rolls
to encourage them to continue paying to play there;
[ ] it maximizes my duplication and minimizes its own self-duplication to
give the impression it rolls more "lucky" numbers than I do (this must be
cheating, right?);
[ ] it is horribly overpriced (I KNOW this because my 8th grade teacher
once gave us a lesson on economics, it's all about the law of supply and
something else, and the distributor(s) would sell lots more copies and the
users would all be happy and we'd achieve world peace if it was cheaper, and
I don't want to pay that much for it anyway);
[ ] and it cheats too;
(Accusations of cheating only) I have the following proof (check all that
apply):
[ ] I'm really good at backgammon, I can beat my grandmother and my little
brother but the computer keeps winning against me, therefore it MUST be
cheating;
[ ] it entered on my 5 point board on the first roll, twice in one game;
[ ] it rolled a miracle 4-3 which was one of only 6 rolls that allowed it
to simultaneously complete its prime and hit the blot I left subject to only
3 direct shots; THEN I rolled 6-4 and 5-5 and danced twice in a row on a
3-point board -- there's no way that would happen with real dice, so it MUST
be cheating;
[ ] (the software in question) rolled 3 doubles in a row while bearing
off -- this is clearly impossible, so it MUST be cheating;
[ ] I've been playing for (specify) ___ years and never seen this before,
therefore it MUST be cheating;
I haven't formalized my suspicions, presented a falsifiable hypothesis,
designed an experiment, gathered data and made reasonable conclusions
because I (check all that apply):
[ ] don't know how;
[ ] can't be bothered;
[ ] already KNOW I'm right so there's no point doing any of that stuff;
In conclusion, I demand the following (check all that apply):
[ ] The author publish the source code;
[ ] The distributors reduce the price to (specify) $_.__; (commercial
software only);
[ ] I pirated the software in the first place, but it still cheats so it
isn't worth what I paid for it, so SOMEBODY owes me (specify) $___,___.__
(commercial software only);
[ ] Since the software is already free, the distributors should pay ME
(insert amount) $___,___.__ to continue using their @!^$(* cheating software
(free software only);
[ ] I be compensated to the tune of (insert amount) $___,___,___.__ for
damages resulting from the above complaints;
[ ] I don't really want anything except to stir up the same old arguments
in rec.games.backgammon. Has anybody else noticed this?
Signed,
(insert pseudonym) __________________
PS: What's the registration code for (specify software) _________________?
Cheers,
--
Gary Wong, Department of Computer Science, University of Arizona
Rambo
WHAT IS JELLY FISH?
SusanJane
If this is representative of Gary's writing ability, he's wasting his
time on Wall Street.... On a more serious note, and sadly enough, I
actually have heard some of my opponents whine about some of these
"flaws" in online backgammon.
Thanks for the chuckles guys and see ya online :))
SJ
Mogath3
>
>You trust its clock?
>
If you've ever played a chess program with any kind of regularity you'd know
that it's a non-issue. I have NEVER had a problem with a program's clock. Ever
since my first program (SARGON III on a Commodore 64) I've never had an issue
with a program's clock.
For that matter, I've never had a problem with bg programs cheating either. If
that is STILL such an issue for some, switch to manual dice, stop PLAYING the
bots or LEARN TO PLAY BETTER. I can't believe this is STILL an issue here.
Regards,
Jeff
Gregg Cattanach
Signed,
(insert pseudonym) __________________
Cheers,
Paul Tanenbaum
> I am willing to buy most of the arguments about the bots not cheating,
> etc. HOWEVER, the bot I use -- gnubg -- has an uncanny ability to roll
> (for example) double fours, when it has two men in the air against my
> 5-point board, AND hitting one of my men in the outfield, AND covering a
> blot in its inner board. This kind of a thing has happened to me at
> least a half-dozen times, if not a dozen, in the past few months while
> playing against gnubg.
Well Pete, let's look a little closer at this incredible
phenomenon, with perhaps a more analytical eye than you have
brought to bear thus far.
You also wrote elsewhere:
> On a lighter note, no I do not keep accurate statistics of my play
> against the bots. I don't even keep inaccurate ones.
Hmmmm...
>I make mental notes. I am simply a reporter of facts as I see them...
This is more revealing than you might think.
But let's go on...
> Let me just tell you that I have played probably 300 matches (normally
> to 11) against gnubg in the past few months... The sheer number of
> great rolls that gnubg comes up with in precisely the situation I
> described in my initial post is close to mind-boggling.
The "sheer number" is 6 to 12, per your testimony.
Now I'm going to do something, in public, that decent people
normally do only in the privacy of their own homes - brace
yourself with a large brandy, Pete - STATISTICS!!!
Oh noooooooooooo, Mr. Bill!
To start, let's assume that an average game scores 1.5 points,
taking into account the doubling cube. Next, that a 11 point
match ends with average score of 11 - 8 (it might be closer,
most of my matches seem to be double match point). So 19
points total, at 1.5 per, gives about 12 games per match.
You played 300 matches against gnu, (over "a few months", that
works out to 2 - 3 matches per day, i.e. 3 hours per day for
3 months solid! but never mind), hence about 3600 games total.
Now, how often does one see 2 stones on the bar facing a 5
point board, as per your mental notes? I'd guess about once
every 8 games. That means it occurred in 450 of your games.
And the odds of throwing a specific double are 1/36. So we
would expect to see this 'miracle' approximately... wait for
it... 12 TIMES in 300 11-point matches! Now WHERE have I
heard THAT number before?
Not to mention that this position (2 on the bar facing 5 point
board) would typically repeat a few times whenever it did
arise, thus we would expect such "uncanny" rolls even more
often than that.
Hence gnu SHOULD have thrown even MORE perfectos than you
observed, and your exasperation at such a bizarre experience
is understandable -
> PS Note that I am not even bringing up a game where gnubg was
> behind by 44 pips in a race against me, including two men on
> my six point, and it won.
So in 3600 games, it won ONE game where it had a 1% chance?
Zounds, I never HEARD of such a thing!
---
Paul T.
kjh
Paul Tanenbaum wrote:
> Now I'm going to do something, in public, that decent people
> normally do only in the privacy of their own homes - brace
> yourself with a large brandy, Pete - STATISTICS!!!
> Oh noooooooooooo, Mr. Bill!
I absolutely LOVE IT when the Jellyfish-cheats trolls get people
emotional enough to write crap like this. Hilarious! Many thanks
Pete, you scored big.
Silverfox
Nice work. :)
~Silverfox
"Murat Kalinyaprak" <mu...@compuplus.net> wrote in message
news:2831c30c.03022...@posting.google.com...
> Pete wrote v4qblu7...@corp.supernews.com
>
> > I don't know who this Murat character is. I have read several
> > of his posts and I consider him to be either a lunatic or
> > someone who just likes to yank the chain of this newsgroup.
>
> I have been writing in this newsgroup for about seven years...
>
> After reading "only several" of (hundreds if not thousands of)
> my postings here, it is pretty fucking rude of you to refer to
> me as "this Murat character" and to express that you consider
> me as a "lunatic"... :(( Wait until I yank your chain, you dog
> shit and then you can tell them all how much you lime me... :))
>
> MK
Pete
It tends to ruin the keyboard.
Pete
Michael Crane
--
** People who do not have adequate or up-to-date virus protection are
responsible for spreading viruses via emails etc.Install virus protection
software and help put an end to viruses. **
"Rambo" <donke...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:52de00c9.03022...@posting.google.com...
Mogath3
>cheats...!!
>
Less talk, more proof
Kees van den Doel
Murat Kalinyaprak <mu...@compuplus.net> wrote:
>> Less talk, more proof
>What would be "proof" by your definition...?? I have bet
>$1,000.00 in cash vs. the non-monetary value of the right
>to spit on the face of any "world-class-player" of your
>choice and call him "you fucking conspiring sick bastard"
>in front of live-cameras...!
This does not constitute "proof" by most standards, I'm afraid.
There is of course a lot of anecdotal proof that JF cheats like "because
I lost this game and he threw a double once which is 100% out of one and
this is worng [SIC] because the dice has only five sides so the chance
is 1/(5+5) = 20%".
Kees (Kees Veel gelul is nasal, not primarily traditional outpatient
groups this out, but Ahv never says never.)
Mogath3
>$1,000.00 in cash vs. the non-monetary value of the right
>to spit on the face of any "world-class-player" of your
>choice and call him "you fucking conspiring sick bastard"
If you think the thing cheats, why play it?? Really, why play it?? There is an
option for manual dice. I couldn't give a shit whether it cheats or not. I've
played ALL of them enough to know that they don't, but I have always used the
manual dice option. Makes not a damn bit of difference to me anyway as I think
in backgammon there is too much left to luck. You wanna play a game that
involves SKILL?? Play chess.
Regards,
Jeff
Kees van den Doel
>>> What would be "proof" by your definition...?? I have bet
>>> $1,000.00 in cash vs. the non-monetary value of the right
>>> to spit on the face of any "world-class-player" of your
>>> choice and call him "you fucking conspiring sick bastard"
>>> in front of live-cameras...!
>> This does not constitute "proof" by most standards, I'm
>> afraid.
>What standards...? Please clarify.
>> There is of course a lot of anecdotal proof that JF cheats
>> like "because I lost this game and he threw a double once
>> which is 100% out of one and this is worng [SIC] because
>> the dice has only five sides so the chance is 1/(5+5)=20%".
>I myself never offered such isolated examples as evidence...!
No, you are the proverbial pearl in the pigsty.
>I see a lot of people doing it but I also see a lot of people
>doing the very same thing in the opposite direction. That is,
>they play down 1 in a 10,000 occurrences as though they would
>happen 1 in 100 or even twice every day...
>But why is the above bullshit coming from an "oughreboughre"
>like you...? Have you not paid attention that I had offered
>to play 100 matches of 64-points against the highest settings
>of gnudung as the basis for my bet you are referring to...??
I have seen some flagrant misspellings of the name of the owl (which is
Oeroeboeroe) in my time, but "oughreboughre" violates all decency norms
by such wide margins that I feel compelled to challenge you to a -64
(minus 64) point match using Zare dice and the corresponding
generalization of the Crawford rule to imaginary numbers.
This will prove once and for all that it is Oeroeboeroe!
Kees (Kek noar ej ychjl csi dfoplvj kjlyx avorjf Oeroeboeroe.)
komodo
I was playing with computer dices, and recently switched to manual dices.
Guess what? The result is reversed!
Particulary it rolls double 4 when it needs it, but other inprobable rolls
occur frequently, for example: I got double 6 with one man on the bar
against a one point board, not once, but 4 times in 3 seven point matches! I
also think it gets good rolls shortly after a double
Any comments?
Regards
Micke
az-willie
===========
I'm not a good player. Pretty much a newbie. But if I play Jellyfish
Lite on level 5 and let it roll the dice for itself, I can win maybe 1
in 20 or 30 times.
If I tell it to use a file and use a roll generator I can win maybe 1
out of 4 or better.
The difference is dramatic. Jellyfish will give itself whatever it needs
if allowed to roll the dice itself. Once I thought it was giving itself
what it wanted even when it was supposed to be reading from a file so I
printed the roll file out and followed along. Nope, it was doing just
what it should. But the difference in play between using a roll
generator and letting Jellyfish roll the dice itself is amazing.
Cheating? I think so. But it's easily fixed by using a roll generator.
Scott Steiner
The roll generator is actually a cunning trap for people who think that
JF cheats and switch from internal dice to rolls from a text file
instead! The roll generator actually reads _all_ of the text file and
therefore can look ahead and see the rolls it will get in future. With
this 'look ahead feature' it can play its checkers accordingly in order
to get the most out of the rolls it 'pre-viewed'...
az-willie
==========
I've considered that too. But what makes you think Jellyfish doesn't
calculate a dozen or so rolls ahead and then adjust the dice it displays
according to what it needs when it is on roll-your-own mode?
Even if Jellyfish does look ahead, it can't change the upcoming rolls (
well it could ignore them but it doesn't ). So while Jellyfish could
plan moves in advance it still doesn't play anywhere near as difficult
as when it rolls the dice itself. I just consider that like playing one
of the genius chess players who can play 12 boards at once etc. etc. So
it can try to plan what it wants to do, it can't force you to make the
moves it expects.
I was really very surprised at how much easier it was to beat Jellyfish
using a roll generator than in native mode. It makes it seem pretty
obvious that there is something not right. Play between both modes
should be pretty much the same difficulty but it sure isn't.
Bruce Scott
"az-willie" <scl...@npole.com> wrote in message
news:Pa8ba.25087$1f....@news2.central.cox.net...
> Even if Jellyfish does look ahead, it can't change the upcoming rolls (
> well it could ignore them but it doesn't ). So while Jellyfish could
> plan moves in advance it still doesn't play anywhere near as difficult
> as when it rolls the dice itself. I just consider that like playing one
> of the genius chess players who can play 12 boards at once etc. etc. So
> it can try to plan what it wants to do, it can't force you to make the
> moves it expects.
As on offtopic aside, playing simultaneous chess is much easier than it
appears. Moderate tournament players can easily play many boards at once.
Adding additional boards doesn't greatly increase the difficulty. There is
very little difference between playing 25 boards and playing 5.
When you play simultaneous chess, your opponent is not allowed to move until
you get to the board. You have plenty of time to refamiliarize yourself with
the board when you get there.
There is usually a fairly large skill difference between the simul player
and most everyone on the other side of the tables. On most of the boards,
people are going to make silly mistakes. On those boards, the simul player
needs can "rest". He just needs to avoid making silly moves and wait for his
opponent to self-destruct. This leaves only a few boards that matter. The
simul player will have a huge amount of "opening book knowledge". His moves
will be automatic for quite a while on many of the boards. If his opponent
deviates too much from "book", it is likely to be a blunder.
Albert Silver
> I'm not a good player. Pretty much a newbie. But if I play Jellyfish
> Lite on level 5 and let it roll the dice for itself, I can win maybe 1
> in 20 or 30 times.
You'll find that level 6 is worse and level 7 is the biggest cheat of
the lot.
> But it's easily fixed by using a roll generator.
Another solution is to pick up a good book on the game such as
"Backgammon" by Paul Magriel and study it.
Albert Silver
Scott Steiner
I can give you one piece of valuable advice and I'm sure that most
people would agree: improve your backgammon and you will find that JF
will 'cheat' less and less as you improve. How to improve? My
recommendation:
A) Read some good books - you don't need to read dozens of books for
starters but you need some basic texts that give you some solid
background theory
B) Practise your backgammon - you need to play to gain experience,
experience is very valuable as you can practice your acquired skills
C) Anaylise your matches with a bot! I think this is extremely
important and something that many people just don't do. If you don't
analyse your matches then you will never figure out what you are doing
wrong. Once you start doing thit diligently then you will gradually see
that you are losing your games mainly because of your blunders.
Kees van den Doel
accidentally been trained to be clairvoyant? This is an ununderstood
topic and is at least theoretically possible in order to explain the
strange "luck" which in my experience persists even with manual dice.
After all no-one understands how telepathy and paranormal phenomena work
except they seem to be associated with intelligence so why not with AI?
This could be settled by redesigning GNUBG to *predict* the dice instead
of just playing backgammon and doing statistical analysis though the
square close-minded scientific establishment will ridicule the whole
idea like the idea of "atoms", "radiation", and non absolute space-time.
Kees (Albert Einstein was totalled, I expected to preserve the origins.)
Scott Steiner
I have insider information that the developers of gnubg are secretly
working on a new project bot that will not only predict dice but also
the moves of the opponent. You basically start a new match and gnubg
then completely takes over and moments later presents you with a
complete and detailed analysis of all the moves that you made...or
didn't make for this sake :-)
az-willie
==========
I agree completely that more experience will help in some respects.
But how do you analyze matches with a bot? Where do you get such a bot?
Being a newbie I don't know these things.
Scott Steiner
I assume you were using the freeware version of Jellyfish up to now. I
suggest you forget about that for now and switch to gnubg. Gnubg is not
only an expert player, it is also an excellent analysing tool. You can
download it here, it's free:
http://home.online.no/~oeysteij/
Documentation is maybe a little sparse for someone who has no experience
with backgammon bots, but recently there was an introduction manual
published which is very good for starting you off and more. You can get
the manual here:
http://www.bkgm.com/gnu/AllAboutGNU.html
If you have any further questions then just ask here, many people are
familiar with the program.
HTH
Kees van den Doel
Murat Kalinyaprak <mu...@compuplus.net> wrote:
>>>> This does not constitute "proof" by most standards, I'm
>>>> afraid.
>>> What standards...? Please clarify.
>No answer...?? :((
Most (as in "most") standards.
>>> I myself never offered such isolated examples as evidence...!
>> No, you are the proverbial pearl in the pigsty.
>And who would be the "proverbial pigshit" in the "proverbial
>pigsty" then...??
That is Rob Barendsz.
>>> But why is the above bullshit coming from an "oughreboughre"
>>> like you...? Have you not paid attention that I had offered
>>> to play 100 matches of 64-points against the highest settings
>>> of gnudung as the basis for my bet you are referring to...??
>> I have seen some flagrant misspellings of the name of the
>> owl (which is Oeroeboeroe) in my time, but "oughreboughre"
>> violates all decency norms by such wide margins that I feel
>> compelled to challenge you to a -64 (minus 64) point match
>> using Zare dice and the corresponding generalization of the
>> Crawford rule to imaginary numbers.
>Bla bla bla pigshit... :((
>As expected, nothing diractly related to backgammon... :(((
Indeed, the Dirac equation is very relevant to play with checkers that
obey the Pauli exclusion principle.
>It's a dirty job but somebody has to shove backgammon up the
>asses of dumb pigshit "oughreboughre"... :)
>Of course, you are free to kiss Zare's ass while I am shoving
>backgammon up your "oughreboughre" ass... :))
It hurts me to read that string. Can't you just write "Oeroeboeroe"?
Kees (Geniaal EN adw MaP, APgruach pneuma God nacht op taalstrijd tussen
Holland a name, and blasted with ESMTP SMTPD32-6.05 id XAA00307
for sure that leaves much and is EIGEN BUURT DOEN EN DA drug use
optical character set Some serious tone of
soc.culture.netherlands?)
dandelion
> It hurts me to read that string. Can't you just write "Oeroeboeroe"?
OEHOEBOEROE! The *real* name of the own is OEHOEBOEROE!
--
In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs.
Quint Ondaatje
dandelion<dand...@meadow.org>
in soc.culture.netherlands het volgende:
> Kees van den Doel wrote:
>
>> It hurts me to read that string. Can't you just write "Oeroeboeroe"?
>
> OEHOEBOEROE! The *real* name of the own is OEHOEBOEROE!
>
Maybe of the own, yes.
But the name of the OWL is OEROEBOEROE of course !!!
--
Niek Holtzappel (Ravachol) Homepage : http://www.xs4all.nl/~nholtz
Meldpunt Gestapopraktijken Internet: http://hopje.xs4all.nl/~MGI
"Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae , propterea quod a cultu
atque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt" (Julius Caesar)
Kees van den Doel
Murat Kalinyaprak <mu...@compuplus.net> wrote:
>>>>>> This does not constitute "proof" by most standards,
>>>>>> I'm afraid.
>>>>> What standards...? Please clarify.
>> Most (as in "most") standards.
>Ok, let me rephrase my question: "What most standards"...?
Let me clarify with an example:
I mean a subset of standards that is bigger than most subsets. For
example, if you see a forest with banana palm trees one would be
entitled to say that "most" bananas are yellow, though the occasional
blue one may be ther too.
>In fact, never even mind the "most" part and let's see if
>you can state only "a few" of them most stardards...??
The blue ones would be the "few" in this example. I hope it is clear
now.
If not, I CAN REPOTS THIS IN CAPITALS.
Kees (When it's just coming to Himself.)