Technical Play
Ron & Ann Barry
From time to time in my reading, I come across the phrase "technical
play", but I have never seen an explanation of what it means. How does
technical play differ from non-technical play? Are there any expository
works that treat the subject? Have the bots learned technical plays?
Regards, Ron Barry.
Adam Stocks
A reasonable working definition of a technical play is a play in a position
of which the general theme (game plan) is known, so finding the best move is
more heavily dependent on calculation of shots, clearing points most safely
etc., which best follows that known theme. These 'technical' plays are
distinct from their counterparts - 'positional plays', where the fundamental
aspect of finding the best play is recognising what theme (game plan) should
be followed.
Ultimately, the two basic types of play (technical & positional) are
intertwined with each other at various levels, but it is convenient for bg
literature to seperate the two for clarity/simplicity.
As far as bots are concerned, the neural net method used nowadays doesn't
really disciminate between the two - they just gradually increase there
technical & positional 'skill' co-dependently.
Bill Robertie has written some books treating these two subjects seperately,
'Technical Play' and 'Positional Play'.
Adam
"Ron & Ann Barry" <r-ab...@telocity.com> wrote in message
news:3D2B1DB3...@telocity.com...
maareyes
Hi,
Here is a snip from an old rgb article that uses this term..
Humans tends to do better at technical positions, neural nets at
positional play. (Look at the various bearoff "bug" threads -- these
are positions for which any top BG player already knows the correct cube
action, that someone who doesn't know the correct action can calculate
it in a minute easily, and yet the computers get wrong
Douglas Zare
Adam Stocks wrote:
> Hi R & N,
>
> A reasonable working definition of a technical play is a play in a position
> of which the general theme (game plan) is known,
That's a good definition. Relatively pure examples of technical plays occur when
there is no contact, or when you are bearing off with contact.
> so finding the best move is
> more heavily dependent on calculation of shots, clearing points most safely
> etc., which best follows that known theme.
Hmm. I wouldn't say that calculation is so important, though, for example, it is
very useful to take an exact pip count for most racing cube decisions. However,
if you are bearing off, with your opponent on the bar, the quality of your
opponent's shots is important and very hard to calculate, and the gammons and
backgammons you win are important and hard to calculate. Still, technical plays
have a lot to do with tactics.
> These 'technical' plays are
> distinct from their counterparts - 'positional plays', where the fundamental
> aspect of finding the best play is recognising what theme (game plan) should
> be followed.
> [...]
> "Ron & Ann Barry" <r-ab...@telocity.com> wrote in message
> news:3D2B1DB3...@telocity.com...
> > Greetings:
> >
> > From time to time in my reading, I come across the phrase "technical
> > play", but I have never seen an explanation of what it means. How does
> > technical play differ from non-technical play? Are there any expository
> > works that treat the subject? Have the bots learned technical plays?
It takes effort to teach a bot technical play. The problem is that bots don't
tend to make large errors, but sometimes have difficulty distinguishing plays
that are close together in equity.
As an example, after hitting the 15th checker, Snowie often plays very badly at
DMP. That's because even if Snowie succeeds in rolling a prime home, it still
will only win roughly 7% of the time. So, it doesn't see much of a difference if
it does not maintain a 6-prime. (Try giving Snowie the 23567 points with extra
checkers on the 4, 6, 11, 24, and 24, versus a checker on the ace point, and 5-5
to play. The right play, obviously, is 24/4, and it is not Snowie's choice at
DMP.) However, For money play, with Snowie holding the cube, Snowie recognizes
that making the 6-prime will lose many fewer gammons, and it rolls the prime
home better.
Well, if technical plays tend to be about small amounts of equity, who cares?
The problem is that they are very common. If you make a small error every game,
that can be worse than making a large error every time a very unusual class of
positions arises. Also, the errors are not as small as one might think.
Douglas Zare