XG new version, any news on the beta release yet?

BlueDice

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Mar 4, 2021, 10:10:43 AM3/4/21

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I recall Tim mentioning something related to this a while ago.
Any update please?
--
BD

Timothy Chow

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Mar 4, 2021, 11:22:58 PM3/4/21

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On 3/4/2021 10:10 AM, BlueDice wrote:
> I recall Tim mentioning something related to this a while ago.
> Any update please?

I've heard nothing further. I should also mention that I have
heard nothing directly from Xavier. (In fact I don't remember
mentioning it here on r.g.b., but assuming I did, I was just
repeating something I had heard from someone else.)

---
Tim Chow

BlueDice

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Mar 5, 2021, 4:52:38 AM3/5/21

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Ah.., sorry, my memory ain't what it used to be.
I'm pretty sure that someone mentioned it on here though....
--
BD

Nasti Chestikov

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Mar 5, 2021, 12:23:22 PM3/5/21

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What is the purpose of an update?

If the program is currently playing at the best levl it can (which I guess it is) then surely it can only be cosmetic?

Timothy Chow

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Mar 5, 2021, 11:45:17 PM3/5/21

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The net was retrained. XG3 and XG2 play significantly
differently in certain containment positions. I base this
statement on Bob Wachtel's book "In the Game Until the End,
Volume II," which has some interesting examples of how
(a beta version of) XG3 plays in such positions.

---
Tim Chow

MK

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Mar 8, 2021, 5:33:35 AM3/8/21

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On March 5, 2021 at 9:45:17 PM UTC-7, Tim Chow wrote:

> The net was retrained. XG3 and XG2 play significantly
> differently in certain containment positions. I base this
> statement on Bob Wachtel's book "In the Game Until the End,
> Volume II," which has some interesting examples of how
> (a beta version of) XG3 plays in such positions.

The last time I posted here just about a month ago, I had
raised some questions about AI BG and had started to
read up on the subject to continue the discussion being
better educated on it.

Shortly after, I really got interested in some linguistics
subjectes that took priority but I still keep checking RGB
periodically for anything else interesting.

Now, about XG3: Wachtel's book mentioned above was
published in Jan 2014, even before XG2 was released in
Nov 2014(??).

I haven't and couldn't care less about reading such books,
but do you mean that there was a beta version of XG3
before XG2 was released and updated to 2.19 sometime
in 2015(??).

I am confused. Can you clarify?

I had predicted that there would never be an XG3 and if
there was, not based on the previous stolenware, I would
pay for a proper license. So, I have been and still are
waiting impatiently.... ;)

MK

Timothy Chow

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Mar 8, 2021, 10:34:48 PM3/8/21

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On 3/8/2021 5:33 AM, MK wrote:
> Now, about XG3: Wachtel's book mentioned above was
> published in Jan 2014, even before XG2 was released in
> Nov 2014(??).
>
> I haven't and couldn't care less about reading such books,
> but do you mean that there was a beta version of XG3
> before XG2 was released and updated to 2.19 sometime
> in 2015(??).
>
> I am confused. Can you clarify?

Let me quote from page 98 of Wachtel's book, which as you say
was published in 2014.

"It is my good fortune that Xavier is constantly working to
improve his creation, and that he is always receptive to
feedback from his customers. It was also my good luck that,
just as I had reached the impasse I have just described
(early in 2013), he was already addressing its solution!
Along with the top U.S. expert, Neil Kazaross, Xavier was
training a new version of XG to better handle one of the
bot's biggest weaknesses: containment positions. The new
version, XG3 (or v3), was still in pre-beta mode; but we
discovered that, unlike XG2, it was able to find most of the
correct checker plays in the ITRP (which is a species of
containment position) once Black has split his deuce point.
Neil generously did a number of rollouts for me with
version 3, with the same settings I had used with XG2:
XG Roller+, XGRoller+, gigantic SI."

He goes on to discuss specific positions that he was interested in.
---
Tim Chow

MK

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Mar 10, 2021, 4:52:12 AM3/10/21

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Thanks for the quote. Let me also first clarify that after
looking in my folders, I saw that the version of XG2 was
released in June 2012. It was XG2.1 that was released
in 2014. So, okay, Wachtel's book was well after XG2.0
but it's still Xtremely intrigueing that there was an xg3
beta 8 years ago which never got to be released...

Any info or speculations as to why...??

BTW: even a short paragraph like this is enough to
illustrate how a small community of sick gamblers
and thieves validate and elevate one another, at the
expense of the very game of backgammon itself! :(

MK