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BGonline.org Forums
Rollout
Posted By: Daniel Murphy In Response To: Rollout (Caryl Stephanson)
Date: Wednesday, 14 November 2007, at 5:02 p.m.
I know that both Snowie and GNU suck at backgames when it comes to checker moves
1. There's not enough truth in that statement for it to be true. Neither bot plays all backgames well. But some they play very well. I think that if you tell yourself that these bots play [all] backgames so badly that rollouts of [any] backgames are suspect, useless, or worse, you're seriously misleading yourself. "Suck" and "inept" don't describe these bots' backgame skills. Sometimes, yes. Generally, no.
2. Sure, sometimes bots go badly astray with checker play in backgames. I keep that in mind when looking over rollouts. Cube action may also skew rollouts, especially if evaluations are way off. But even then, if equity estimates are way off, that doesn't necessarily invalidate a rollout, since way off estimates don't necessarily lead to bad cube decisions.
But none of these concerns do I have with this position and this rollout, because this isn't a backgame. It's a 5-4 holding game where Opponent has cleared the midpoint and still has to clear either a miniprime (if Stick makes the bar point) or points with a gap in front of us. Our plan isn't to wait for a last ditch shot. If we are so fortunate as to hit and contain, Stick will not have many checkers off. Those details would be typical of a backgame. Our plan is to hit the first blot we see. Stick will have few or no checkers off. Those details are typical of a holding game. Either bot should, I believe, play both sides and handle Blue's recube very well.
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