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Philosophical question on higher level rollouts.

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Friday, 12 February 2010, at 11:36 p.m.

In Response To: Philosophical question on higher level rollouts. (Daniel Murphy)

My response is that you're asking the wrong question. Your question betrays an attitude that rollouts are oracles that spit out plays to be memorized and mindlessly mimicked. This is the wrong attitude. Bots are a tool to help you understand the game better.

What play should you make? You should make the play that makes the most sense to you, according to your current level of understanding of the game.

Now, of course it's good to be open-minded, and if the bot suggests a move that is radically at odds with what you think is the best play, then it's worth investigating what's going on. This is, after all, how we improve our understanding of the game. But if you think bots as oracles rather than tools then you are impeding your own progress.

Daniel Murphy wrote:

I'd say that the reason best play is best play is that it is more likely to lead to sequences where you're on roll with opportunities to increase your equity, regardless of whether your opponent has erred during his turns.

This would be nice, and might be true in some cases, but there's no reason it has to be true. It's too strong to say that the best move is the best move regardless of whether your opponent errs, because if you know that your opponent tends to err in certain ways then you can often take advantage of that. And it's also perfectly possible for the "best play" to be one that steers you down a complicated path where there are many ways to go wrong. These are again reasons why I advocate making plays that make sense to you rather than slavishly imitating the bot.

Messages In This Thread

• Philosophical question on higher level rollouts.
  KenB -- Friday, 12 February 2010, at 7:22 p.m.
  • Philosophical question on higher level rollouts.
    Daniel Murphy -- Friday, 12 February 2010, at 8:56 p.m.
    • Philosophical question on higher level rollouts.
      Timothy Chow -- Friday, 12 February 2010, at 11:36 p.m.
      • Philosophical question on higher level rollouts.
        Daniel Murphy -- Saturday, 13 February 2010, at 2:06 a.m.
        • Philosophical question on higher level rollouts.
          Timothy Chow -- Saturday, 13 February 2010, at 3:15 a.m.
      • May I throw a bit of realism into this philosophical discussion?
        Chuck Bower -- Saturday, 13 February 2010, at 3:08 p.m.
  • Philosophical question on higher level rollouts.
    Phil Simborg -- Saturday, 13 February 2010, at 5:04 a.m.
  • Philosophical question on higher level rollouts.
    Stick -- Saturday, 13 February 2010, at 6:36 a.m.