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Pre-bot books worth reading?

Posted By: Henrik Bukkjaer
Date: Friday, 10 December 2010, at 9:18 a.m.

In Response To: Disagree with Stick's Book Review (Bob Koca)

I think it's incredible that no one has mentioned the one book most valuable today, from the pre-bot era:

Jake Jacobs - Can a Fish Taste Twice as Good

I would say, where all other pre-bot era books have lost value, this one contains an aspect even more important now than ever before. An aspect that you can pick up partly from working with gnubg and only if you are aware of it and seeks it.

Today most players firmly believe that a roll-out from the most recent bot, with the most recent ME table, is the reference that all play should be measured against. That might be the case for checkerplays (bar certain backgame-like positions that we agree the bots are yet not capable of understanding). But for cube-decisions it might be relevant to Neil Kaz playing Sander or a handful of people in world. (if even so many - it would have to be people playing 0.0 PR to be 100% true).

Getting an understanding of why the "best" ME tables are certainly not the best tables to use in actual play, how much decisions swings, when they swing much when they swing less, and finally how one can learn to adjust and adapt, is very valueable. Especially for players not just hanging around in the $1000 super jackpots but also playing the occasional intermediate and beginner.

I'd bet that I'm capable of getting a better score vs. beginners than XG even though I typically don't play much better than 4.5 PR.

The concepts of this book, if read and understood by a beginner, would also greatly improve the chances of that beginner upsetting stronger players. Luckily for us stronger players, beginners don't read this book :-)

It still amazes me that no-one has worked more on the concepts from this book, either in a new book, or in implementing features in the bots that could take advantage of the material. Gnubg is the best in this regard, allowing skewed ME tables, rollouts with uneven players, adding noise in the evaluations (even though it's random noise, not playing styles or leaks), etc. But it's only available in a form where you really have to know what you are doing, in order to use it correctly!

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