This is my generation's Gary Kasparov vs. Deep Blue. In many ways, it is more significant.
Several top commentators were saying how AlphaGo has improved noticeably since October. AlphaGo's victory tonight marks the moment that go is no longer a human dominated contest.
It was a very exciting game, incredible level of play. I really enjoyed watching it live with the expert commentary. I recommend the AGA youtube channel for those who know how to play. They had a 9p commenting at a higher level than the deepmind channel (which seemed geared towards those who aren't as familiar).
I totally recommend it. Learning Go is a beautiful experience.
It is indeed very interesting to play against another new player just to see what you come up with, then do some reading and solve some basic problems (it may even be a good idea to have a look at the easier problems before playing your first game), play more games, read more advanced books, join KGS... It is a very nice rabbit hole to fall into.
Many Go players suggest starting with Atari Go (aka Capture Go). It has the same rules as Go, but the starting position is predetermined and the winner is the player to capture the first stone.
You only need to play a few rounds of Atari Go, say 30 minutes to an hour to get a grasp of the capturing rules and then you can move to a 9x9 or 13x13. I'd go straight for the 13x13 because it's not that much bigger but it has much more depth into it without being overwhelming. And many Go boards have 19x19 on the other side and 13x13 on the other.
The drawback with Capture Go is that it emphasises the capturing part perhaps a bit too much. I prefer introducing players to a variant with the same rules as capture go, except the winning condition is "having the most pieces on the board". This is essentially the same thing as regular go, but without all the fuffing about with learning scoring and such.
When played on a small enough board, the games take about as long time as capture go games.
> The drawback with Capture Go is that it emphasises the capturing part perhaps a bit too much.
I definitely agree. Just a few games (ie. just a few minutes) of Atari Go every now and then should be enough to teach that and then move on the the real thing.
Yep, terrific commentary by Myungwan Kim 9p on the AGA channel.
For the folks who aren't as familiar with the game, how did you find the commentary (for any channel)? What would you be interested in hearing for events like these?
I watched most of the game on the Deepmind Youtube channel. Although I barely know the rules of Go, it was really nice that explained a lot of the strategies, although aside from the basic explanations most of the rest still flew over my head. I was still hooked, though.
However it was infuriating that many times they switched randomly between video feeds, so I couldn't actually see what the commentators were talking about on their board. Once it even got stuck on "Match starts in 0 minutes" for a couple minutes!
I've been finding it pretty unwatcheable. Does anyone know of a version that doesn't have the technical issues? (I'm very happy with the commentary, but the video keeps cutting to this 0 minutes screen and audio is patchy).
Same the "game will start in 0 seconds" thing kept cutting the audio in and out, and obstructing the board footage. Terrible for an uploaded youtube clip. I can understand issues with the live stream. But it's already over. Couldn't someone have edited that out?
Those technical issues were only a problem a few times at the beginning of the broadcast. 99% of the footage is fine, just stick with it. The problems disappear.
I really enjoyed Myungwan's down-and-dirty commentary, and watching him get lost in some variations, and it was just incredibly exciting to see him get won over to AlphaGo during the game. From about move 50, I was just viscerally excited to see where things went, and the game did not disappoint in any way.
I've read a few different reviews and watched Michael Redmond's live commentary as well, who obviously has a slower Japanese style of play than Myungwan, and his variations all exhibited a very thorough style and sensibility, but I think he missed the key moment, and Myungwan called it -- the bottom right just killed Lee Sedol, and it was totally unexpected.
And, Sedol was thinking about it too, because right after he resigned, he wanted to clear out that bottom right corner and rework some variations. I presume that's one frustration playing with a computer -- they'll have to instrument AlphaGo to do a little kibbitzing and talking after a game. That would be just awesome.
If you are very, very inspired by AlphaGo's side of this, it's really incredible to imagine, just for a moment, that building that white wall down to the right was in preparation for the white bottom right corner variation. The outcome of that corner play was to just massively destroy black territory, on a very painful scale, and it made perfect use of the white wall in place from much earlier in the game.
If AlphaGo was in fact aiming at those variations while the wall was being built, I would think at a fundamental level, Go professionals are in the position that chess grandmasters were ten years ago -- acknowledging they will never see as deeply as a computerized opponent. It's both incredibly exciting, and a blow to an admirable and very unusual group of worldwide game masters.
Building the wall down to attack the bottom right corner isn't something outrageous, not to those at the level of Sedol. AlphaGo definitely played amazing, as the game was very technical in term of fighting. But the "flow" (chase out weak group then invade a corner) is a fairly common situation. I don't think it's a matter of AlphaGo seeing strategy further than Sedol. It might have had much deeper calculation and reading than Sedol - as showed in deflecting the attachment in lower right - but that's a bit of a different story.
I'm planning to watch the AGA coverage later, after watching the DeepMind coverage live. I found the DeepMind pair a bit underwhelming. Redmond was excellent at playing through some variations, but they did get very distracted at times, and away from what was actually happening. His co-host was playing a little too strong on the 'I'm so nervous' line, I felt. So I didn't spot the significance of the bottom right pivotal moves. Thanks for the recommendation, I'm looking forward to the AGA coverage even more now.
Having worked on some code very similar to this, showing the computer's best moves would be quite artificial. Here's some thoughts as to why that is:
1. The computer can discard all its current best ideas and flip through new ones so fast, it would be a flickering blur to humans.
2. Even if we put a speed limit on it, the move being considered is itself the result of considering a lot of slight variations.
3. The ability to _articulate_ in a human language what makes the move nice is itself a "hard problem" closely related to natural language processing.
4. Even just having some color codes or symbols and grouping related ideas has some serious problems: now the visualization is pretty technical to begin with, the computer is still able to memorize and compare moves at an unbelievable rate, and it's still fundamentally not the same as the method Go masters use to find a solution.
I can back this up a bit. I created a strong Chess engine variant and had it visually show what the computer was considering as moves with strengths as color strength. It would even show what it considered your best counter-moves.
Even with all that thinking output on the screen, the computer would still soundly beat myself and another (intermediate) player.
Here are some screenshots to illustrate what I'm talking about:
Regarding the first one, I don't think this would be a serious issue. It shouldn't show what move its considering, just the current best option. It would probably converge on a good move within the first second. Running the free, quick analysis from chess.com on my Iphone has a great visualization that rapidly updates the computer's scoring of the current position and shows what it thinks is the best move, as well as pointing out any previous moves it thinks are mistakes/blunders.
I watched the commentary on Youtube and it was fantastic! I don't play go myself but I was glued to the screen the whole way. I particularly enjoyed how the commentators demonstrated why the moves made sense by playing theoretical future moves right on the board they had up.
I really enjoyed the deepmind channel, but it's too long for me to enjoy in its entirety. I think a 15 minute video recapping the game and its crucial strategic moments would be fascinating.
I don't know much about go, so it was like a long Go lesson. That was interesting, but in terms of immediate gratification it was pretty dull. One very calm hyper-focused person describing what another very calm hyper-focused person is doing.
Many thanks! I checked their youtube channel many times during the game, hoping they would cast this, as I found the Redmond commentary a little too shallow.
I don't understand how the AGA live stream didn't appear there for me?!
It can be hard to bite your tongue when you see the other (non-native) speaker struggling for words...
Andrew Jackson's role is invaluable in clarifying MyungWan Kim's thoughts: the infamously opaque "play this one, and then this one", or his white/black colour mix ups...
I personally think they're a good combo. Andrew is getting gradually better at only jumping in when necessary.
The game was bound to be exciting due to the matchup. AlphaGo's moves were for the most part not exciting for much of the match, IMO. It seemed content to follow the outline that was unfolding rather than setting an agenda, and executing really well towards the end. I can't wait to see how it plays as black and moving first.
It either seems like the earlier match vs Euro 3p didn't show AlphaGo's full strength, or it has improved much in the interim. Other takes?
Several top commentators were saying how AlphaGo has improved noticeably since October. AlphaGo's victory tonight marks the moment that go is no longer a human dominated contest.
It was a very exciting game, incredible level of play. I really enjoyed watching it live with the expert commentary. I recommend the AGA youtube channel for those who know how to play. They had a 9p commenting at a higher level than the deepmind channel (which seemed geared towards those who aren't as familiar).