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Bot Insanity

by Douglas Zare
1 March 2009

Douglas Zare

Backgammon bots are usually great at judging plays, but occasionally they favor an insane play which no human player would seriously prefer. Sometimes this happens in a rare, awkward position which would almost never arise through sensible play by both sides. Usually, higher plies or rollouts reject the odd play. In match play, however, bots may make insane plays in ordinary positions, and rollouts often seem to confirm the insane play over the sensible alternatives.

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Subject: Re: Bot Insanity

From: gudgen

Date: 03 Mar 2009 20:01 EST

It is amazing how valuable the above information is (I always suspected deficient bot decisions at around MP/DMP time (I don't use GNU). I feel avenged- the common sense approach prevails. TYVM.

Subject: Re: Bot Insanity

From: PhilSimborg Member has a photo available

Date: 12 Mar 2009 09:55 EST

In both money and match play, we are often making side bets that are settled by GNU or Snowie. I have often seen bets lost to plays that no human would make over the board, and probably, some of these fall into the category you describe where the bots put weight on g's and bg's that don't apply.

As you recommended, I have been doing all my rollouts on GNU for some time, but even there I have issues with the results.

I guess the answer is that we either have to live with an imperfect system until you and Walter give us Zbot or we have to stop betting. Stop betting? In our group, that's not an option!

Thanks for the insights.

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