As of a few days ago when I onserved this and made notes,
Chow and Paul seem to be the last two pathetic souls left in
RGB discussing positions. :(

Pottle or not?
Chow asked Sep 21, 2021. Chow replied to himself Sep 25, 2021.

Hit?
Chow asked Sep 25, 2021. Chow replied to himself Sep 29, 2021

52 would have been better.
Chow asked Sep 29, 2021. Chow replied to himself Oct 5, 2021

What?? I meant a whiskey double of course!
Paul asked Sep 29, 2021. Paul replied to himself Sep 29, 2021.
Paul replied to himself Sep 30, 2021. Chow replied Oct 1, 2021.

Double 2's to play.
Chow asked Sep 26, 2021. Chow replied to himself Oct 1, 2021.

Hit or cover?
Chow asked Sep 22, 2021. badgolferman replied Sep 23, 2021.
Chow replied Sep 26, 2021. A menage a trois!?? :0

How to shuffle.
Chow asked Oct 5, 2021. Paul replied 3 times Oct 6, 2021.

Tim would take this because it's "huge" that we have the 5 point.
Paul asked Oct 6, 2021. Nobody replied.

I think that everyone attempting the quiz will give the same answer.
Paul asked and replied to himself 3 times Oct 6, 2021.

........ :(( I don't care about RGB but I truely wish them well.

MK

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On Wednesday, October 13, 2021 at 4:37:52 AM UTC-4, MK wrote:

As of a few days ago when I onserved this and made notes,
Chow and Paul seem to be the last two pathetic souls left in
RGB discussing positions. :(

Pottle or not?
Chow asked Sep 21, 2021. Chow replied to himself Sep 25, 2021.

Hit?
Chow asked Sep 25, 2021. Chow replied to himself Sep 29, 2021

52 would have been better.
Chow asked Sep 29, 2021. Chow replied to himself Oct 5, 2021

What?? I meant a whiskey double of course!
Paul asked Sep 29, 2021. Paul replied to himself Sep 29, 2021.
Paul replied to himself Sep 30, 2021. Chow replied Oct 1, 2021.

Double 2's to play.
Chow asked Sep 26, 2021. Chow replied to himself Oct 1, 2021.

Hit or cover?
Chow asked Sep 22, 2021. badgolferman replied Sep 23, 2021.
Chow replied Sep 26, 2021. A menage a trois!?? :0

How to shuffle.
Chow asked Oct 5, 2021. Paul replied 3 times Oct 6, 2021.

Tim would take this because it's "huge" that we have the 5 point.
Paul asked Oct 6, 2021. Nobody replied.

I think that everyone attempting the quiz will give the same answer.
Paul asked and replied to himself 3 times Oct 6, 2021.

........ :(( I don't care about RGB but I truely wish them well.

MK

Count me among the pathetic souls still active at RGB. I don't often post, esp. pre rollout for a variety of reasons but have no fear, I'm always here.

Stick

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every other day I look here, but I post usually only to interesting stuff related to bots.

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On October 16, 2021 at 8:57:05 AM UTC-6, Frank Berger wrote:

every other day I look here, but I post usually only
to interesting stuff related to bots.

And who are you again..? Not the sicko with a bg bot not
worth a shit, I hope... Do you think you could tell what is
interesting if you saw it? Do you think you could post any
interesting stuff related to bots yourself?

MK

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On October 13, 2021 at 5:28:34 PM UTC-6, Stick Rice wrote:

Count me among the pathetic souls still active at RGB.

Actively reading? I don't see you post much.

I don't often post, esp. pre rollout for a variety of reasons

Would you care to share for what reasons?

What's left for anyone to say after the rollout anyway?

MK

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On Monday, October 25, 2021 at 6:29:52 AM UTC-4, MK wrote:

On October 13, 2021 at 5:28:34 PM UTC-6, Stick Rice wrote:

Count me among the pathetic souls still active at RGB.

Actively reading? I don't see you post much.

I don't often post, esp. pre rollout for a variety of reasons

Would you care to share for what reasons?

What's left for anyone to say after the rollout anyway?

MK

Rollouts are unable to explain the why.

Stick

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MK schrieb am Montag, 25. Oktober 2021 um 12:23:41 UTC+2:

And who are you again..? Not the sicko with a bg bot not
worth a shit, I hope...

I'm really glad about your appraisal, I would have been seriously concerned, if you would be positive about me or BGBlitz.

For all others: Just look at this position: XGID=---a--A--BBB--ABa---BbAaAA:0:0:1:41:5:6:1:7:10
and compare BGBlitz answer with the usual suspects.

Do you think you could tell what is
interesting if you saw it?

That will heavily depend on the item I guess. E.g. I regard Cornu aspersum as interesting but only few here will agree. Or books from Schulz von Thun about communication. One could learn really a lot about respectful positive communication. But again,
not everyone here will reagard this as interesting.

Do you think you could post any interesting stuff related to bots yourself? I'm not sure. Naturally I can't compete with your incredible competence on that theme, but at least the largest IT publication in Europe (c't) interviewed me back in 2007 about BG bots, so astonishingly some people seems to answer that question with yes.

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On Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 10:35:57 PM UTC, Frank Berger wrote:

MK schrieb am Montag, 25. Oktober 2021 um 12:23:41 UTC+2:

And who are you again..? Not the sicko with a bg bot not
worth a shit, I hope...

I'm really glad about your appraisal, I would have been seriously concerned, if you would be positive about me or BGBlitz.

For all others: Just look at this position: XGID=---a--A--BBB--ABa---BbAaAA:0:0:1:41:5:6:1:7:10
and compare BGBlitz answer with the usual suspects.

Do you think you could tell what is
interesting if you saw it?

That will heavily depend on the item I guess. E.g. I regard Cornu aspersum as interesting but only few here will agree. Or books from Schulz von Thun about communication. One could learn really a lot about respectful positive communication. But again,

not everyone here will reagard this as interesting.

Do you think you could post any interesting stuff related to bots yourself? I'm not sure. Naturally I can't compete with your incredible competence on that theme, but at least the largest IT publication in Europe (c't) interviewed me back in 2007 about BG bots, so astonishingly some people seems to answer that question with

yes.

As an eight or nine year old living in France, we had a school project that involved bringing a snail to school.
I found a snail shell in the nearby woods and brought it home. Since I saw no signs of mobility whatsoever, I assumed that
either the snail was dead, or it was just a shell.
Just before bedtime, when I saw its neck come out of its shell and it moved its neck around, I was unbelievably thrilled and excited, and it was
difficult for the au pair to persuade me to go to bed.
However, I haven't taken a real interest in snails since then. So maybe I was once a person who regarded Cornu aspersum as not only
interesting but exciting.

Re BgBlitz, I've always assumed (without any real evidence) that XG is the strongest bot. Do you think BGBlitz is stronger?
I think this would be extremely hard to test because you'd need such long sessions/matches to get statistically valid evidence.

Here's one way to test it. Pick five or so established Giants or strongest humans.
Ask them to experiment with BGBlitz and XG for a few days.
Then give them all $200 (you need to pay them for their time).
Then each of them plays a 25 point match against either BGBlitz or XG (each Giant chooses) and they win another $200 if they win the match.
The one that most of them decide to play against is deemed the weaker of the two.
Not sure whether anyone would fund this, though.

Paul

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peps...@gmail.com schrieb am Freitag, 5. November 2021 um 10:25:29 UTC+1:
Funny that you looked up the snail :) I found them a couple of years ago in my backyard and they usually live not that far in the north (but due to the climate change...)

Re BgBlitz, I've always assumed (without any real evidence) that XG is the strongest bot. Do you think BGBlitz is stronger?
I think this would be extremely hard to test because you'd need such long sessions/matches to get statistically valid evidence.

I don't think BGBlitz is stronger (yet), but for most of us, this wont make much difference (being overrrun by a car with 100 or 102 km/h doesn't make much difference. You're dead anyway ) The next version I publish (just ask for a link, it's public
already) has a PR of around 0.6

But you are asking the wrong question. If XG is better on average (albeit a little bias is introduced by XG measuring itself, but let's assume XG is PR 0.15) that means in no way that XG is always better.
Look at the position I posted. XG has the hitting play b/24, 20-16* after 15 hours of rollout on position 6. BGBlitz got's it right (all humans discussing agree on that move. http://www.dailygammon.com/bg/forum2/main/read/56208 and several other posts on
that forum) with 1,2,3,4,5-ply

I only recently learned by some discussions on dailygammon that XG has difficulties in extremely deep backgames. There were close to 20 positions from one match discussed and BGBlitz doesn't always got the solution of the panel of discussing players but
in about 75% of the cases and always a reasonable move. XG was quite often far off even after very long rollouts and we know how fast XG is. Therefore: for deep backgames and some extreme containment games there might be value to ask BGBlitz. Funnily
albeit I would have bet that GnuBG is even worse in that positions that doesn't seem to be the case (but if you want to see GnuBG totally cueless watch here: http://bgblitz.com/olympiad_2016.html )

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On November 4, 2021 at 4:35:57 PM UTC-6, Frank Berger wrote:

MK schrieb am Montag, 25. Oktober 2021 um 12:23:41 UTC+2:

And who are you again..? Not the sicko with a bg bot not
worth a shit, I hope...

I'm really glad about your appraisal, I would have been seriously
concerned, if you would be positive about me or BGBlitz.

I was asking who you were. I don't keep track of names, in fact
on purpose, to avoid falling into forming obligating alliances or
holding grudges forever. And you are very wrong about what I
had said about your bot in the past. Read this, for example:

https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.backgammon/c/CWa_2hfZLBo/m/MmApBiImEMwJ

A very long review starting with:

"Thanks for your responses. I since downloaded your bot and
"played with it for a few days. It looks nice. It flows well. It's
"quite strong and very fast at the same time.

Very polite and positive, wouldn't you say? What's really noteworthy
in my that post is the last two paragraphs, which said:

"How hard would it be for you to allow the user to adjust the
""cubing window" to whatever the value he wishes (instead of
"just cautious/normal/aggressive)?.......

"I would be very much interested in having the normal bgblitz
"bot play against another bgblitz bot identical except in its
"cube handling........

Proof that I have long been interested in doing such experiments
(like the one/s Axel is doing finally). The last sentence of my post
was a question to you:

"Would you be willing to help with this?

You never even bothered to answer, let alone help me with it. Just
as what interests me doesn't interest you, what interests you and
what you post here doesn't interest me anymore. Your just another
butt sniffing mutt in the pack with nothing new to offer...

MK

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On November 6, 2021 at 3:00:25 AM UTC-6, peps...@gmail.com wrote:

However, arithmetic bears your hypothesis out. Snails travel
at a speed of approx 1 km/ day, which makes 365 km a year.

Yeah right. They orient themselves by looking at the north
star and travel north in a straight line.

Or else, they could end up 365 km south, it north Africa... :)

Mother fucking irrelevant idiots!!!

MK

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On Friday, November 5, 2021 at 6:59:40 PM UTC, Frank Berger wrote:

peps...@gmail.com schrieb am Freitag, 5. November 2021 um 10:25:29 UTC+1: Funny that you looked up the snail :) I found them a couple of years ago in my backyard and they usually live not that far in the north (but due to the climate change...)

Re BgBlitz, I've always assumed (without any real evidence) that XG is the strongest bot. Do you think BGBlitz is stronger?
I think this would be extremely hard to test because you'd need such long sessions/matches to get statistically valid evidence.

I don't think BGBlitz is stronger (yet), but for most of us, this wont make much difference (being overrrun by a car with 100 or 102 km/h doesn't make much difference. You're dead anyway ) The next version I publish (just ask for a link, it's public

already) has a PR of around 0.6

But you are asking the wrong question. If XG is better on average (albeit a little bias is introduced by XG measuring itself, but let's assume XG is PR 0.15) that means in no way that XG is always better.
Look at the position I posted. XG has the hitting play b/24, 20-16* after 15 hours of rollout on position 6. BGBlitz got's it right (all humans discussing agree on that move. http://www.dailygammon.com/bg/forum2/main/read/56208 and several other posts

on that forum) with 1,2,3,4,5-ply

I only recently learned by some discussions on dailygammon that XG has difficulties in extremely deep backgames. There were close to 20 positions from one match discussed and BGBlitz doesn't always got the solution of the panel of discussing players

but in about 75% of the cases and always a reasonable move. XG was quite often far off even after very long rollouts and we know how fast XG is. Therefore: for deep backgames and some extreme containment games there might be value to ask BGBlitz. Funnily
albeit I would have bet that GnuBG is even worse in that positions that doesn't seem to be the case (but if you want to see GnuBG totally cueless watch here: http://bgblitz.com/olympiad_2016.html )

Thanks for your thoughts. I am very interested in this although the rest of my post might sound a bit flippant.
I did ask the wrong question. However, I got the right answer. And I don't think 50% is so bad.
My first thought about climate change was that snails are surely so slow that climate change can't cause snail migration.
However, arithmetic bears your hypothesis out. Snails travel at a speed of approx 1 km/ day, which makes 365 km a year.

Paul

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On Saturday, November 6, 2021 at 9:13:02 AM UTC, MK wrote:

On November 6, 2021 at 3:00:25 AM UTC-6, peps...@gmail.com wrote:

However, arithmetic bears your hypothesis out. Snails travel
at a speed of approx 1 km/ day, which makes 365 km a year.

Yeah right. They orient themselves by looking at the north
star and travel north in a straight line.

Or else, they could end up 365 km south, it north Africa... :)

Mother fucking irrelevant idiots!!!

MK

I googled this a bit.
My first guess was that snails are migrating through movement.
This does indeed some wrong as you suggest.
My next guess is that the connection between snail location (not migration) and climate change is like this:
Snails (like most species) have an ideal climate. In climates that are too cold for them ideally, the common garden
snail still exists but in small numbers.
However, because of climate change, areas of our planet which used to be "too cold for [many] snails" are now just right for them,
leading them to be able to reproduce more readily,
so we are seeing snails in areas where we didn't used to see them much.
Snails are not birds. It isn't that the snails are travelling on an individual basis. Your intuition is correct, I think.
It's great that we have the benefit of your immense scientific knowledge to point out these errors and provide interesting detail.

Paul

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On November 6, 2021 at 9:25:52 AM UTC-6, peps...@gmail.com wrote:

My first guess was that snails are migrating through movement.
....
Snails are not birds. It isn't that the snails are travelling on an individual basis. Your intuition is correct, I think.
It's great that we have the benefit of your immense scientific
knowledge to point out these errors and provide interesting detail.

I didn't claim not immense nor even miniscuke scientific knowledge
on the subject of snails. Analytical thinking woudn't assume that
snails can't fly either. A bird flying above you, with a snail in its beak
may sneeze and drop it on your head, even somewhere no sane snail
would dare go, etc... Your narrative bulshit is okay but what irked me
was Frank's claiming to only post interesting stuff about bots and
then starting to talk about snails, which was apparently as shared
interest by you too. And your stupid, meaningless calculation was
just one too many after suffering though so many of them in so
many threads, in just one evening... :(

MK

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