kgsGtp "ranked game rules" & new release - gtp

7 Jan 2004


      A new beta (beta 3) of kgsGtp is at http://www.igoweb.org/~wms/upload/
as before. Unless bugs are found, this will be the final version. It
fixes some bugs in beta2, and it also knows how to play rated games on
the server and prevent people from cheating it. You cannot use this yet,
though! The current KGS server does not know about GTP clients, so it
will not allow them to play rated! If anybody wants to test ranked
games, let me know. I'm especially interested in the kgs-genmove_cleanup
command, since the engine that I have doesn't use that command I
couldn't test it very well. I can set up a beta version of server 2.5.6,
then we can arrange a time for to connect and test.
The rules that I settled on for playing rated games are:
1. "Normal" accounts cannot play rated games via GTP, only via
        human players.
     2. Admins can set an account to "Ranked Robot" authorization. With
        this authorization, the GTP engine can play ranked, and humans
        cannot.
     3. A kgsGtp engine will refuse to start a new game with a player if
        there is already an unfinished rated games against that player.
     4. To play rated games, an engine must support the
        final_game_status_list command.
     5. The kgsGtp engine will refuse to play rated unless the rules of
        the game exactly match what is specified in the configuration
        file and/or command line.
     6. If the engine and the human disagree on the status of living and
        dead stones at the end of the game, one of two things will
        happen: If the game uses non-Japanese rules and the engine
        supports the kgs-genmove_cleanup command, then the engine will
        recommend that the human press "undo", after which the engine
        will get kgs-genmove_cleanup commands until it passes. If the
        game uses Japanese rules or the engine does not support
        kgs-genmove_cleanup, then the engine will simply refuse to score
        the game unless the human agrees.
     7. It is recommended that engines that play rated games support the
        kgs-genmove_cleanup command and play non-Japanese rules games.
        It is especially important that your engine support that command
        if it isn't so good at computing living/dead groups at the end
        of the game, otherwise you will get a lot of angry opponents
        left standing around in an unfinished game!
Do these look reasonable? I was trying to stop cheating both for the
sake of the engine (so it gets an accurate estimate of its own strength)
and for the sake of the users (so that it isn't easy to use engines to
fake a different strength than you have).
-- 
William M. Shubert wms@igoweb.org