Tom Ewall's Blog

 In this game, KataGo invaded an adjacent corner to its corner, instead of the diagonal one.  I had trouble coming up with a good strategy against this, so tried something different, which worked. The strategy being used is to create corner situations that can be taken advantage of later, by using 4 space extensions from the handicap stone. These induce corner sequences where the W corner can be killed. In order to get a second extension, B needs to leave the Upper Right (UR) with sente.  One approach would be to tenuki right away, which I use then W invades the diagonal corner.  Here a different approach was used. Using this approach there are two issues to contend with.  One is that since a perpendicular structure is being used for the 4 space extensions, there is a greater chance KataGo will bend around the corner, in which case it cannot be killed later.  The second issue is dealing with the 3 stones, which KataGo will attack. I held by breath after pla...

That narcissists know what they are doing is one of the most persistent of misconceptions, and it's very easy to understand why this misconception exists. First of all, when we are badly hurt, it's natural to become angry, and look for a target for that anger.  Narcissists indeed to very hurtful things, so it's natural to be angry at the person hurting us. We somehow feel it's wrong to be angry at others, so we look for justifications for that anger. In reality, that they do hurtful things is enough, but the rationalization is more complete if they are knowingly seeking to hurt us. In general, if we can attribute a morally unsound attitude to an act, that makes the act more heinous, and gives us more justification for our anger. For example, if someone cuts us off in traffic, this provokes a response of anger in many drivers, present company not excepted.  However, if the person acted unintentionally, and that was our perception, we would feel much less anger, perhaps n...

 "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" is a well known philosophical paper by Peter Singer written in 1972. He argues that it if one can save a life, it is evil not to do so, and especially argued the imperative to do so with famine relief. I don't have training in philosophy (except logic) and this isn't any sort of critique of the paper, but a reaction from somewhat of a theological perspective. That one is evil is a basic tenet of Christianity, so proving so through a philosophical argument related to famine is interesting, but any Christian knows they are evil, as this is the premise for seeking forgiveness and redemption. In regards to the moral imperative of providing famine relief, this is a valid argument, but it involves trade-offs, as all of life does.  For example, one could argue that if giving money for famine relief is a moral imperative, so is one's occupation, and there is a moral imperative to have a job which helps other people, which saves the most ...

 A ten digit number is a billion of some sort.  3,141,592,653 is an example. This post, the first of three, will show how to square this number in your head. This isn't a Rain Man thing, where you have to have extraordinary powers, but a technique which simplifies a very large complex task into many small, easy tasks. The math involved has no step more difficult than multiplying single digit numbers together, doubling them, and adding four similar products. For example: 3x3 (doubled) + 1x5 (doubled) + 4x6 (doubled) + 1x2 (doubled) + 5x9 (doubled). This is the longest calculation involved in the squaring of the above number. The difficulty in the task is not the arithmetic, but the load on the memory. It does take some time to develop the ability to visualize and remember the numbers in your head. This post will go through the technique up to 5 digit numbers, and provide all the necessary building blocks. The second post will go though the example with a five digit number,...

 I've written quite a lot about narcissism (by which I mean in the context of narcissitic personality disorder, or npd) on social media, and see a number of questions which involve different misunderstandings, which I thought would be interesting to cover in some blog posts dealing with misconceptions about narcissism. The misconception of "Exposing a Narcist" involves asking what a narcissism will do when you "expose" them, the idea being that they have learned you have discovered their true identity, and how will they handle that. The misconception is that from the point of view of the narcissist, there is nothing to expose. They do not perceive that there is anything wrong with them, or that they are doing anything wrong, or even noteworthy (in terms of things you might think of negatively -- they certainly think they do noteworthy positive things). From the point of view of the victim, narcissists are monsters intent on destruction, but from their point of v...

 This was pretty exciting! I've had success beating KataGo at 3 stones using a strategy that focuses on creating a corner situation that it doesn't handle well. I thought I'd play around at 2 stones to see how close I could get, and I won! KataGo will resign at move 153 if its algyrythm thinks it should, and I was in the middle of a battle, not keeping track of what move it was, and out of nowhere it resigned. Cool. Here's the game: The idea of 2 and 4 is to create a corner situation that KataGo doesn't handle well. A few moves later, KataGo has invaded the corners. When B descends, the corner will be threatened, but KataGo does not defend the threat. 52 threatened the corner, but KataGo played 53, ignoring the threat. I was waiting for a good time to play 52, not wanting to do so before I had made my groups sufficiently strong to tenuki. When 55 was played, I judged I could allow the separation of the two groups, as I though I would win the race to capture in the L...

 This is playing against the version of KataGo that one can download, on a desktop computer, with the initial settings, meaning it's a much weaker version than those running on network computers. However, it's still very strong, and figuring out a way to beat it was quite challenging. The main strategy is to take advantage of certain corner situations which come up that it handles oddly. The odd moves of 2 and 4 are to set up situations where the W corner can be killed later. To get to these points, one must tenuki when W plays 3. How to handle the Upper Left (UL), given one has handed the advantage over to the computer, is important. One way to do so is shown. B has made a strong shape, and now it is expected that W will invade in the UR and LL corners. Here W has invaded the corners, and left them, playing 29. B will set up aji to help the UL group, and start the process of killing the corners. When B plays 34, W will typically answer at 35, but only if 2 is in place. Without...

  This is the beginning of a 4 stone game with KataGo. This version is what you get when you download it and accept the initial settings (5 seconds a move) playing on a DeskTop, meaning it's much weaker than versions playing on network computers, but it's still super strong.  However, it does handle some corner situations in a way that can be taken advantage of, which is the key to the strategy to beat it at 4 stones. In particular, if you make an extension of 4 spaces from the handicap stone, it sets up a situation which can be taken advantage of later. This explains the odd looking moves of 2 and 10. The opening strategy is to have KataGo invade in two corners, the Upper Left (UL) and Lower Right (LR), and kill these groups later. Here we are a couple of moves later. Note how KataGo left the LR corner. It typically does this when invading a corner with a 4 space extension. Here we see KataGo has invaded the Upper Left in the same way. Black in the UR and LL tenukied when W e...