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I wonder if their move selection algorithm takes into account the "surprise" factor: given two moves that are almost equal in strength when analyzed to a depth of N, chose the one that looks worst at N-1. That is, if all else is equal, assume that you can search deeper than your human opponent, and lay traps accordingly.



Besides trap-laying, there's also a second useful "surprise" factor: your opponent is likely to have spent time on your clock to read out follow-ups to your most likely move. By throwing in an unlikely (but still good!) move you're forcing them to expend time on their clock to re-think their follow-ups.


That's interesting. And a sign of truly understanding what a human would think.

Btw. There's a concept in Go called "overplaying". That means selecting a move that isn't objectively the best you could come up with, but that is most confusing, considering the level of the opponent. It's generally thought of as a bad practice, and if you misestimated the level of your opponent, she can punish you by exploiting the fact you didn't play your best move.


If they do that, they didn't tell anyone at Google.


I don't know about surprise, the the AKA stream was pretty shocked when AlphaGo was playing aggressively from the 5th line/column from the right early in the game. Apparently going in on the 3rd is already very risky and the 4th is almost never done.




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