More Test Competition Results

pnn12 was entered into the second test competition, and it finished 3rd. This was an improvement over placing 6th in the first test competition.

Training continued from pnn13 through pnn19. In the third test competition, pnn16 was submitted, and the program ranked 3rd. For the fourth test competition, pnn19 was submitted, and it ranked 1st!

Discussion

In the forum, there was discussion about opening moves and the advantage that the red player had. There were many proposals to try to correct this advantage. The competition hasn't adopted any of those proposals.

The red player does have an advantage, and the rankings appear to put strong red players above the weak red players. Then within the strong red players, stronger white players rank better. That was my argument for not changing anything in the game.

The pnn19 player was trained to be a stronger player when playing white.

Fourth Test Competition Results

Fable 5.1 analyzed the results of the fourth test competition and found that playing as the white player was the determining factor.

pnn19 scored 21120 points, which was 108 points above the second-place player at 21012 points. Overall, the top players are fairly close in score.