Progress so far

The program has been running for about two months on various computers. Despite the numerous updates, the process involved has stayed quite the same across all versions. I will try to keep track of the advance of my players every two weeks from now, starting today. Each time I will dowload the players on the server, put them in "ThePit" with some of the past winners, and see who finishes first after a few generations (ThePit is a closed ecosystem where player mutate but dont travel). I will then examinate the winner. The evolution is followed using three criterions :

• Genealogy : Each player keeps track of every places he has been through and how long he has stayed in each place. This gives an indication about how old any given player is, although there is no guarantee that this is directly linked to its ability to play go. It is also a good way of letting everyone know wether their work has been useful or not.
• Size : The size of each player tends naturally to shrink since every mutation is skewed toward the disappearance of neurons versus creation of new ones. Beside, whereas this is meant to change soon, until now ties in tournament points were discriminated considering the size on disk to reflect the cost of having a big neural network. Increasing size is consequently a sign that positive mutation occured.
• Actual play : I play regularly against the winner of the final tournament. For the moment, I play by myself, I have never had any difficulty so far to beat the players, I rather try to see how the player is trying to win. There will soon be a way to let it play against other computer programs using Go Text Protocol. I will try to let you know about any interesting features the players are showing up.

And the winner is...

Weigth : 2.112 ko

Age : 710 generations

Welcome to Madison, and thanks to StIsmier/BuenosAires who made a great start only one week ago. If you wonder, the "." are linux players who start the program from the folder where it is situated using the command "./goia_ecosysteme.1.11.1". 

As for go skill ability, they are close to zero thus far, whereas not zero since it consistently beats random. It manages to make a few eyes and don't play in them. It seems at first glance weaker than the players from a few weeks ago. Interestingly, it plays lines, I can't figure why... Here is a game exemple, I am playing black and GOIA is playing white :