Re: [Bug-gnubg] random dice generator? hahahaaa

[tchow]

On 2017-08-21 16:40, Philippe Michel wrote:
> The involved math is too hard for me, but wouldn't using low
> discrepancy sequences
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-discrepancy_sequence) instead of a
> random order decrease the variance for rollouts with any number of
> trials (possibly only slightly, with variance reduction already
> helping a lot).

In principle, yes, but as I understand it, eXtreme Gammon doesn't use 
quasi-random dice and its variance doesn't seem to suffer much.  If this 
is true then I would infer that low-discrepancy sequences won't reduce 
the variance much.

Something that might have a better chance of yielding superior results 
is to use 1-ply or even 2-ply for the variance reduction computation 
instead of 0-ply, at least for the first or second steps of a rollout 
trial.  Obviously this would slow things down but it's conceivable to me 
that the improved accuracy of the luck estimate might compensate for it, 
so that fewer rollout trials would be needed to drive down the variance.

Tim