spoke to a couple of people about this idea and seemed popular.

in practice could you have a possible computer A.I person you can practice with without going into a game, could have beginner, medium and advanced.

or even if there are no matches you can make one with the A.I but it wont count to wins or losses, only the break could count.

also possible challenges where you can practice your long potting, safeties, snookers etc.

i don't know if this is humanly possible to implement but would help a lot of people.

thoughts?

would be an advanced program for what is a low funded site...

yeah knew it wouldn't be easy to implement and i was doubtful it would really but was worth a shout anyway

I'd love to write an algorithm for that if Nick would like help...

A.I is fun to code

A.I is pretty easy if you know what your doing too, take black-ops as an example they managed to make it there so for a pool site its alot easyier.

Jan's pretty nifty with things like this and if the funding is still needing to be raised there can become a paypal account like for the premium payments to fund enough money for this. I for one like the idea and would happily leave a token to help this become apart of the funkypool site.

Funding isn't a topic (for me at least), finding time beside normal work is

And in order for this to ever be a reality, Nick would have quite a bit of work to do even if others were to program an AI for this.

AI is everything but easy to program, at least for complex problems.

Pool shouldn't be too hard tho, but in order to program a really good opponent (would need several difficulties to choose from of course), you'd still need to look quite a few shots ahead to ensure leaving yourself with shots all the time, not only getting to a position where you can make a shot, but also mind staying on the right side of that shot line to be able to keep playing into position for the next shot etc etc.... Besides, in order to stay interesting, the AIs should have a bit of character too, playing aggressive vs. defensive etc.

Could be done by a proper tree search, but I can imagine several far easier and better suited solutions that would probably be more than good enough for pool.

I recall we did a tree-searched engine playing othello/reversi at school - setting the different AIs up against each other... was darn fun.

The fun kinda ends when trying to do chess. Writing a good chess AI that doesn't spend a year for each move is HARD.

Edited at 21:11 Wed 22/09/10 (BST)

I hate to rain on the parade, so to speak, but I can almost hear the screams of "fake newbie" being hollered at those who train agains the AI echoing back here from the future..

Sort the ranking system according to the other thread and that problem is obsolete in the first place

i like the simple idea of easy, med and hard practice opponants... i don't see why it has to be made a really complicated problem or have anything to do with the ranking system?

It makes no difference if people practice shots on their own or against players (human or not), all is practice and improves the game and how people play it.

It is related to the ranking system simply because people can gain skill without a corresponding gain of rank.

That's how I read Dave's post anyway, and it is a valid "concern"...

Then again, as you say, there are any number of other ways for players to pump skill without pumping rank, playing as guest, playing friendlies, playing tournies, playing other game types ranked etc etc etc, so this is hardly bringing any new problem to the equation.

As for complexity, no one said this would be complex from the perspective of the player. It would look very much like you just described, with a few difficulty levels to choose from, and possibly a choice for aggressive vs. defensive too, but that's another story.

Just to make clear, in case anyone isn't already clear on this: Games vs. computer players would not be ranked.

Yeah sounds a great idea, probably will never happen, but great none the less, sometimes I'm in a straight mood, and normally atm I come online at 9 am UK time, and their are maybe a few playing straight, of course I could play on the practice table but where's the competition in that. And no it SHOULDN'T be ranked, to many people would take advantage, and I would try to as well

i hope this does comeout - im aware of plenty of people who know how to java code, some better then others - i mearly know the smallest of java codeing myself.

But hopefully jan & nick find the time for at least a trial run.

but people gain skill from friendly games which aren't ranked, and normal practice tables as well already? its just giving us more ways to gain the skills and improve... and surely thats what its all about?

Yes, which is precisely what I tried to point out in my last post

yeh i was just responding to that comment in particular

as you have said, i too hope there is scope for a trial run at least, sounds like a good way forward..