Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 15:23:59 04/25/00
Go up one level in this thread
On April 25, 2000 at 17:34:45, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >On April 25, 2000 at 14:03:05, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On April 25, 2000 at 11:27:34, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >> >>>On April 25, 2000 at 09:12:12, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>> >>>>On April 25, 2000 at 00:50:50, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >>>> >>>>>On April 24, 2000 at 22:13:10, Bruce Moreland wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>On April 24, 2000 at 18:49:04, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>>On April 24, 2000 at 15:56:37, Dann Corbit wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>>On April 24, 2000 at 15:43:24, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >>>>>>>>[snip] >>>>>>>>>Here's my question. If pondering=off cripples Crafty so badly to the point that >>>>>>>>>Bob Hyatt has to write dozens of posts about it, why doesn't he just do >>>>>>>>>something to fix it? I mean, surely the time spent writing all those posts could >>>>>>>>>have been put to better use. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>That makes a great deal of sense if Dr. Hyatt were writing crafty to make people >>>>>>>>happy who want to play engine verses engine matches on a single machine. >>>>>>>>However, he does not play it that way and it is contrary to his purposes. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>Do you alter your programs to make them do what others wish even when it does >>>>>>>>not coincide with your desires? >>>>>>> >>>>>>>Yes. >>>>>>> >>>>>>>-Tom >>>>>> >>>>>>If your point is that Bob should do this or that, I think that Bob should be the >>>>>>one who decides what Bob does. It's great to suggest improvements in >>>>>>functionality or support, but if Bob wants to do it his own way, that's fine. >>>>> >>>>>Decisions are influenced by your surroundings. >>>>> >>>>>Right now, Bob is surrounded by people who do matches between Crafty and ___ >>>>>with no pondering. Consequently, Bob has to do a tremendous amount of damage >>>>>control. Here are the options, as I see them: >>>>> >>>>>1) Continue to waste time by doing massive damage control >>>>> >>>>>2) Simply remove the ponder switch from Crafty, so Crafty can't be crippled >>>>> >>>>>3) Un-cripple Crafty >>>>> >>>>>Personally, I would not like to _continually_ make excuses for my program, i.e., >>>>>option 1. I think option 2 is a hack, but still better than option 1. >>>>>Personally, I would go with option 3. >>>>> >>>>>I don't really see what the problem is with option 3. If Crafty is using too >>>>>much time in the opening and middlegame, just make it use less time. Multiply >>>>>some number by 75% or whatever. It may not be a "fine tuned" solution, but at >>>>>least the program won't lose all its games. >>>>> >>>>>-Tom >>>> >>>> >>>>Once you add some sophistication to your time control logic, you will see that >>>>the above is a very 'superficial' suggestion. Base time allocation is but one >>>>part of the problem. How much time can you use (extra time) when you get a >>>>positional fail-low, not a material one? How much extra time can you use on a >>>>fail low for a single pawn? For a piece? What if you do a 12 ply search, and >>>>the first 11 plies show you winning a pawn. At depth=12, after the first move, >>>>you discover that move doesn't win that pawn. How much extra time do you use >>>>there to see if the pawn win was real, or just a deep tactical plan by your >>>>opponent that made the pawn a "phantom"... >>> >>>Why can't you just multiply all this stuff by 0.75? >>> >>>Anyway, I don't understand how pondering directly affects any of this. What is a >>>situation where the 0.75 thing fails because pondering=off? And what's the >>>"correct" thing to do in said situation? >>> >>>-Tom >> >> >>Maybe it isn't a linear relationship between all the terms??? > >You don't have to have linear relationships to multiply by 0.75. retry your math. If you multiply an input to a non-linear (say exponential) function by .75, you are doing something drastically different than if you multiply the output by .75. In my case, there is no way to multiply the _output_ by .75. > >Even if you used a fixed amount of time per move when ponder=off, wouldn't that >be better than the current situation? No... because I happen to like the way things work in the normal case. IE time overflows to handle fail-lows. I use (sometimes) a lot of extra time to finish searching the current move when time runs out, just to be sure I am not about to change my mind. I don't know whether others do some of those things or not, but I believe that they are all useful. And stopping after N seconds defeats every one of them. > >I'm just saying, there has to be something quick and dirty that you can do so >that Crafty isn't horribly crippled when people run ponder=off tests. > >-Tom I don't think it is "horribly crippled". Just "crippled". In ways I understand, but don't want to waste the time fixing. Too much depends on saving some time with pondering. Turning it off would be doable, but a lot of testing and modification would be needed to fix all the holes doing that creates. I barely have enough time to work on the program as is, and I would much rather work on the Beowulf search than spend time tuning something I don't and won't ever use... If you are rich, money is no object. In this case, time is money and I am nearly broke. I watch _every_ penny (minute) of time I spend since I have so little of it nowadays..
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