Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 14:04:22 10/23/00
Go up one level in this thread
On October 23, 2000 at 10:17:16, Albert Silver wrote:
>On October 23, 2000 at 00:24:54, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On October 22, 2000 at 15:23:30, Ratko V Tomic wrote:
>>
>>>> I cannot think of any other purpose for all this other than to improve
>>>> the program's rating in the SSDF.
>>>
>>>There is no harm all by itself in being at the top of SSDF.
>>>
>>>> You can't possibly use this for
>>>> human players, and you aren't talking about offering playing styles,
>>>> as that is already rampant.
>>>
>>>Human players routinely adjust their play to exploit better the stylistic or
>>>capabilty weaknesses of their opponents, programs or humans. Programs aren't as
>>>good (yet) at this kind of 'outside the board' strategizing, but they will get
>>>better.
>>
>>
>>
>>I believe that the current chess programs/hardware combinations are already at
>>the level or even better than GMs "on the board". Don't shoot at me right now.
>
>It's true that the performances that have been registered certainly show that,
>so if that is true for all to see, why are there still many who insist it isn't
>so? Hard-headedness? I think the issue isn't one of Elo, but of how one
>perceives GMs. At first, with the gap being much much larger, people simply
>pointed to the ratings, afterall, why seek further discussions if this basic one
>was sufficient? The issue is in what a GM knows and applies at the board. Again,
>traditionally, the game ends up being divided into a number of sections:
>openings, middlegame (tactics and position), and the endgame. Computers have
>fought the issue of openings by coming with opening books that often range in
>the millions of moves. As positional play had been basically reduced to the same
>tips handed over to beginners (put a rook on the open file, castle quickly,
>develop your pieces ASAP, etc...), tactics became the great equalizer. True,
>players were often capable of calculating specific lines much deeper (still
>true) and create elaborate positional plans, but the computer fought back with
>our very own mistakes. In fact this is a bit why many players hate playing
>against programs: they don't feel their opponent played a better game, they just
>lost because they made a stupid mistake which was revealed with the greatest of
>ease (perhaps also making them feel slightly stupid). Computers have shown one
>thing extremely well, and it has been a very valuable lesson: do not
>underestimate for an instant the importance of tactics. From this lesson, some
>have learned, and some have not. Kasparov himself has acknowledged the change in
>perception and some GMs like Yermolinsky (in his masterpiece released last year)
>have come to terms and said that there is no correct or 'better' style of play.
>So that according to this, programs are indeed playing on equal terms (same
>strength), but with different weapons. Then you have a different perception
>shown by players such as Seirawan, who published in his book on the 1992
>Fischer-Spassky match, that players fell into 4 categories (he had written this
>to talk about Fischer's game but it is very revealing):
>- Tactical players
>- Positional players
>- Strategic players
>- Builders
>The last 3 (!) represent different levels of positional profficiency, and he
>succintly declares that Tactical players are by far the weakest of the lot. The
>reason is that prior to programs, there has never been such a lopsided player:
>3000 Elo in open tactical positions, 2500-2600 in mixed positions, and 2100-2200
>(if that) in closed positional games. That isn't an exaggeration in most cases.
>Again, the problem is that GMs don't make certain mistakes (they may blunder,
>but certain conceptual mistakes will almost NEVER happen) and when the newly
>touted 'GM's do this, they are pointed out to be not GMs. I understand.
>I myself hesitate greatly to describe them as being anything other than GM
>'strength', meaning they aren't GMs, but they're just as strong overall. Mind
>you, this same reason is why GMs love computers as well: it isn't a peer, it's
>something else, and as such presents a brilliantly challenging opponent to work
>on specific aspects of their game in a way a colleague never could.
>
>>
>>But the GMs are much much better at taking advantage of the "off the board"
>>knowledge (they know their opponent and can adapt their strategy to it).
>>
>>This "off the board" knowledge and ability to adapt gives them an serious edge
>>over computers. There is a big gap to close for computers because of this. It is
>>maybe 50 elo points at this time (maybe even 100 elo point for a few
>>individuals, but there are not many of them), and it might well be like the
>>horizon. No matter how close you get, the horizon moves away.
>
>Yes, but you don't say 'how' it is they are adapting their knowledge. They are
>merely emphasizing their strengths (strategy) as opposed to their weaknesses
>(tactics) relative to the computer. One solution is to have the program do the
>same, hence the 'anti-human' options that are appearing, and the other longer
>route, is to try to balance it out and try to find a way to teach it to play
>positionally. So far, this has been the single-minded direction followed, but
>now we see there are other aspects such as the attack.
The path followed so far is to create a monolithic player able to perform well
against a variety of opponents.
In this sense, computer chess has evolved a lot and has created monsters.
It is already incredible to see that a player who never changes his way of
playing (current programs) is able to do so well.
It must be a strong signal that once we manage to create program that can adapt
to the opponent, human players will be in deep deep trouble.
>BTW, Gambit Tiger has been making so many waves, because it has been showing
>another poorly exploited (by computers) aspect of the game: the attack. Since
>the attack has always been a domain of tactical players, once programs were so
>efficient tactically, it seems that it was overlooked that tactics are only a
>part of an attack, not the attack itself. Add to that, the fact that it doesn't
>wait for the opponent to make a mistake, but rather tries to win the game by its
>own merits, and you have a very entertaining opponent. :-)
>
>>
>>Increasing the computers speed will not solve the problem immediately. The gap
>>should be closed by introducing some opponent knowledge into the programs
>>(opponent modeling).
>
>This may possibly work, but I think that introducing the 'opponent's knowledge'
>as opposed to 'opponent knowledge' is more interesting.
Opponent modeling takes into account both the opponent's weaknesses (to go into
positions where the opponent does not feel good) and opponent's strengths (to
avoid going into positions the opponent likes).
When knowledge is added to the program, it is also necessary to tell the program
about how the opponent(s) feel about it.
I guess that knowing about the strengths/weaknesses of the opponent is what you
call "opponent knowledge", and adding knowledge to the program is what you call
"opponent's knowledge"...
We will do both... Some day...
Christophe
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