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Subject: Re: Time control legend

Author: Fernando Villegas

Date: 15:14:43 05/13/98

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On May 13, 1998 at 13:52:30, Don Dailey wrote:

>On May 13, 1998 at 13:06:56, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On May 13, 1998 at 07:14:16, Ralph Jörg Hellmig wrote:
>>
>>>So if there is a special time control, one program may play positionally
>>>better, but the other one has better tactics, for example, the
>>>positional better program will be stronger if the time control
>>>increases, as it does also see the deciding tactics ...
>>
>>Another chess legend.
>>
>>Who has any proof of this statement?
>
>I have empirical evidence of it.  That is if you mean longer time
>(or faster hardware) favors the program with more knowledge.
>
>
>>More knowledge better at longer time controls? Take a look at the top of
>>the SSDF list, sit down a minute, and think again about this legend.
>>
>>I think that if you have more time to compute, you need LESS knowledge.
>>We still have to find which kind of knowledge is needed in this case,
>>and which other can be thrown out happily.
>>
>>
>>
>>    Christophe
>
>Hi Guys,
>
>
>I used to believe strongly that with faster and faster hardware,
>knowledge becomes less important.  The reason I believed this
>was that eventually all programs would converge on a game theoretic
>solution, which is essentially proof of this concept.
>
>HOWEVER, at the depths we are currently doing (and for the forseeable
>future) it seems that the opposite is true.  I did a big experiment
>where many programs with varying amounts of knowledge played each
>other.  I generated hundredes of thousands of games on several computers
>over several weeks of time.  What happend was that the programs with
>the most knowledge, improved very rapidly with depth compared to the
>programs with little knowledge.
>
>I suspect with a great amount of depth, the knowledgable programs
>would not be able to improve very much since they would be close
>to "perfect while the dumb ones would be playing catch-up.  But it
>looks like we are a long way away from these ranges at current
>time controls on modern hardware.
>
>About your reference to Fritz.  Is Fritz really so bad at positional
>chess?  Some people confuse conservative play with bad chess.  Could
>this be the case here?  It's hard for me to believe Fritz could be
>that horrible and still be on top just due to a little extra speed.
>I'll bet you will find that it's evaluation is reasonable, well
>balanced and not as bad as it's reputation.   It's my understanding
>also that Franz has added knowledge gradually over time to keep up.
>


Hi:
You are right. Fritz is not that bad in positional play. That has became
a kind of legend and nobody -as happens with legends- ask, now, how much
true that that statement is. I Have played many games against Fritz 5
and it is no totaly deprived of sound positional judgment and the very
last version that you can get in chessbase USA is a lot stronger in that
sense. Precisely I was going to post a new post enterily dedicated to
that. I have not made many test, but in equalo or similar positions the
new Fritz 5 is not only decent, but clearly good in evaluating
positional factors.
Nevertheless, always a question rest qwithout answer: what is, in this
fiel, Knopwelñedege? Is more or less the same we consider as theory in
the field of human chess playing? I think it should be not. A theroy is
a guide for certain kind of mind looking solutions and so it's validity
is partially related with that. I mean, a computer thinks in a different
way or it should, so a different kind of theroy could be more adbisable.
But of course I am not ptogrammer, I cannot say more than this. As wee
say in my country, "A different thing is wityh the guitar in your
hands..."

>The thing I notice about Fritz is that even on 1 ply, most of its
>moves are reasonable, at least positionally.
>
>
>- Don



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