Author: Miguel A. Ballicora
Date: 08:29:40 05/07/02
Go up one level in this thread
On May 07, 2002 at 02:29:26, Uri Blass wrote: >On May 06, 2002 at 22:31:28, Christophe Theron wrote: > >>On May 06, 2002 at 19:45:22, Uri Blass wrote: >> >>>On May 06, 2002 at 18:06:47, Christophe Theron wrote: >>> >>>>On May 06, 2002 at 15:34:01, Amir Ban wrote: >>>> >>>>>On May 05, 2002 at 19:58:09, Christophe Theron wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>"Knowledge" in the sense of positional evaluation (that's what most people think >>>>>>about when they talk about knowledge) makes for 10% of the strength of a chess >>>>>>program. >>>>>> >>>>>>Chess is 90% about tactics (which is a concept close to "search"). >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>>Before strongly disagreeing (as I guess I will), what does this mean ? >>>>> >>>>>If I freeze my search engine and work only to improve the evaluation, how much >>>>>do you expect the total strength to improve ? Is it limited ? >>>> >>>> >>>>I expect the strength of your engine to improve, but not much in regard to the >>>>energy invested. Because you are going to focus your efforts on an area that >>>>does not have the biggest potential in strength. >>>> >>>>On the other hand people will love it more and more because it will have a much >>>>better playing style. >>>> >>>>People can forgive gross tactical blunders, but not slight positional mistakes. >>>>Go figure... >>> >>>I think that people are different. >>> >>>There are people who will prefer the engine that is better in tactics and there >>>are a lot of people who are going to prefer the engine that wins without caring >>>for the reasons. >> >> >> >>That's different when your program plays against a gransmaster in a public place >>(or on the Internet). > > >comp-comp games are also interesting for many people. > >I think that programmers usually care more about comp-comp games and not about >comp-human games. > >I know that some simple ideas about time management that can be productive >against humans are not used by most of the programs. > >One of them is simply to play faster when the opponent is in time trouble. > > >> >> >> >> >> >> >>>>Here I'm talking about current top engines of today, naturally. >>>> >>>>Building a chess engine with a broken evaluation to demonstrate that a better >>>>evaluation could improve it tremendously is not in the spirit of my idea. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>>I understand that you are saying that it will change the style but overall >>>>>strength will not be much changed. >>>> >>>> >>>>I do not know exactly how far we will be able to go with the 10% I attribute to >>>>positional evaluation. >>>> >>>>I'm not saying it counts for nothing and that overall strength will not benefit >>>>from research in this area. >>>> >>>>I believe that the positional evaluation is the part of a chess program >>>>responsible for only 10% of the strength, and that the rest is done by the >>>>search. >>> >>>I do not understand like Amir what is the exact meaning of 10%. >>> >>>I believe that most of the amatuers can earn more rating from improvement in the >>>search rules and not from improvement in the evaluation but I also think that >>>the ratio is usually not 9:1 and I guess something like 2.5:1(I know that you >>>did not say that the ratio is 9:1 but it is a possible way to understand the >>>claim that search is responsible for 90% of the strength when evaluation is >>>responsible for 10%) >> >> >>:) >> >>You do not understand the meaning of my 10%, but you suggest that it is another >>number? >> >>So you must understand what I am talking about, somehow... > >I suggested a possible meaning for the 10% and said that by this meaning it is >another number. > >I did not say that it is your meaning and I see that it is not your meaning. >> >> >> >> >> >>>I guess that it is possible to improve most of the amatuers that are 400-600 elo >>>weaker than Junior by average number of 100 elo by doing a lot of work only on >>>the evaluation when you can improve them only by average number of 250 elo by >>>doing the same amount of work on the search rules without changing the >>>evaluation. >>> >>>The total improvement from working on both things may be bigger than the sum of >>>100 and 250 because after improving the evaluation the best search rules may be >>>different. >> >> >>I don't think the proportion is measured in elo points. >> >>My unit for the 90%/10% estimation is subjective. It's something like the amount >>of reward for a given programming effort. >> >>A successful effort in search get a reward 9 times bigger than a succesful >>effort in positional evaluation. >> >>Not to say that work on positional evaluation can be ignored. >> >>I notice that some chess players tend also to agree that chess is essentially a >>matter of search (tactics). > >I agree and I also think that search is the most important thing to work about. > >I think also that evaluation and search are connected and another thing to work >about is learning from the search to change the evaluation. > >Humans do not know that fortress positions is a draw by static knowledge but >learn from their search to change their evaluation. Humans understand a fortress position by logic, certainly not by search. Regards, Miguel > >I think that top programs should also do the same in the future. > >Uri
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