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Subject: Re: So which programs beat which, only due to superior chess understanding?

Author: Peter Kappler

Date: 20:33:35 05/08/02

Go up one level in this thread


On May 08, 2002 at 19:31:50, Peter McKenzie wrote:

>On May 08, 2002 at 04:27:43, Amir Ban wrote:
>
>>On May 07, 2002 at 14:17:51, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On May 07, 2002 at 07:44:16, Amir Ban 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...
>>>>>
>>>>>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 believe that the positional evaluation is responsible for most of what people
>>>>>perceive as the "playing style".
>>>>>
>>>>>Now you can strongly disagree, I do not have the absolute truth.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Ok. I think this is wrong. Anyway I'm working for a long time under the
>>>>assumption that it's the evaluation rather than the search that needs work.
>>>>
>>>>The search engine of Junior7 is basically the same as Junior6.
>>>>
>>>>Junior5 was the last engine where I did extensive work on the search. Since then
>>>>in terms of effort it was at least 80% evaluation, no more than 20% search.
>>>>
>>>>Amir
>>>
>>>I wonder how much of it is testing to find the right weights in your evaluation
>>>and how much of it is adding new evaluation functions.
>>>
>>
>>Hard to say because they belong to completely different mental processes. New
>>elements are part of a creative process, which is not something that can be
>>regulated. Adusting and testing is more routine and automatic. There's no reason
>>why they can't take place at the same time.
>>
>>
>>>I find that in the endgame there is knowledge in the evaluation that Junior does
>>>not have when part of the top programs and even part of the amaturs have it.
>>>
>>>Here is one example:
>>>
>>>Junior7 does not know that the following position is a draw
>>>
>>
>>Junior doesn't know about billions of positions that they are draws. I wish I
>>could reduce the number by just 20%. This particular case doesn't seem very
>>important.
>
>Strange as it may seem, but in my experience this ending comes up quite
>frequently.  Of course frequently is a relative term, but I have seen it a
>number of times while watching programs play on ICC.
>
>One time, I was discussing this particular ending with Peter Kappler and bang,
>it occurred in a game one of us was observing!!
>
>Peter
>

The reason we were talking about it is that I had *just* added that knowledge to
Grok earlier that evening, and we were wondering how long I'd have to wait to
see that endgame occur.

Answer: one game! :)

-Peter


>>
>>Amir
>>
>>
>>>[D]k7/8/8/8/p7/P7/PK3B2/8 w - - 0 1
>>>
>>>Uri



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