Author: Tom Kerrigan
Date: 12:42:17 05/21/03
Go up one level in this thread
On May 21, 2003 at 12:40:42, Uri Blass wrote: >On May 21, 2003 at 11:58:55, Tom Kerrigan wrote: > >>On May 21, 2003 at 09:07:24, martin fierz wrote: >> >>>On May 21, 2003 at 04:29:31, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >>> >>>>On May 21, 2003 at 00:00:11, Russell Reagan wrote: >>>> >>>>>As far as I know, computer chess is the most popular computer board game. There >>>>>are dozens of commercial programs, and hundreds of amateur programs. >>>>> >>>>>What do you think are the main contributing factors to computer chess being the >>>>>most popular? Why not checkers/draughts, or go, or any other game? >>>>> >>>>>I think there are two main factors. >>>>> >>>>>1. Chess is one of the most popular games in the world, if not THE most popular. >>>>> >>>>>2. The computer chess community has created a good environment that is inviting >>>>>to potential computer chess programmers. >>>>> >>>>>One example of #2 can be seen in the nice GUI's that we amateur computer chess >>>>>programmers have. Between Winboard and Arena, we have nice looking interfaces, >>>>>and networking support for internet chess servers, and we get it all for free. >>>>> >>>>>I also think that chess servers such as ICC and FICS do a great deal to attract >>>>>potential programmers to chess instead of other board games. >>>>> >>>>>For instance, I have tried to make other game playing programs in the past >>>>>(checkers and amazons), but after a while my program slaughters me, and there >>>>>isn't anyone to play my program. If I had a nice GUI like Arena that would let >>>>>me organize a tournament with a dozen other amazons programs, then I would >>>>>maintain my interest in computer amazons. Or if there was an "Internet Amazons >>>>>Server", and I had a GUI that would handle the networking for me, I would be >>>>>much more motivated to continue programming amazons. >>>>> >>>>>So what do you think contributes to the popularity of computer chess? >>>> >>>>1. It seems the game itself might be the west's most popular board game, and >>>>computers are more widespread in the west. >>>> >>>>2. The rules and complexity of the game are difficult but not prohibitive, so >>>>it's not too simple to be uninteresting with current compute power (as is >>>>Connect 4, and arguably checkers) >>> >>>connect 4 can be solved on a fast pc in 1 hour. checkers is nowhere near being >> >>Really? I didn't know that. Not by "brute force," i.e., only scoring positions >>as win, lose, or draw. I believe that takes closer to a month. > >I read that this game was solved even without computer programs. I don't think so. It was solved pretty much simultaneously by two different approaches, but both did involve computers searching. >I never tried to write a program for that game but how do you get the estimate >of one month? On my Athlon/800 it took about 30 minutes for my program to solve the position where the center column had 4 checkers in it. Let's see, figure that 15 min is average for a 4 checker position, 7^4 = 2401, * 15 = 36015 minutes = 25.01 days I didn't do any symmetry stuff, so / 2 = 12.5 days Then figure that you can get a 2.2GHz Athlon now, / 2.75 = 4.54 days (Also, my program uses 64-bit ints a lot, so it might go, say, 25% faster with an Opteron/Athlon 64.) So you're right, a month is pessimistic nowadays but it's still way more than an hour. >Even without knowing the solution I believe that programs >can solve it relatively fast if you make the following asumptions: > >1)I assume that hash tables are used. Yes, my program did. Otherwise it craps out at ~16 ply. >2)I assume that symmetric is also used and the program consider 2 positions >as the same if they are symmetric even if they are not the same. Nope, didn't do this. I guess this could be done by computing two hash keys. Lowers NPS a little, but I imagine it's still a big win. >3)I also assume that programs also can evaluate >positions when all the moves are forced correctly >as win,draw,loss This seems like a good idea but actually doesn't help any. -Tom
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