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Subject: Re: SOMCS [kind of OT]

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 00:18:10 03/16/04

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On March 15, 2004 at 18:05:13, Vasik Rajlich wrote:

>On March 15, 2004 at 17:23:41, martin fierz wrote:
>
>>On March 15, 2004 at 15:28:55, Tord Romstad wrote:
>>
>>>On March 15, 2004 at 14:30:58, Vasik Rajlich wrote:
>>>
>>>>Yeah, actually the book was very good - but not for the reason Watson was hoping
>>>>for. You roll your eyes once per page when the "it's all about calculation"
>>>>comment inevitably comes up - and look at the games, conveniently organized by
>>>>the basic patterns ... :-)
>>>
>>>Is it a book you would recommend even for us lowly patzers, or is it the kind
>>>of book you won't understand a word of unless you are a really strong player?
>>>
>>>Tord
>>
>>i don't know how lowly a patzer you are, but it is certainly a thought-provoking
>>book. on the other hand, as an engine author you are probably looking for rules
>>to implement in your eval function, and you won't find any in this book - that
>>is watson's dogma - there are no rules...
>>
>>cheers
>>  martin
>
>I partly agree. You won't get much that would help Gothmog, because what's
>useful for a human isn't useful for a computer.
>
>Consider the following "pattern":
>
>[d]r2q1rk/ppnn1pbp/3p2p/2pP/P3PP/2N2Q1P/BP4P/R1B2RK w - -
>
>Once you've seen this type of position as a human, you know the right plan: 16.
>e5 dxe5 17. f5 and black is suffering. A human learns this position by seeing a
>few instances of it, and his level gets higher as a result.
>
>However, this "knowledge" will be completely useless to a chess programmer. If
>you start trying to match this pattern inside your evaluation function, you'll
>just create a bloated mess, and it won't even do what you want.

It certainly wouldn't be completely useless to Steven!  Nor would it be useless
to a traditional chess programmer.  You don't need to "match this pattern" to
glean ideas to improve your eval from this example.

Dave



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