Author: Andrew Williams
Date: 14:03:49 01/10/05
Go up one level in this thread
On January 10, 2005 at 16:45:43, Ricardo Gibert wrote: >I don't understand the interest in material only search. You've completed 34 >ply, but what does that prove? For instance, how do you know if upon completion >of ply 35, your engine might decide that the best line gives up a pawn at move >3? It's possible. You're just spinning your wheels here for no reason. And this >is independent of whether or not you are using null move pruning or whatever. >That issue is a red herring that distracts from the fact that no firm conclusion >can drawn in any case. You're telling the wrong person here! I don't disagree at all. This started in 2001 when Rudolf Huber searched to ply 30 in 2.5 hours and asked if anyone could beat that. My program could (on faster hardware). I was interested in his "challenge" at the time because both Rudolf's and my programs are based on a technique called MTD(f), which is not commonly used. Somebody raised this again and I said I'd do the search. I don't think there's anything we can conclude except that postmodernist's search with a material-only eval and null move pruning doesn't find any material gain for either side after a 34-ply search. Unfortunately, this doesn't say very much about the game of chess, but it was no problem to do the "experiment". I think this might be more interesting: http://www.talkchess.com/forums/1/message.html?404572 What do you think? Andrew Andrew
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.