Author: Matthew Hull
Date: 23:50:34 01/13/06
Go up one level in this thread
On January 13, 2006 at 23:06:35, Zappa wrote: >I stopped over to read CTF for a bit earlier today, and something hit me: I >actually found interesting posts to read, and that I hadn't really been that >interested in anything written at CCC for some time. So I started thinking >about this, and I started to realize that the composition of CCC has changed >quite a bit over the last year or so. > >Back when I joined (feels like ages ago, even though its only a few years) there >were basically 4 groups of people at CCC: the optimizers (headed by Gerd) >posting on better methods to compute LSB and hardware and such things, the chess >experts, who were primarily interested having the computer analyze their games >and posted a lot of test positions, the authors (headed by the always-arguing >Bob and Vincent) who talked about search methods and eval tricks, and the >testers, who ran matches and posted the results. Somehow over the past year the >composition of the forum has shifted dramatically towards the testers, and >lately I feel that a good 50% of the posts here have been "I ran a tournament >with some engines under Y conditions", "Great work X, you're a cool dude", "No, >X is an idiot, because he used conditions Y! What a tool!". > >I personally was never that interested in test results; I joined for the other >types of posts, and they have simply disappeared. Bob has posted about 10 times >in the past year. Ditto for Vincent. GCP only posts to correct idiocies. Gerd >barely posts any more. Fierz is gone. Fabien is gone. Bruce is gone. About >the only people left over from the halcyon days of yore are Gunther and Tord. >And two people do not a forum make. > >I am not sure why CCC has changed as it has. I think Bob has not posted much because he's working much more actively on Crafty than he has in many years, combined with the fact that he's serving a stint as moderator. After the WCCC, I'd bet he'll be more at liberty to share what he may have learned in the past year of work. But I'm just guessing. >I have always resented the Deep >Blue team for insinuating that computer chess was solved in 1995, but has it >been solved in 2006? I haven't really heard of any new engines. When I look at >the participants list for CCT8, every single engine played there last year. I >know its still early, but are there simply no new engine authors? And if so, >why? Has it become too easy? Is everyone only interested in cloning Fruit now? > Or do people feel that CC is simply solved now? Maybe testers and wannabees think so, but I can't believe the programmers think that. I'm not a chess programmer but I certainly don't think they are even close. >A laptop with Fritz can beat >GMs nowadays. I posted earlier that I felt that the big ideas of the 90s >(mobility, null move) had basically been worked to death and that computer chess >was in sore need of new ideas. Perhaps we just _don't need_ new ideas, and all >that is left is a gentle refinement of the old ones. I don't know. > >I know that about 10,000 people will say "but RYBKA!", so let me preemptively >answer them: Rybka's strength is tactical, not positional. Take a look at Marc >Lacrosse's post. I do not say this to derogate Rybka - I don't know what he is >doing in search, but it must be pretty amazing - but I have never viewed tactics >as the primary problem in computer chess. As computers get faster, the tactics >will take care of themselves naturally. > >Anyway, I don't really know what the future of computer chess will be, but I do >know that I personally will probably not be reading CCC much in the future, and >I guess I'm arrogant enough to make a big post out of it. I'm not leaving out >of disgust at bad treatment or anything, so I might stop by from time to time >(perhaps at Torino), but I won't be reading this forum regularly any more. > >Good luck to all, > >anthony
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