Author: Amir Ban
Date: 15:44:00 12/12/99
Go up one level in this thread
On December 12, 1999 at 14:54:27, Enrique Irazoqui wrote: >On December 12, 1999 at 13:29:29, Amir Ban wrote: > >>On December 12, 1999 at 09:48:31, Enrique Irazoqui wrote: >> >>Dear Enrique, > >Hi Amir, > >>I'm surprised to read that you subscribe to this fast vs. knowledge nonsense, >>which is as false as it is popular. > >It is not that I subscribe or unsubscribe. It is just that as a flower collector >I do not know if it makes sense or not. I see hints in both directions and >realize that I have no idea, and that's why I posted about it. Talking to other >programmers I hear both sides: ones, agreeing ardently with you; others, >opposing with equal passion. > >> The simple truth is that all programs are as >>fast as their author can make them, and have as much knowledge as their author >>practically knows how to put in them. > >Are you sure? I see some evidence to the contrary, particularly in the endings. >Some of the strongest engines have no idea about such elementary stuff as bad >bishops or Philidor endings. By "elementary", you mean that it's in the opening pages of your old textbook ? That doesn't mean it's the most important thing. I think many programmers started to write a program with good intentions to cover everything the textbook says, but found there are more urgent things to do. Indeed so many that sometimes you completely forget about the textbook. I also hear that some programmers get rid of >knowledge in order to speed up the search, which causes the horror of other >programmers. It seems that there are two opposite schools of thinking about al >this. > There are no two schools of thought. That's the fallacy. There are tradeoffs everywhere, and every programmer tries to strike the right balance. The better ones manage to find the right compromises, or better yet, to find ingenious ways to avoid making compromises. Whatever the compromise, the part you keep is always called "knowledge", while the part you discard is not :) >>>Mind you, I also think that without intuitions, whatever that is, exact, >>>verifiable thinking tends to sterility, so from my let's call it feminine >>>intuition (astrologically I am the intuitive cancer, double cancer in fact, soon >>>triple I guess :(, what crap this astrology), and going back to this comp-comp >>>vs. human-comp discussion, I sometimes wonder. To make it short, when looking at >>>the Rebel-Baburin and Rebel Sherbakov games, I "know" that the fast finders >>>couldn't play as well as Rebel. >> >>Untrue. J6 finds the critical choices in Rebel - Sherbakov to be rather easy, >>and in my opinion understands Baburin - Rebel better than Rebel. It thinks that >>at some points Baburin mishandled a white advantage (e.g. 28. Qc7 ?). > >I don't have it yet, so I can't tell about Junior 6. But would Junior have >played some Rebel moves that defined the game, like 14...Ng4? Only Rebel and >Shredder 4 seem to play this specific kind of game, and Rebel's play was >impressively consistent. Fritz, for instance, was fooling around all the time. > Deep Junior on 2x350 finds it 5 minutes or so, with score -0.14. By the way, doesn't white have something good with 28.Rf1 (Qd5 29.Rg1)? I get +0.50 after a few minutes analysis. >>>Following the games with Fritz 6 was >>>overwhelming evidence in this direction. >> >>I understand it was much too optimistic for black, > >Yes it was, but it was not only a problem of optimism but of not having a clue >of what was going on in the Baburin game. > >> but then, so was Rebel, or so >>we are told. All programs are stupid when their evaluation is way off. This >>happens to Hiarcs, or every other vaunted "knowledge" program, quite often. >>Fritz, by the way, often shows understanding that would make the so-called >>knowledge programs green. > >Here we disagree. I have seen this better understanding of Fritz at times, but >rarely. And I like Fritz, but for other reasons. > >> On the other hand, why this alleged >>>positional, human-like (?) superiority wouldn't also show up in comp-comp games, >>>so "knowledgeable" computers would compensate with it for their slower tactical >>>speed? Because it doesn't compensate and comp-comp is decided by tactics. >> >>That's wrong. Computers kill other computers all the time when their opponent >>doesn't understand a position. It compensates for order of magnitude in speed. > >This is wrong in the way you put it and quite central in my perplexity. Let's >assume as an hypothesis of work (is this English?) Working hypothesis, yes that a tactical test gives >the same performance ratings than thousands of computer-computer games. If this >were true, and I think it is, it would mean that what makes a difference in >comp-comp is tactics, while the "knowledge" that different programs have >built-in is of similar value, different here and there, but similar on the >whole. Do I understand that your secret test suite is a tactical one ? If so, I don't believe in it. You would find that J6 scores less than J5 (which didn't score much higher than J4.6). So you have that a program can be helped tremendously by its knowledge in >some given positions, but the same will happen to others in the same or >different positions and to the same extent. Then the tactical ability will >prevail, and that's why in the SSDF list the fastest finder is on top, followed >by the second fastest, and so on. That's incredibly simplistic. Do you really think that eveyone's positional knowledge more or less evens out so tactics prevails ? I would much sooner assume that everyone's tactical ability is more or less the same, so positional understanding would decide. That's simplistic too, but closer to the truth. Now, that's comp-comp. My question is if >human-comp is any different. I mean, some claim that their programs are better >suited or tuned for human-comp and that they have "knowledge" that fast finders >don't. If this is true, why is that this extra knowledge doesn't make them >perform better in comp-comp? > I would certainly expect this supposed extra knowledge to show up in comp-comp games and make a difference, otherwise we have cause to suspect an empty claim was made. I think those who claim that some particular program is specially geared for comp-human games are aware of a fine record it has, but are ignoring that other programs have an equal or better record in comp-human events. For example, I would guess that Junior and Fritz are "prime suspects" for being "comp-comp specialists", while in fact both have now a long and excellent record against ranked players (Fritz mostly in active chess). Also, without great statistical significance, in the WCCC99 two programs, Shredder and Cilkchess, with little experience against humans drew respectably their GM opponents, while Ferret with its long record on ICC was the only one to lose. Amir >>>Is >>>this "superior" understanding only the adaptation of a program to human playing, >>>with the only value of making human life more miserable in chess, and we believe >>>this anthropocentric approach greater? Is there really a difference between >>>comp-comp and human-comp? So what's up? I really wish we would be less of a >>>flower collector and more of a botanist. >>> >> >>Just my opinion. > >Just my perplexity. :) > >Enrique > >>Amir
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