Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 00:32:08 01/21/00
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On January 21, 2000 at 03:18:49, Peter Kappler wrote: [snip] >I have read that article, too, and all I can say is that you and I interpreted >it very differently. > >Do you really think that the difference between 5 and 8 plies is the same as the >difference between 15 and 18 plies? Or 27 vs 30 plies? Or 57 vs 60 plies? >Think about it... Actually I have. Doesn't mean that I have come to a sound conclusion. If anything, I think the deeper plies are worth more because the contain exponentially more information. Someone who can see seven plies sees *many times* more information than someone who can see 6. It is a searching problem. If I have exhaustively searched one gigabyte and you have searched all that I have and 100 gigabytes more besides, then your decisions are much better than mine are. Smart searching is better than dumb (exhaustive) searching but leaves possible land mines to step on. NULL move is a simple example of this. You less searching and 9,999 times out of 10,000 get a big benefit. The one time that it does bite you does not matter because of the 9,999 times when it helped you to succeed. Potentially, there are many more techniques like this that can reduce the amount of data that must be examined to find a semi-optimal path without laying too many cow-pies to traipse in along the way. If you can see one ply and I can see two, I will win every time. If you can see two plies and I can see three, I will win every time. If you can see three plies and I can see four, I can win every time. I think it is obvious, but of course, I could be wrong. I do admit that there is a limit. Once you see clear to a checkmate, there is no advantage at all to deeper increments.
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