Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 11:03:05 04/25/00
Go up one level in this thread
On April 25, 2000 at 11:27:34, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >On April 25, 2000 at 09:12:12, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On April 25, 2000 at 00:50:50, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >> >>>On April 24, 2000 at 22:13:10, Bruce Moreland wrote: >>> >>>>On April 24, 2000 at 18:49:04, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >>>> >>>>>On April 24, 2000 at 15:56:37, Dann Corbit wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>On April 24, 2000 at 15:43:24, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >>>>>>[snip] >>>>>>>Here's my question. If pondering=off cripples Crafty so badly to the point that >>>>>>>Bob Hyatt has to write dozens of posts about it, why doesn't he just do >>>>>>>something to fix it? I mean, surely the time spent writing all those posts could >>>>>>>have been put to better use. >>>>>> >>>>>>That makes a great deal of sense if Dr. Hyatt were writing crafty to make people >>>>>>happy who want to play engine verses engine matches on a single machine. >>>>>>However, he does not play it that way and it is contrary to his purposes. >>>>>> >>>>>>Do you alter your programs to make them do what others wish even when it does >>>>>>not coincide with your desires? >>>>> >>>>>Yes. >>>>> >>>>>-Tom >>>> >>>>If your point is that Bob should do this or that, I think that Bob should be the >>>>one who decides what Bob does. It's great to suggest improvements in >>>>functionality or support, but if Bob wants to do it his own way, that's fine. >>> >>>Decisions are influenced by your surroundings. >>> >>>Right now, Bob is surrounded by people who do matches between Crafty and ___ >>>with no pondering. Consequently, Bob has to do a tremendous amount of damage >>>control. Here are the options, as I see them: >>> >>>1) Continue to waste time by doing massive damage control >>> >>>2) Simply remove the ponder switch from Crafty, so Crafty can't be crippled >>> >>>3) Un-cripple Crafty >>> >>>Personally, I would not like to _continually_ make excuses for my program, i.e., >>>option 1. I think option 2 is a hack, but still better than option 1. >>>Personally, I would go with option 3. >>> >>>I don't really see what the problem is with option 3. If Crafty is using too >>>much time in the opening and middlegame, just make it use less time. Multiply >>>some number by 75% or whatever. It may not be a "fine tuned" solution, but at >>>least the program won't lose all its games. >>> >>>-Tom >> >> >>Once you add some sophistication to your time control logic, you will see that >>the above is a very 'superficial' suggestion. Base time allocation is but one >>part of the problem. How much time can you use (extra time) when you get a >>positional fail-low, not a material one? How much extra time can you use on a >>fail low for a single pawn? For a piece? What if you do a 12 ply search, and >>the first 11 plies show you winning a pawn. At depth=12, after the first move, >>you discover that move doesn't win that pawn. How much extra time do you use >>there to see if the pawn win was real, or just a deep tactical plan by your >>opponent that made the pawn a "phantom"... > >Why can't you just multiply all this stuff by 0.75? > >Anyway, I don't understand how pondering directly affects any of this. What is a >situation where the 0.75 thing fails because pondering=off? And what's the >"correct" thing to do in said situation? > >-Tom Maybe it isn't a linear relationship between all the terms??? I discovered, by _lots_ of testing (and help by Mike Byrne) that the current 'overflow' values work well with the normal engine setup. They burn a good bit of time up front when it is needed, so that as correct predictions save time later I don't end up in an endgame with a huge time surplus when it isn't needed. But when pondering is turned off... _all_ of these values become wrong. And in some games they produce severe time trouble. In others they have hardly any noticable effect. But _any_ effect is too much effect...
This page took 0.01 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.