Author: blass uri
Date: 09:17:06 05/21/00
Go up one level in this thread
On May 21, 2000 at 10:56:19, Christophe Theron wrote: >On May 21, 2000 at 03:51:03, Mogens Larsen wrote: > >>On May 20, 2000 at 23:44:52, Christophe Theron wrote: >> >>>I wouldn't either. >>> >>>The computers do not have the BOOKS when they participate. They just have >>>memorized opening theory in their BRAIN. That's exactly what a human player is >>>allowed to do. >> >>There's a small but significant difference, but it's impossible to make the >>concept completely identical due to the obvious differences between computers >>and humans. The same goes for the eternal question of "fairness". >> >>>But if you want to get an idea of progress in software, just take the best PC >>>program of 10 or 5 years ago and let it play against the current best PC >>>programs. >>> >>>You'll realize how much software has improved. >> >>I'm sure they have improved a lot, but that doesn't necessarily tell you about >>the innovative progress made in the last 5 years or so. How long did it take for >>you to close the gap to the leading chess programs when you went pro? > > > >I went pro once I have closed the gap, so I'm not sure I can answer your >question. > >Anyway, don't forget I'm working on Chess Tiger since 1982... > > > > >>Crafty is also closing the gap faster without changing the hardware a lot, even >>though Dr. Hyatt isn't an amateur, the program itself is experimental by nature >>as I understand it. More experimental than its competition I would imagine. > > > >I tend to think it's the opposite. > >Last time I read Crafty's sources, it was 3 or 4 years ago (version 9.x), I was >very disappointed because I have seen only very academical, classical, >techniques implemented. I think that crafty is today clearly better than crafty of 3 or 4 years ago. > >In comparison, my program was using a lot more of different and risky pruning >techniques, for example. > >I do not know if it is still the case, but I think that to be on top you have to >be extremely creative and invent original techniques. > >I personally spend 80% of my time on Tiger trying new ideas and techniques. And >of course, I have to reject most of them. But a few of them remain. > > > > >>The number of strong or semistrong WinBoard engines also tells me that it's >>easier now than it ever was to create a competitive chess program. I'm not >>trying to belittle the work effort of programmers, just giving you my impression >>so far. > > > >It is indeed much easier. You just connect on the net, download Crafty and >several other free chess programs with their source code, and work from that. > >Great, but the drawback of this is that programmers do not have to reinvent >everything. That makes them more lazy, and I'm sure a lot of creativity is lost. I agree that copying from old programs is a bad idea but I do not think that downloading crafty and looking in the source code is a bad idea. I think that the most important file to look at is evaluate.c to know more about crafty's evaluation function(I think that most of the work of Bob is about this). I read that tiger did not know about cases when king, bishop and some pawns in the h or a file cannot win against king when crafty knows about it. You will fix it but I believe that this is not the only thing that crafty knows and tiger does not know. I believe that you can learn from looking at crafty's code. Uri
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