Author: Ernst A. Heinz
Date: 12:34:08 05/24/00
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Dear Fellow Computer-Chess Enthusiasts,
In view of the current discussion about diminishing returns in the thread
"Ply Depth in Relation to ELO again", I like to share the results of my
latest self-play experiment with you.
The stunning outcome of the new experiment is that it shows the existence
of diminishing returns for additional search in computer chess self-play
with 95% statistical confidence, exemplified by the program "Fritz 6"!
The title and abstract of my M.I.T. LCS Technical Report on the
experiment follow below.
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``A New Self-Play Experiment in Computer Chess''
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the results of a new self-play experiment in
computer chess. It is the first such experiment ever to feature search
depths beyond 9 plies and thousands of games for every single match.
Overall, we executed 17,150 self-play games (1,050--3,000 per match)
in one "calibration" match and seven "depth X+1 <=> X" handicap
matches at fixed iteration depths ranging from 5--12 plies. For
the experiment to be realistic and independently repeatable, we relied
on a state-of-the-art commercial contestant: "Fritz6", one of the
strongest modern chess programs available. The main result of our new
experiment is that it shows the existence of diminishing returns for
additional search in computer chess self-play with 95% statistical
confidence, exemplified by the program "Fritz6". The diminishing
returns manifest themselves by declining rates of won games and
reversely increasing rates of drawn games for the deeper searching
program versions. The rate of lost games, however, remains quite
steady for the whole depth range of 5--12 plies.
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Please find the full report in gzip'ed PostScript format at the URL
http://supertech.lcs.mit.edu/~heinz/ps/new_exp.ps.gz.
Any comments welcome!
=Ernst=
P.S.
Electronic preprints of my earlier publications on the relationship
between computing power and playing strength of chess programs are
available from http://supertech.lcs.mit.edu/~heinz/ and the WWW pages
of "DarkThought" at http://supertech.lcs.mit.edu/~heinz/dt/.
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