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Subject: Re: A New Self-Play Experiment -- Diminishing Returns Shown with 95% Conf.

Author: Ernst A. Heinz

Date: 15:18:31 05/24/00

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Hi Bob,

>The idea is ok, but I don't like the concept of playing program X vs itself
>with different depths.  Your conclusion can easily be right for Fritz, but
>wrong for other programs...

This is certainly true -- and I do not claim to have shown
anything else than just ``the existence of diminishing returns
for additional search in computer chess self-play with
95% statistical confidence, exemplified by the program "Fritz6"''.

No more, no less.

As for self-play with depth handicap, it is a generally
acknowledged technique to study the relationship in question.
Several other researchers like Ken Thompson, Hans Berliner,
Murray Campbell, Jonathan Schaeffer, etc. have used it for
this purpose.

But direct self-play represents only one half of my ongoing
studies in this area. :-)

> It would be hard to draw conclusions based on testing only
> one program that is known to be very fast but not very 'smart'.

Right, we cannot draw any general conclusions from this.

But it certainly is a proof of existence -- no more, no less
as I said.

Moreover, I am not so sure that "Fritz 6" is far less smarter
than other programs. According to personal communication with
Frans Morsch, "Fritz 6" does full tip-node evaluations and
hardly any root-node preprocessing. Given the relative speed
decrease in NPS of "Fritz 6" as compared with "Fritz 5", I have
no reason to doubt Frans' statement.

=Ernst=



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