Author: Ernst A. Heinz
Date: 13:16:40 05/25/00
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Hi Andrew, >For program with unknown source there is always some 'doubt'. Even for programs with known source, there is "doubt" because we do not have a concise analytical model of their behaviour. Or do you pretend to understand all the subtle interactions going on within a chess program? I certainly do not ... Much more important than knowledge of the source code, IMO, is knowledge about the general design and playing capabilities of the program tested. We know both answers for "Fritz 6" -- it is a sophisticated alpha-beta searcher around a fairly standard null-move design and one of the strongest chess programs available. "Fritz 6" performs extremely well in both comp-comp (e.g. see SSDF) and comp-human games (e.g. see Dutch Championship). >Lets assume its eval produces a very limited set of scores (which is true for >root processors, but also for programs with full, but simple eval). Now: the >smaller set of scores, the smaller chance of getting new best move based on >positional factors. Also some dirty pruning/speeding techniques, like shifting >score up at root to blur out small score differences, or assigning a value to >null move (shifting alpha) will produce nice speedup, but at the cost of >reduced 'positional granularity'. > >What we can say after Ernsts experiment is: "Some unknown factors can produce >diminishing returns". Not much, imo. Of course, everybody is entitled to his own opinion. But the nature of your "scepticism" makes it virtually impossible to learn more than "not much" from experiments with _any_ decent and moderatly complex chess program (see above). It is well-known that empirical studies can only provide proofs of existence. They can only support but never establish a general fact. =Ernst=
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