Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 16:41:31 07/06/00
Hello,
this is a post i just did at crafty list after a long number of mails about
a project called CAP which people tend to believe they can use it for
creating their openingsbook. Some warnings are on their place, when you
want to let such a book compete with commercial books.
I first showed that CAP goes completely wrong already quite soon in opening.
Like 1.d4,d5 2.c4,e5 3.dxe5 there best move is d4 all other moves you can
go home and rest but first resign the game.
--------------------------------------------------------------
In my previous examples you might argue that the positions are of
material inequality. But now please check cap scores for the next
opening:
1.e4,e5 2.Nf3,Nc6 3.Bb5,a6 4.Ba4,Nf6 5.O-O,b5
I didn't check yet. I just give a mainline in the Spanish here.
I remember that at world championships Stefan-Meyer
Kahlen fiddled at my laptop together with Rudolf Huber and Thorsten Czub
with DIEP. Their conclusion was that DIEP was way better for CAP project
as crafty, but i didn't understand what they meant, as i had never
taken CAP seriously. Now i realize still some people are busy with
it. I'll explain in this posts why i find a single computer analysis
of a line not very smart to base a book upon.
Now keep into mind that all busts of my book at tournaments were busts
where CAP would have gone wrong sooner in the opening or at the same
point.
However, the problem is more complex than just that
it's also that programs are quite strong in winning games compared to
their real strength.
As Bob already indicated if a line A is played a million times and
a line B only a 100 times, then obviously you take line A, yet also that
is not entirely true. Line A might be refuted or a move of the thumb also.
When starting with the first: making your move based upon the outcome of
a few minutes of search of a program:
Programs are not near the human
strength, but they just don't blunder, so in contradiction to me
computers don't have a weak point, but when there is no tactics in
a position then a computer is not a part of my strength. Remember i'm
just 2255 FIDE, getting to 2400 soon perhaps and hoping to get my IM
within a couple of years, but i'm not near the incredible brilliant level
of the 2600+ players, who also have the habit to find new moves behind the
tournament board and the majority of new moves doesn't get found at home
as most people do you want to believe. Basically Kasparov does and a few
correspondence players do.
Shredder who clearly is world
champion past few years, i can't say that i'm very impressed about how it
positionally plays, but it just doesn't lose quick. Shredder is extremely
bad short after opening. Classical preprocessor problem. If we look at
games from the world championships like the Shredder-Ferret tie then we
clearly see already short after opening the Rfe1 manoeuvre where Shredder
puts itself in a pin, something no human would ever do. Yet it's not
tactical losing directly. To lose black must have a strategic plan which it
developed rather late (perhaps too late). So obviously all programs
suffer from not having the same human insight. But let's continue to
describe how i feel about my book versus CAP.
Considering the more or less automatic way in which i constructed
book about a year ago short after the world champs,
let's see where my program went wrong in tournaments.
DIEP's main book, and numerous crafty clone books have been constructed,
in an automatic way based upon the number of games played. Added to that
i have a small hand tailored book which was really small, so always
a transition from tournament book to automatic generated book takes place.
I'm not happy about that transition. Not at all, see below why.
The past 8 months:
- dutch open diep played 4 games against commercial programs,
- chesstiger
- the king
- quest
- nimzo
Let's chronologically handle this. Consider that diep has a
very small tournament book, not worth mentionning. These programs
have thousands of hand made book moves. Not generated automatically
whatsoever.
- against chesstiger diep gets completely busted out of book
directly after book a pawn goes even and a lost position gets to
board with a pawn less. I still don't understand how DIEP managed
to draw that. that's not important here. important is to realize
i get completely lost out of book against a chess program and that
because of that the opponent can no longer lose, despite incredible
pathetic strategically and especially positoinal play caused by
preprocessing of Tiger. How can you draw a game with a pawn
up in that position? Incredible! But still... ...a good job in the
opening and it could no longer lose!
- against The King, there The King gets great play after opening,
not exactly huge advantage, but simply easy play,
only because of chosing the wrong plan and the fact that i ran
at a quad saves diep's ass to an equal position which later
diep manages to convert to a pawn more in endgame which still remains
a draw. So good tactics was enough to keep it a draw. Also the fact
that endgame of both programs wasn't at high level kept it a draw,
as any human would have seen that just winning the pawn wasn't important
where diep just got that pawn and only realized years later it was a
draw.
- against Nimzo diep gets a mainline at board. Suddenly Nimzo plays
a different move somewhere. The move is bad, but the automatically
generated book completely mistakes there. I had 20 games in book.
19 games or so a3 was played with a reasonably good chance for winning
with that line, according to statistics. Just 1 game a different move
was played, which got ignored of course 1 game is not convincing. 19
games are however.
So diep plays a3 and is already having a lost position, a3 is a good
answer to the mainline move, but a side line move was played, lots of
2000+ players probably have made the same mistake. 19 to be exact.
Still theoretical
humans consider that as still a bit unclear as white has tactical
pressure on black. Of course computer doesn't fall for the pressure
so we can consider it as a dead lost position. The bad thing is
that both programs didn't see that black was won, only when it was
far too late both programs realized how dead lost it was for white.
Afterwards i can consider that as a chanceless loss of an automatically
generated book. So this was seemingly a good game from Nimzo, as
outsiders might say : "from a negative score of -1.0 it fought its
way back", but fact is that programs always underestimate positions
with 2 passed pawns that start running. Only when they get to 6th row
programs realize suddenly how strong they are.
- against Quest was even more horrible. Diep plays a move (b4??) which
was played in theory a lot by grandmasters, however nowadays line is
completely refuted. It's a ++-- case. +10.0 out of book for Quest.
Against Quest also CAP data would not have saved DIEP's ass. So
i would not have won this tournament even with CAP data which makes
CAP data useless. Only way to do better against these programs next year
is to have an up to date book.
It's obvious that Nimzo book is especially made to do well against
automatically generated books. Note that Nimzo book is the same as fritz6
book. Nimzo 7.32 book is only a bit newer than that i can assume.
Now you convinced that making a hand made book is necessary?
Horror strikes at spanish champs for DIEP at christmas 99.
Diep had won all games at Spain champ. Tiger had lost one.
Just a draw was enough to win the title for DIEP.
I had prepared a line at home to play against Tiger both with white
and black. I shipped
before the champs that book to Spain, and hoped this line would get
on the board.
EXACTLY the line came on the board. However let's talk about the
openingsbook line. I never have played that opening, i just had written
down the line from a book, i had not even seen a board when preparing
that line, book said += in that position.
However DIEP lost it chanceless against Tiger!
Note that Tiger played
that game quite well, but still, i clearly did a bad job in the
openings book, because what happened?
Post mortem analysis showed that my openingsbook was simply 15 years too old.
My book was out of 1984. Sincethen grandmasters concluded that this line
though tactical giving much pressure at black (tigers side) objectively
seen the line is losing for white, so someone who doesn't give away
pieces (for example computers or grandmasters) will win it with black
in a chanceless way. In new theory books the side line
played by DIEP is not even considered and given a big questionmark in
the notes.
So making hand tailored books is nowadays not even enough.
No what you need is a book at the same level as i play chess myself,
and i'm tactical not as near as good as my program!
I'm positionally/strategically way above it, but ones or twice a game
i make a big blunder. Usually 1 blunder a game (if i lose the game).
Computer never makes big blunders, only bad moves in openings or
strategic mistake somewhere. That's about it.
So basically you not only need hand tailored book, but also refuted lines
you need to leave out of book and you need to take into account that
a program just needs an OBJECTIVE correct position. Too many grandmaster
take into account that mankind makes tactical mistakes. So also the
GM analyzes should be taken with a bit of salt.
Obviously Nimzo 7.32 book is taking this all into account.
Have you ever seen a book loss of Nimzo, or from Fritz at the different
championships?
No? you haven't? How comes, they used CAP? I'm sure they didn't.
It's all based upon human analyzes and theorem, interpreted by a strong
playing human and based upon thousands of auto232 games and all together
it's years of work.
So where you still need to realize that you need a handtailored book,
i'm already a step further and i recently bought the latest theory books
in order to keep up to date with the theory, because hand tailored books
also lose if you have outdated theory.
This where those automatically generated books already don't take the
date of games into account. If they would, they still depend upon
the AVERAGE move played. I can assure you: the average move in this
world is a 1500 rated move. Programs are stronger as 1500. But programs
are in opening not as strong as strong GMs are. They're not even
near FM level in opening.
Now hand tailored books are at least GM level books, So programs searching
for openingsbook moves gotta be way less than that.
To order books in magnitude of strength
A - CAPdata/automatically generated books
<big gap>
B - hand tailored books based upon GM commentary
C - hand tailored books taken into account latest theory
D - hand tailored books taken into account latest theory and
objective judgement of a position
E - same as D but now with years of testing and book updating
and especially taking into account how a program reacts
on the booklines based upon real games as played by thousands
at home at tournament level (so not blitz level).
I'm trying to make the step from A with a bit of B
directly to C, and i'm still one step behind some of
the real great books.
But the CAP data is still at A without a chance that its
holy believers will ever get to B, because seemingly they've
got nothing to do.
Vincent Diepeveen
diep@xs4all.nl
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