Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 19:03:26 07/06/00
Go up one level in this thread
On July 06, 2000 at 19:41:31, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >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. This is a bogus title for a thread. CAP isn't right in all cases. Neither is "most popular move". Nor "move suggested by Kasparov (or Anand or Karpov or any other GM)". CAP data _is_ good and reliable. You simply have to use it as one of several decision-making ideas. Not _the_ decision making idea. Weighted with other things like frequency, learning, even simple positional evaluation, CAP data can contribute to a better move choice. Used by itself, it can also contribute to a bad choice. As can even a top GM's suggestion(s). If you don't want to use the data, don't. But I don't see any reason to suggest that others should not try it. They might have a better idea than you do (or than I do). Dismissing something just because you don't see (yet) how to use it is not a good way to make progress. Had I dismissed bitmaps so quickly, I would have missed something that has turned out to be very interesting and useful. IMHO... >-------------------------------------------------------------- > >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 > >---- >to unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@cis.uab.edu. In the body of >the email, enter "unsubscribe crafty-list" (without the quotes).
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