Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 06:36:26 11/13/97
Go up one level in this thread
On November 13, 1997 at 07:13:03, Chris Whittington wrote: > >This is not directed specifically at Amir ....... > >I think the whole lot of you are avoiding the crucial issue from the >games at WMCCC. > >The fast searchers, even with 767 alphas, were expected to sweep the >board. Manifestly they didn't. > >Some other fast searchers, running on PC's also under-performed >according to expectations. > >Several programs (ranging from very slow, to quite fast, but none of >them brute monsters) were not even spoken about before the WMCCC as >being of any interest, performed way above expectations. > >One program (self-promotion prize Kim-il-Sung already awarded) running >at 4000 nps did really rather well. > >Something is going on, and none of you is addressing it. > >Compare the cock-crowing and hubris from before the event .... > >The old knowledge-speed issue which gets jumped on as >boring/tedious/been through it all before/our way is best by the usual >culprits rears its ugly head again :) > >Chris Whittington Let me get this right. You do reasonably well in *one* tournament, and suddenly the "fast programs" are left behind in the dust? What about the "fast programs" last year in Jakarta? What about Rebel leading the SSDF for a good while, yet clearly falling in the "fast program" category based on search speed? No one's said that the fast programs will "dominate" everyone else. I have said repeatedly that going faster is always better, so long as going faster doesn't mean excluding knowledge that is important. You predict "our" demise far too soon. Repeat your result two or three times in a row, *then* you can make your claim to fame. I can remember Tony Marsland's program Awit finishing in second place in the 1983 WCCC in New York. Tony would not think of claiming he had "caught" the fast programs, based on that one tournament result. At the time Cray Blitz was doing 20K nodes per second, Belle was doing 160K, and awit was doing 100. So don't read too much into Paris just yet. Time will reveal the truth, as always... I seem to recall Thorsten being very depressed about how CSTal was doing against a "fast program" right before Paris. That hasn't changed at all, other than the author of that "fast program" did some things that turned out to be obviously bad after the fact. Of course, if you want to believe the "fast" guys are being "left behind", feel free to do so. But be sure that in addition to watching your rear-view mirror, you occasionally look out the front window too. Never know who/what you might see up there as well. :) I would also suggest that *any* program that searches at 80K nps on a P6/200 must fall into the "fast" category, because that is how fast *I* am going. When you take that benchmark, you might be surprised to evaluate the programs that finished at the top in Paris. I would be hard-pressed to call *any* of them "slow and knowledge-based" when considering their speed...
This page took 0.01 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.