Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 12:40:12 11/13/97
Go up one level in this thread
On November 13, 1997 at 13:50:11, Chris Whittington wrote: > >Great idea. Lets do it. A sort of team event ? >OK, go for it. How to organise ? I propose this as a "friendly" competition. I'd love to see 8 programs with ICC interfaces running on 'auto-pilot' but that likely won't happen. The advantage to using an auto interface is time. In a long match game, operator time doesn't matter much, but with an auto interface, you don't even need an operator to play the game. So there is no need to have some- one sit in front of a terminal for several hours. I'd suggest a chess server. We might even get one to offer some small prize for the winning team, or whatever. At least we can get one hell of a big audience and have fun doing this... I like 8 programs as probably workable. And 8 rounds so color is no issue (only slow vs fast games, no slow vs slow, and no fast vs fast) and then we can jointly TD the thing since there are no pairing hassles to worry with. We can do 4 games simultaneously, or simply say "here is your opponent for this week, schedule two games with him at the right T/C, on one of the chess servers, and go." 4 at once would be more fun, with a chat channel for comments. We could probably get at least one GM to join in from time to time and comment on the games. We can probably get several IM's to do this also... > > >Everybody wants to claim 'knowledge' status, i think. So even >programmers with fast evals claim it. Personally I think knowledge=4000 >nps, anything faster is brute-force materialism :) I'd like to see "knowledge" defined correctly, but don't know how to do this easily. you and Hiarcs are the only two that reall come to mind, plus maybe marty's new program (Mchess6). I can ask him to see if he is interested since we communicate via email from time to time. I'd guess that he is as knowledge-based as anyone is. So that makes 3. Who is #4? >>programs we can put together... > >Why not ? Better to have some programs with 'known' internals. it helps >the post mortem discussions. > I'm willing. I suspect Bruce will be too. We ought to instantly address the platform of course. Everyone uses P6/200? Which reminds me, what about Diep? He's pretty slow, but has been playing very well on ICC lately. > >Yeah :) I didn't mean to be *that* beligerent :) > I didn't think so. :) > >Fair comment. Except that I think also == interesting an/or idealistic. > Don't take my comment as negative. I also long for a program that attacks like Tal. But I want it to defend like Kasparov, play positionally like karpov, and sees combinations like deep blue. I'd be hell then. :) >> >>I am on the side of what I will call "positional chess"... and I read >>"My >>System" 30 years ago and haven't forgotten it yet... pawn structure is >>most >>important in winning the majority of the games played. You might study >>a lot >>of Tal's games, and find many where he attacked and won, but you also >>find >>many where he won nice endgames. >> >>You are on the other side of this "hill", striving to follow paths that >>lead >>to complex and unclear positions. Nothing wrong with that. But when >>you do >>it while wrecking your position, it can and does backfire. > > >Tell me about it :( I've been there. With a few neat bugs a year ago I had a Crafty that was the talk of ICC and r.g.c.c, pushing pawns, ripping the position open, and blowing GM's away like flies. But then they started paying attention, and this stuff started backfiring. :) *badly*... :) > >> To play with >>and >>beat GM players, you are going to have to retreat quite a ways from >>where you >>are. Your program plays too wildly, which will win some games. but it >>is >>going to leave itself positionally lost in all the others. And that is >>not >>good enough, IMHO. > >Time will tell ..... > >> >>I have a ways to go too. You don't like my current search. That's your >>opinion. I haven't gotten outsearched in quite a while, haven't made >>what >>I would call a tactical mistake in quite a while, when considering the >>current >>speed and depth I get. So I'm reasonably happy with where I am. I >>intend to >>play with singular extensions again, later, which may (or may not) help >>with >>some deep tactical lines, but I can do that without throwing out what I >>have >>already done... >> >>So I'm climbing the hill up the front, improving my pawn structure eval >>bit >>by bit, improving my understanding of piece coordination bit by bit, and >>I'm >>going to continue to get better, indefinitely. >> >>You ran over the top of the hill, and so far down the back side, that >>you >>have problems with programs that your attacking style can't crush with >>the >>complications. And you've slowly started coming back toward the top, >>getting >>rid of some of the unsound sacs. > >Hmmmmm. Not so sure this is accurate .... maybe, maybe not. you don't seem to be sacrificing as wildly as you were a year ago when you played some on ICC. I haven't seen any recent games that Thorsten played vs Crafty so I don't know what is going on there... > > >> >>A disinterested third party might notice that we are both moving toward >>the >>*exact* same goal, but from opposite sides. Who gets there first is not >>easy >>to say. But there's nothing *at present* that would convince me that >>you arrive >>before I do. You may well do so. And you might not. Based on >>Thorsten's >>remarks about playing the two programs, my approach seems to have its >>plusses. >> >>About fast vs slow. What's fast? 80K is my speed on a P6. That is >>also >>Rebel's speed. We are both *way* behind Fritz. You are at 4K. You are >>definitely slow. But that does *not* necessarily mean you are better. >>I >>recall a program named Awit, by Tony Marsland, which finished in 2nd at >>the >>1983 WCCC in New York, searching 100 nodes per second. I was doing 20K >>and >>won, Ken Thompson was doing 160K and came in behind me and Tony. But >>ask >>Tony and he'd hardly say that he was better than Belle. There were >>really >>3 contenders that year, Belle, Cray Blitz, and Nuchess. The others were >>a >>ways back. So, again, slow is != good, and more than fast == bad. It >>isn't >>so much how fast you go, but more of what you do while going that fast. >>I'm >>getting slower every year, because of the eval which is now right at 50% >>of the >>total search time. This might hit 60-70% by next year. I don't count. >>I only >>work on doing what I think are the "right" things (knowledge-wise) and >>try to >>do them as quickly as I possibly can. >> >> >>>Viva chess knowledge. Bits, bytes, 64-bits, knowledge independant >>>null-move bollocks - go take a running jump :) >> >> >>we will take that jump. And I bet you feel *exactly* where we land. :) >>After you pick yourself up and dust yourself off, that is. :) > > >ok, lets do the team tourney .... > > >Chris Whittington > > >> >> >>> >>>Chris Whittington >> >>Back to the knowledge question: You are worried about following a >>pathway >>into unclear territory. I want to do the opposite... I want to find a >>pathway >>into winning territory. A comment I have gotten quite frequently for a >>year or >>so now concerns the "outside passed pawn" evaluation I do. Players have >>begun >>to notice that Crafty (a) likes to reach positions where it has one, >>even if it >>is (on occasion) a pawn down; (b) it then seems to understand that >>trading down >>makes that pawn more important; and (c) it also understand that it has >>to give >>it up at the right moment. >> >>none of that is complicated. But it wins about 1/3 of its games based >>on that >>code, which is fairly complicated overall. There are many other such >>ideas that >>I do, some that I don't do (yet). For example, I don't understand that >>a >>queen-side majority is really an outside passed pawn, *yet*. I'm >>working on >>that now. >> >>But I've not seen many "fast and dumb" programs that make more >>positional >>material sacrifices than I do, maybe *too* many in fact. And I'm >>working to >>stop most of that without taking away the important aspects of the >>knowledge >>that is causing them. >> >>I don't see *anything* that limits my current approach. I don't see >>*any* >>large barrier that lies ahead and blocks progress beyond a certain >>point. So >>I think you write me (and others) off too quickly. You might do well >>with your >>approach. I *know* I'm going to do well with mine. The current best >>program >>in the world is nothing more than fast + knowledge. I can do both, but >>I can't >>do it as fast as they can. *yet*... >> >>But "never" is a very long time... :)
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