Author: Adrien Regimbald
Date: 11:25:07 08/11/00
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Hello, >Fritz is a chess engine. This is a chess position. Fritz can't do it despite >the fact that a 5 year old child could easily see the mate in a few seconds. >This means that Fritz has failed. The problem is not that Fritz can't do _this_ >position, but rather that Fritz spends over an hour on a problem which should >take it a tiny fraction of a second. It shows that the algorithm is doing >something wrong. Imagine a ramp down in problem complexity with an associated >ramp-down (not necessarily linear) of time required on average. It's still >going to be taking far too long to solve other pretty obvious problems which >aren't as contrived as this one. Fritz didn't fail. The move which it would have played in normal time controls would still have won. How can one possibly conceive of this as a failure? Also - are you going to worry about a position which wouldn't happen in a million years between any two players with an IQ greater than that of a monkey? I can tell you that I won't spend any sleepless nights over such positions! >Checking for mates before you do any searching is not only fast, but it vastly >improves search times on positions like this. I've often seen ColChess analyse >4 or 5 ply deeper in some positions than, say, Crafty in the same time. That >was because there are lots of CMs flying around to avoid. As someone involved in computer chess, you should realize that it is a constant battle of compromises. If you make seeing short mates immediately a priority at the cost of overall playing strength, and the program starts playing at a grossly worse strength overall, would you be happy? Personally, I'd rather have a program that played well in a greater percentage of positions, perhaps at a cost to strength of around 200-300 max points (to me the difference between getting smacked around by a 2300 and a 2600 really doesn't matter), but I can assure you that even this compromise is not on the mind of the people at ChessBase who are trying to make the strongest possible chess engine. I also think that the modifications necessary to make a program play correcty in a retarded position like this would come at a significant cost to overall ELO, which I think is completely unacceptable considering the uselessness of this position. Regards, Adrien.
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