Author: Thorsten Czub
Date: 12:45:19 12/13/97
Go up one level in this thread
>>I have no evidence. But a feeling. AND: you can proof this feeling by >>waiting 3 months until the autoplayer has outplayed some reasonabnle >>data. >>So why mistrust feelings when I can proof them ???? > >You can prove nothing here I'm afraid. You can claim one program is >better based on the games and then with a lot of EMPIRICAL evidence >the evidence can be said to be in your favor at best. I could also >take a >completely random guess and have a 50/50 chance of being "proven" >correct. I do not only say: it is stronger, I normally give an ELO. Example: before Paris I had the chance to test Virtual2-beta and also Shredder2-beta. I send compliments to the 2 programmers, i told the virtual-programmers that from my point of view they would win the championship, from my experience at home with their beta. I also told Stefan Meyer-Kahlen that he has also very good chances to win the championship. I was amused by the discussion in rgcc whether Virtual or Shredder is the stronger WIN95 program. I had of course no data about Junior. So I did not thought about Junior. But Virtual played as strong as I thought, and shredder also. So - I have NOT played hundreds of games to find out about them. Maybe i played and watched 20 games of shredder2-beta and maybe 10 games (40/120) of Virtual2-beta. That was enough to be sure that they will make it. I am sure, if I would have had a beta of junior before, I would have found out that junior will be the winner with a few games. So - lets say this above is true , WHY THE HELL IS THEIR A NEED TO PLAY 100 or 200 or (as Andreas Mader always claims, 500 or more games with the autoplayer) when playing a few games comes to the same result/evaluation ? > But the only thing it would prove is that I'm a "lucky" >guesser! Aha. Of course you can use this point ALWAYS. You can ALWAYS say when somebody knows the future in forward: lucky guesser. But luck is a word that has nothing to fill in. It is a black whole and not filled with explanation. Good luck is an alibi, used by people who have no idea what happened. (please don't understand this as an insult. My point is that there are words that are ritually used whenever nobody wants or has an idea what is going on, like: God knows, or : good luck. Kismet. Randomn.) >I gave an example earlier of how strong players believed >one program was better than another by looking at the games, but they >were wrong. > >Let's say we get a 7 to 3 score but in fact the it's the stronger player >that lost this very short match. Now you are telling me that you could >look at the games and see that in fact the guy who scored 3 points is >the stronger player? But the games themselves indicated that the weaker >player in fact played the better game (for whatever reason.) Right. Exactly !! Because in the game of a chess program, different from a human beeing, you can SEE why it loses. A human beeing often loses for non-chess-reasons. A computer program has bugs too. But despite from bugs a computer program has many ways to misunderstand chess-concepts . And THESE misunderstandings can lead to a loss. And you can see these misunderstandings IN THE GAMES. > >I don't want to contradict you but I have serious doubts that you or >anyone is this good a judge. Can we put it abstract. I don't want to drive this discussion into the direction: I can do it! You can't ! I can do it! Let us discuss it abstract because it is my deep believe that ANYBODY can do this. We all are used to do this in normal life, but we forgot the infinite times it happens in our lifes. Because it is so often! If you drink beer (and i know many people in my family who can proof this!!) for 20 years, and you are used to drink much beer (germans drink much beer!!) and you drink 40 kinds of beer (you can choose in a supermarket, you get different beer at a party) than i promise you: these guys drinking beer can tell you WHICH beer they drink without KNOWING it from watching the bottle or seeing it. They SMELL/TASTE it. And I am sure a tea-drinker or a wine-drinker can do the same. If somebody collects stamps he can maybe identify stamps by only seeing the BACKSIDE of the stamps. I think we all have these NORMAL "get used to something" features. The only problem is: we often do not believe them because our LOGIC and rationalism tells us wrongly: it is not true. I know disc-jockeys who can identify songs only from a few notes quoted out of the song. I know painters who can draw all kinds of famous-humans only with a few lines. And you can identify these famous persons from a few lines ! Computers could never do this !!! And it would always take much longer for computers to identify the guy from a few lines. But the human brain is able to do it. And it is a normal thing we all know from our life. It has nothing to do with LUCK or 50/50 chances. > Of course if you were show a hundred >games >you would notice trends, strengths and weaknesses of each program but >I'll bet you would not cast your vote in favor of the lower scoring >player. > >Here is a thought experiment: > >Take 2 programs, A and B such that A is 100 rating points stronger than >B based on lots of evidence. Play a series of games. Pick out 10 wins >from player A, 5 white and 5 black. Do the same for player B. Make >sure the >games are selected completely at random. > >Do you believe you can easily tell who the better player is? I am >betting >that you have no better than a 50 percent chance of correctly >identifying >the better player. Who has ever said the experiment has to be done THIS way ??? Who has forced Einstein to show his cpabilities by throwing him out of an airplane and told him: if you are einstein, you will find a way not to die... Thats nonsense. Person get the programs, at his home, he needs a few days, let's say 30 days. In these 30 days he plays maybe 20 x 40/120 games. And normally after his studies he knows enough about the program to rate it in ELO. And than let us wait 4 or 5 months until the swedish guys have played THEIR needed amount of games to come to the same result (IF they don'T make mistakes with HOW TO OPERATE THE PROGRAMS ACCURATE :-). > If the >difference >in strength is huge, you can probably see this with a smaller sample, >which >is exactly the way it is with normal testing. Sorry - this is against all "HIS" experience. He does not need massive number of games. "HE" does not need much number of games to find out about a good-engine and another one that is maybe 10 ELO points stronger. >I think it's unlikely that you are blessed with the ability to pick out >the >better player QUICKLY from just looking at the games, except by noticing >that the better player keeps getting better positions (and does not >screw >them up) i.e. he is winning more games! > But Don, a game is more than the moves. I have in a normal game almost 40 or even 80 positions. I see 80 times main-lines and evaluation and search-depth parallel !! I can correlate the data machine A presents and machine B presents and find out with correlating the data. NO MACHINE can correlate this as sensible like a human beeing. You need to feel !! Example: a computer plays chess like a car-driver in his first driving-lesson. Do you remember how nervous and concentrated you tried to make anything RIGHT in your first driving lesson ? And - how do you drive today ? Do you still THINK about HOW to drive ? Who drives ?? You or something else IN YOU ? I use the same POWER that drives my car to find out about 2 data-outputs that i can correlate 80 times live in a chess-game. Don't mix this up with statistics and computers. No computer can drive a car as save a a human beeing learns it over the years. If I am wrong, please tell me. Let us talk about the person who can do this as person "he". >-- Don
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