Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 10:51:24 11/11/00
Go up one level in this thread
On November 10, 2000 at 14:57:06, Joe Besogn wrote:
>On November 10, 2000 at 14:12:31, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On November 10, 2000 at 09:16:06, Mogens Larsen wrote:
>>
>>>On November 10, 2000 at 08:41:24, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>
>>>>The question is how do you combine the 2 programs.
>>>
>>>Exactly. That was the point of my last paragraph. I suppose it would be
>>>essential to analyze where the strengths and weaknesses of the programs differ
>>>and interpret them as patterns recognizeable for some sort of evaluation
>>>function.
>>>
>>>I was talking with Bob about applying SMP knowledge to run different engines at
>>>the same time and base the selectivity on an advanced evaluation engine. I still
>>>think it's possible to implement and get good results.
>>>
>>>>I thought about the idea of a root processor that decides based on the root
>>>>position which engine to use.
>>>
>>>What should a root processor "look" for?
>>>
>>>>It can be based on previous evaluations of the program.
>>>>
>>>>I think that starting to use tiger13 when Gambittiger shows big scores may be a
>>>>good idea because when gambit shows a big score the job of attacking was done
>>>>and the problem of tiger that I found in the game against crafty that was posted
>>>>by thorsten was that it did not like to go to an endgame and prefered
>>>>speculation of 3 pawns and not winning a rook for a bishop but I do not believe
>>>>that it can lead to an improvement of more than 20-30 elo.
>>>
>>>It might be useful to make certain that the high evaluation of GT is maintained
>>>for x number of moves before concluding that the attack has accomplished a
>>>winning position by transposing to the endgame. Basically that would mean
>>>reducing or removing "speculation" altogether at a cetain point in the endgame.
>>>
>>>Maybe it's possible to encourage or favour the speculative approach in certain
>>>positions where the structure is immoveable in order to open up for the tactics.
>>>That might not necessarily be a good idea.
>>>
>>>Mogens.
>>
>>
>>
>>This discussion between you and Uri sounds interesting, and the ideas might be
>>true and useable.
>>
>>However I see a much simpler way to get an already significant improvement by
>>using Chess Tiger 13.0 and Gambit Tiger 1.0 together, and any owner of the Rebel
>>11 CD can do it:
>>
>>The trick is very simple: just decide to use either Chess Tiger or Gambit Tiger
>>depending on which opponent you have to play.
>>
>>During the beta test period, we have gathered informations about the performance
>>of the two engines, and we have noticed that against some opponents Gambit Tiger
>>was scoring very well, while against other opponents Chess Tiger did much
>>better.
>>
>>I should dig into my archives to find the right information, but I remember that
>>for example Gambit Tiger 1.0 crushed Shredder 4, and did 50% against Junior6.
>>Chess Tiger 13.0 did much better against Junior6. This has been reported by
>>several testers, who have played matches independantly.
>>
>>These two opponents are just an example. The important point is that Chess Tiger
>>and Gambit Tiger have different winning profile against different opponents and
>>it must be possible to take advantage of this.
>>
>>Given that against a given opponent the difference in winning percentage between
>>Chess Tiger and Gambit Tiger can easily be around 10%, I guess that the
>>difference between "using always the same Tiger engine" and "using the right
>>Tiger engine for an opponent" could be 5% in average, which makes an elo
>>difference of 35 elo points.
>>
>>Given the current level of competition between chess progams, 35 elo points is a
>>significant advantage.
>>
>>If the idea of selecting the engine depending on the opponent sounds shocking to
>>you, remember that this strategy is a main source of success for human players.
>>Human players KNOW who they are playing, and adapt their style according to
>>their opponent (and also according to the specific conditions of the game).
>
>Scenario:
>
>Big deal championship match between top program (better than Deep Blue) and
>world human champion.
>
>1. Top program can use any style it wants, play in a way previously unseen and
>kept hidden by the developers.
>
>2. Or, top program has a relatively consistent style, changes openings, but
>style variations are like a humans, not too much, so the style remains
>identifiable.
>
>
>(2) is what happens when human plays human, each can look at the old games, and
>get a general idea of what they expect. At GM level this research is very
>important, and knowing-the-opponent is a GM strength.
>
>Your proposal, while doable, takes human-computer games into the asme field as
>DB-Kasparov, ie the human has no pre-knowledge. This is unfair and should be
>outlawed.
>
>Thus I propose Rule 1 of computer program behaviour: a programmer may not make
>unknown or varied styles that enable the program to gain a surprise advantage
>over a human.
>
>Rule 2 should outlaw similar behaviour against other programs.
You must be kidding?
There is no way to force a human player to play in his usual style.
There will be no way to force any program to play with a "consistent"
predictable style.
Your "forbidding rule 2" is completely stupid and impossible to enforce. It
would prevent programs to reach higher levels of intelligence anyway.
If I want to write a polymorphic program and use it in tournaments, who's going
to forbid me to do so???
>Users need to know and have a relatively consistent style when they purchase or
>download, not some randomising monster.
Users call programs with predicatble style that you can beat several times in
the same way "stupid".
And they are right.
Looks like you want the programs to stay stupid forever...
It can be a program feature to let the user set the playing style (passive,
agressive, whatever...), but by default the program on its strongest setting
should be able to vary its playing style.
>The things these programmers will do to gain rating points.
>
>
>>
>>The players able to adapt gain a lot of points because of this, and this
>>strategy is considered with respect amongst human players.
>>
>>I think that using Sarah's tournaments results (which are public) it must be
>>possible to see against which opponents Gambit Tiger performs better. It should
>>also be possible from these public results to see if by selectively using Gambit
>>Tiger or Chess Tiger it is possible to get a much better performance for the
>>"Tiger family".
>>
>>Then an experiment could be done in order to verify that the improvement is
>>consistent and reproductible.
>>
>>I believe an elo improvement of 35 points is possible.
>>
>
>Old paradigm thinking. Rating points are not important any more, Doh! It's style
>of play. Tiger's style of play (if it is what is reported) is what is important,
>not some silly chasing of rating points.
There are people interested by rating points. It's my work to satisfy them as
well as people interested by playing style.
Christophe
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