Author: Don Dailey
Date: 15:31:39 01/10/98
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Hi Bob, Yes, singular extensions are certainly complicated to implement. I'm sure there are a lot of ways to do it wrong and hurt the program and I believe it can be a win if you do it right. You said we were both absolutely destroyed by Deep Blues extensions. I don't remember this at all. We have played them twice and neither game went like this. The first game was considered the best game ever by 2 computers in a competition (which I don't beleive) and the 2nd game was very normal, no one getting a big advantage quickly. But I have a feeling they still would have a chance against us without the singular extensions. - Don P.S. I have a question for you: Do you believe S.E. helps more against humans than computers or visa versa? I think this is definitely a possibility. On January 10, 1998 at 15:03:53, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On January 10, 1998 at 14:53:44, Don Dailey wrote: > >>>I don't know of anyone who will make a statement of the form: "I/We do >>>singular extension, it helped us a lot, we proved to ourselves that it >>>is a good thing, and for you guys who are curious, here is a position >>>that we think it helps a lot in, and here is some other cool info >>>involving lots of other interesting numbers, for instance, look how many >>>more we get in the ECM suite with this!" >> >>>If someone wants to make all or part of the above statement, I would be >>>delighted to hear it. >> >> >>I cannot make this statement either. I implemented it a while back and >>it seemed to hurt the program slightly. But I'm not going to state >>the contrary either. There are too many factors and implementation >>details that could make a difference. >> >>But I'm not really too optimistic about these extensions because I don't >>think singularity is the key point although I do believe it is >>definitely >>relevant. >> >>The key point in my mind is to find a class of extensions that will make >>you understand things better at the end node. I tend to think in terms >>of "getting out there deeper" but I think that is wrong, the real issue >>is getting a more accurate score. I admit the "easiest" way to do this >>is to 'get out there deeper' but extensions always have the side effect >>of decreasing your minimum depth somewhere else, so we need to zero in >>on which moves these are. Singular moves are probably nothing more >>than >>"likely candidates", but still with low probability of helping. >> >>I'm guessing some variation of singularity that is more "picky" might >>be a better choice. I may re-implement sigular extensions and >>do some more experimentation. >> >>- Don > > >My only comment about these extensions, after the obvious "I tried them >years ago but thought they were too expensive" is that both of us have >been absolutely destroyed by them. > >IE in every game I have played against DT and its successors, it found >incredibly deep (winning) lines that we followed having no idea that >we were even in trouble. I posted one such position here or in r.g.c.c >a while back where they found a forced way to win a bishop and *saw* >they were winning, and this conbination ended up 30+ plies deep, with >none >of the moves being captures or checks. We saw the problem 10 full moves >after they first failed high. I also recall one of the last two ACM >events >where *Socrates was actually searching more NPS, and searching a ply or >two deeper (claimed iterative depth) but was totally crushed by a long >combination that they saw again at least 5-10 moves before *Socrates saw >it. > >Bottom line is this is complicated to implement, certainly won't be done >in 3 months or so, because there are *so* many side-issues they >explained >in their ICCA paper, including the sticky transposition table, plus >other >things needed to make this work. > >I don't like the idea of "singularity" either. However, their results >do >speak for themselves. And don't forget Genius is using a form of >singular >extensions (although I believe he uses a much weaker form). My first >cut >at these in 1978 involved many months of testing and tuning. And it >ended >up costing me a ply to find deeper tactics. Unfortunately it mean >dropping >back from 5 to 4, which was too much. I'd probably give a ply today if >I >could follow some of the deep forcing lines I see from time to time. > >It is still on my list to re-visit. But it has to wait until I have a >lot >of time because it is a complex algorithm to implement, if the whole >thing >is done and done right...
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