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Subject: Re: New version of EXchess

Author: pavel

Date: 00:05:19 11/19/00

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On November 19, 2000 at 02:49:49, Aaron Tay wrote:

>On November 19, 2000 at 01:47:13, pavel wrote:
>
>>On November 18, 2000 at 23:40:08, Dan Homan wrote:
>>
>>>On November 18, 2000 at 23:23:27, Brian Richardson wrote:
>>>
>>>>On November 18, 2000 at 23:06:36, Dan Homan wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>I've just put a new version of EXchess up on my website:
>>>>>
>>>>>http://pc.astro.brandeis.edu/BRAG/people/dch/chess.html
>>>>>
>>>>>The new version (v4.01) adds Temporal Difference evaluation learning to the
>>>>>previous version (v3.14).  I am not sure that this really increases the strength
>>>>>of the program, but it was fun to work on.  There are a couple of other minor
>>>>>enhancements to the search and opening book code.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Dan
>>>>
>>>>About how many games with TD learning have been played and did it change your
>>>>evaluation function much?
>>>
>>>
>>>I've played hundreds of games, but I've also reset the learned values back to
>>>the original parameters many times as well.  For the parameters which come with
>>>the released version, I am not sure how many games contribute.  Another wrinkle
>>>is that the program only 'learns' after a loss, so the number of 'learning
>>>games' is smaller than the number of games played.
>>>
>>>One consistent result is that TD learning wants a smaller value for passed
>>>pawns than I was using before (about 75% of my original 'hand-tuned' value).
>>>Also my knight-outpost and bishop-outpost values are consistently increased
>>>by the TD learning by a factor of 3 or 4.
>>>
>>> - Dan
>
>
>
>
>>can you elavorate TD learning?
>>as far as I know, it fixes value after each game.
>>
>>is there any file generated by the program as a .lrn file, which increases after
>>game?
>>or the eval is tuned externally?
>>
>>
>>pavs
>
>There is a score.par file that changes after each loss. But I don't see anyway
>to combine learning from other sources much like you can import learning from
>other sources for crafty's book..
>
>Is there a way? Otherwise if each new version of EXchess came with a new
>score.par file , does that mean the learning each user has will be tossed out?
>
>I'm also curious about how Exchess decides what to tune after each loss. How
>does it "know" what evalution scores to change?
>
>I will run 100 blitz games first vers various strong opponents (to maximise
>losses..:( !! ) and see how the score.par changes. Currently, i see the passed
>pawn value dropping quite significantly and knight outpost values increasing
>inline with what the author found..


also one more thing I noticed in the webpage, it's a brute force proram.
no selective search?

also it seems if the program uses losses to tune it;s eval, then it can be
misinterpreted.
for instance, result from a game that was played in 5 min/game, will have lesser
values of importance then a game that was played at 40/40 or 40/60.


so it can be interpreted that an exchess version that plays only 5min blitz will
have one kind of tuned eval, while the other one that plays mainly 40/40 will
differant. Which one is  best? :)

this are mainly assumption, as I need to know (more clearly) what TD learning
is.


thanks
pavs.



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