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Subject: Re: Evaluation Accuracy

Author: Daniel Kang

Date: 09:31:20 11/19/00

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On November 19, 2000 at 02:30:21, Ricardo Gibert wrote:

>On November 19, 2000 at 01:34:14, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On November 19, 2000 at 01:15:22, Ricardo Gibert wrote:
>>
>>>On November 18, 2000 at 22:13:35, Peter Kappler wrote:
>>>
>>>>On November 18, 2000 at 21:23:54, Ricardo Gibert wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On November 18, 2000 at 12:37:20, Amir Ban wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On November 18, 2000 at 06:03:39, Graham Laight wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On November 17, 2000 at 19:24:23, Amir Ban wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>If your criterion of knowledge is based on accuracy of evaluation then I
>>>>>>>>respectfully apply for membership in the exclusive "knowledge based" club (and
>>>>>>>>IMO some members don't belong there).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>BTW, accuracy of evaluation is the best criterion for being knowledgable that
>>>>>>>>I'm aware of. I've posted here in the past that, to start with, we don't have a
>>>>>>>>real definition of what good evaluation means. This is the focus of my work with
>>>>>>>>Junior for more than a year.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>IMHO, a truly accurate evaluation of a position would yield one of the following
>>>>>>>3 ordinal values:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Win
>>>>>>>Draw
>>>>>>>Lose
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>-g
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Amir
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I can easily fake evaluation that gives only those values. I suppose that you
>>>>>>mean that the values should be true values. How do you propose to do that ? If I
>>>>>>have an eval that gives absolutely correct values 60% of the time (and the rest
>>>>>>wrong), do you expect my program to be weak or strong ? If I get 70% right, am I
>>>>>>necessarily stronger ?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The question is, given two evaluation functions, to decide which is more
>>>>>>accurate.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>This is a good question. Your answer does not seem to lead anywhere.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Amir
>>>>>
>>>>>With 100% correct evaluations of just win, lose or draw, can a program mate in K
>>>>>+ R vs K? I think it will just wander around unless mate happens to fall within
>>>>>the program search horizon. Yes?
>>>>
>>>>Yep, it would wander around until it lucked into a mate or until the "threat" of
>>>>a draw by the 50-move rule forced it to play a mating line.
>>>>
>>>>--Peter
>>>
>>>The 50 move rule may or may not force it to play a mating line. Example:
>>>
>>>Lets say the program has played 40 moves without pawn move or capture and is
>>>able to search only 20 ply. At that point, it may find that a draw due to the
>>>move rule is a problem, but may not be able to anything about it, since the
>>>position may actually require more than 10 moves (20 ply) to mate.
>>
>>If the program has accurate evaluation the 50 move rule is not relevant because
>>it will never go to a position that is drawn by the 50 move rule because the
>>evaluation will not let it to do it because it is going to tell it that it is a
>>draw(the same position with different history of the game should be evaluated as
>>a win but accurate evaluation should consider also the history of the game).
>>
>>If the program has accurate evaluation of draw,win,loss one ply search is enough
>>to win won positions.
>>
>>Uri
>
>It would be a pretty amazing eval that detects 50-move draws in the eval rather
>than in the search. I think the normal assumption is that it is detected in the
>search. I think that is quite clear that is the operative assumption in this
>thread.

Right. But we are talking about a *perfect* evaluation function. If the
evaluation function can only distinguish between the three ultimate outcomes,
search (beyond one ply) becomes completely redundant. I guess it depends on how
you see it but I'd expect a perfect eval to be able to tell if a position is
drawn or not.

Dan.



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