Author: Peter Kappler
Date: 23:08:13 12/13/00
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On December 13, 2000 at 23:07:25, Michael Neish wrote: >On December 13, 2000 at 19:26:20, Robin Smith wrote: > >>The likelyhood of chess being a win for white, with perfect play from both >>sides, is very low. This is born out by computer-computer games, where the draw >>percentage increases as search depth/time increases and also by the fact that >>super GM vs. super GM games have a much higher draw rate than games by lower >>rated players. In both cases as playing strength increases the percentage of >>draws also increases. Strong evidence that chess is a draw. Also, in decisive >>games one almost invariably finds that one of the players either made a mistake >>or mistakes, or at the very least took unneccesary risks. And most strong >>chesspayers believe a perfectly played game should end in a draw. When Kasparov >>was once asked why he did not win a particular game he replied "Chess is a draw, >>no?". >>So, there will NEVER be any computer opening database, no matter how big, where >>computers (playing white) think the 1st position out of book is always at least >>+2.50 for the computer .... unless the computer has a seriously flawed >>evaluation, in which case it will hardly mean chess is solved. >> > >With all due respect, the points you make in your post, if correct (and some I >think are debatable), merely suggest that Chess might be a draw, and do not >prove it. They do not justify the strong conclusion you make at the end. > >The draw rate is reflected in a player's rating. If two player's ratings are >close, then of course they are going to draw more often than not. At any rate, >super-GMs might not be seeing anywhere near far enough over the board for the >outcome of a position to be proved beyond a doubt. > >It was my understanding that there is no evidence of a decline in the rate of >improvement of a computers' play with increasing ply depth. I.e., a 7-ply >searcher is expected to have the same rating difference compared to a 6-ply >searcher as a 13 to a 12, etc. I think this is the established view, although >I've also heard of (but never directly read) an opposing view. Maybe someone >who knows more about this can confirm or deny it. You're probably thinking of Ernst Heinz's self-play experiments with Fritz. His results (based on thousands of games) strongly suggested that the benefit of an extra ply diminishes with increasing search depth. (FWIW, this "diminishing return" seems completely obvious to me, and I'm always surprised that this topic is controversial...) If you go through the CCC archives from earlier this year you will find many discussions about this. --Peter
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