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Subject: Re: Evaluation Jumps in Gambit Tiger II and other misteries...

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 11:39:58 04/05/01

Go up one level in this thread


On April 05, 2001 at 11:27:09, Christophe Theron wrote:

>On April 05, 2001 at 09:33:21, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On April 05, 2001 at 01:28:10, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>
>>>On April 04, 2001 at 23:23:02, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On April 04, 2001 at 19:09:19, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On April 04, 2001 at 18:24:41, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On April 04, 2001 at 17:44:25, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On April 04, 2001 at 15:20:08, Dan Ellwein wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Christophe
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>in regards to the following quote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>"These changes are also the reason why I believe that Gambit Tiger needs a
>>>>>>>>little bit more depth than Chess Tiger to achieve its full strength. At very
>>>>>>>>shallow ply depths, there is too much uncertainty for Gambit. It needs more
>>>>>>>>depth to find stable king attack plans."
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Is it accurate to say that Gambit Tiger plays better at longer time controls...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>No, it is not what I'm claiming here.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>What I am saying is that Gambit Tiger is not suited for very slow computers.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Sorry, but those two statements are the _same_ thing:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>1.  GT needs a faster processor to do ok;
>>>>>>
>>>>>>2.  GT needs more time to do ok;
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>It's a matter of scale.
>>>>>
>>>>>I have made a few test games with Gambit Tiger 1.0 on a 20MHz computer, and it
>>>>>performed poorly because it was playing too obvious attacking moves that could
>>>>>be refuted just by looking a few plies deep.
>>>>>
>>>>>These were games in 10 minutes, and the program routinely reached 4 to 5 plies.
>>>>>
>>>>>On the other hand, look at the results of Gambit Tiger on current hardware at
>>>>>game in one minute (some results have been posted today) and you will see that
>>>>>this problem completely disappears very quickly.
>>>>>
>>>>>If you want to deduce from this that "Gambit plays better at longer time
>>>>>controls", very well. But it's of course not the case.
>>>>>
>>>>>And Gambit Tiger does NOT need a faster processor to do OK, unless you are
>>>>>talking about 5MHz computers.
>>>>>
>>>>>And Gambit Tiger does NOT need more time to do OK, unless you are speaking about
>>>>>0.05s per move.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Just check the posted results if you want to be sure.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>    Christophe
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>OK... I'll bite on this discussion.
>>>>
>>>>1.  I do _not_ believe that you have a "magic depth" that once you reach that,
>>>>you don't need more.  If a slow machine doesn't search deep enough, while a
>>>>faster machine does, I don't believe that is a "unit step function".  I believe
>>>>it is a "continuous function" so that as the hardware gets faster, the
>>>>advantage continues to accrue.  Otherwise you could find some magic depth and
>>>>say "if I  search below this I get killed, if I search above this, I never
>>>>have a problem."
>>>>
>>>>2.  I have seen the _same_ problem in my program.  My aggression is not so much
>>>>directed at king safety, as it is directed at avoiding blocked positions that
>>>>human IM/GM players strive for.  But at very shallow search depths, it will
>>>>make mistakes that it can't defend later, while at reasonable time limits, it
>>>>will not make aggressive counter-moves that ultimately lead to a quick loss
>>>>of material somewhere.  There is a steady improvement as depth increases...
>>>>
>>>>I don't see why such an idea is bad or wrong either.  It seems intuitive to
>>>>me...
>>>>
>>>>And don't forget, you can double the time per move, or double the clock speed
>>>>of the processor.  The effect is _identical_.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Maybe you are right, Bob.
>>>
>>>What I said is based on a few games I have played with Gambit Tiger 1.0 on a
>>>very slow computer, at a time control of game in 10 minutes. What I have seen
>>>convinced me to stop using Gambit Tiger on this kind of computer, at that time
>>>control.
>>>
>>>But I should maybe try again and maybe with enough games Gambit would eventually
>>>turn out to be as useable as Chess Tiger on slow computers.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>    Christophe
>>
>>
>>I run into real problems with null move and shallow depths, as I have reported
>>before.  This is one reason crafty is not a great bullet chess player.  Yes,
>>against humans it is usually murder.  But against a "safer" type of pruning, it
>>does very badly at 1 0 games.
>
>
>
>The problems you have with null move at shallow depths come from your QSearch
>which is too simple.
>
>
>
>    Christophe
>
>


I like it simple.  :)

But in any case, if I did the older style q-search I used to do, it would
only change things slightly.  Null-move still knocks off 2-3 plies of
depth, which will hide things that any q-search can't recover from...




>
>
>>  It does better at 5 3 games.  Even better at
>>40/2hr games, and at 2 hours+ per move (ie Ed's 2010 experiment) it has no
>>problems at all that I could see.
>>
>>I think the more aggressively you play, the more this becomes evident, too.  As
>>a "safe" program doesn't hang things out in the wind.  But an aggressive program
>>can be led to do so by the evaluation, unless the search refutes the idea.



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