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Subject: Re: That busts me! I can't tollerate the differences anymore RE DJ vs DF

Author: John Merlino

Date: 16:08:44 04/30/01

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On April 30, 2001 at 19:01:37, Robert Raese wrote:

>On April 30, 2001 at 18:28:56, John Merlino wrote:
>
>>On April 30, 2001 at 15:43:56, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On April 30, 2001 at 13:20:33, stuart taylor wrote:
>>>
>>>>I feel It's just a bit tooo inconsistent now. First 5 straight wins for DJ, then
>>>>nothing like it again, and even 3 straight wins for DF.
>>>>There must be something wrong somewhere!
>>>>People can say calmly "that's ok! nothing to worry about! It's quite normal!"
>>>>OR perhaps, chess is really a game of luck!!!
>>>>OK, if its proven beyond doubt that all this was the way things go, without any
>>>>imballance or bug because of things like learning, autoplayer etc. that's fine.
>>>>But I would like to see it investigated fully.
>>>> Unless it was that the first 5 games were openings which were advantageous to
>>>>DJ, but having "learned" them, DF was now well protected from these Junior
>>>>tricks. Could that be the case?
>>>>S.Taylor
>>>
>>>
>>>Pick any two programs.  Play 50 games.  You will find at _least_ one place
>>>where each won 5 games in a row.  There is absolutely nothing unusual about
>>>this.
>>
>>Of course, you mean two theoretically equal programs (and do you also assume
>>that there are no draws?). And, just to test this, I just looked at the results
>>of a few 100-game matches, and there was only one instance of a program winning
>>four in a row. There were no five win sequences. There were MANY sequences in
>>which White won four in a row, though.
>>
>>But, hey, that's probability for you....
>>
>>jm
>
>i don't understand how odds can be determined when engine learning is part of
>the equation.
>
>a computer chess match is not the same as a series of coin tosses.  there must
>be less "randomness" in a series of games where intelligent systems with
>competing objectives are interacting within the rules of a game.  this is more
>like a dialogue than a roll of the dice.
>
>is there a probability theory that accounts for the practical realities of
>computer chess?
>
>how do you account for engine learning?  engine learning is an ongoing
>experiment conducted by the chess program.  it evaluates an opening line or a
>position and decides to repeat it or delete it from the realm of possibility.
>
>if you flip a coin five times, it may turn up "heads" all five times.  there is
>true randomness.
>
>but let's say you clap your hands and your cat looks to see what the noise is.
>when nothing more happens, it looks away.  so you decide to see how many times
>you can make the cat look.  well once he realizes the hand clapping means
>NOTHING the cat will stop looking.  you can't predict WHEN the cat will stop
>looking, but does that mean it's random?  are unpredictability and randomness
>the same thing?   it seems to me that wherever there is learning by an agent and
>synthesis with a situation, randomness decreases... i don't know...  it's
>complicated, to my mind anyway...
>
>any thoughts about this?

I agree entirely with your next-to-last sentence; yes, it's complicated. But I
was breaking the problem down to the simplest possibility probability statement
(as I assumed Dr. Hyatt was). Perhaps I was wrong.

Of course, bringing things like engine learning, processor speed difference and
phases of the moon into the equation just makes ME want to look the other way
(towards the nice SIMPLE equations.... ;-)

jm



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