Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 16:19:20 05/29/01
Go up one level in this thread
On May 29, 2001 at 17:55:11, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On May 29, 2001 at 12:33:47, Bruce Moreland wrote: [big snip] >>For the something more than Nth time, I don't care about this, since these >>functions are not returning "mate in 32", etc. > >What makes "mate in 32" any more special than sqrt(4)? Both have absolute >answers, require no thought on our part to code them, etc. The goal of computer chess competition is to take a set of commonly available tools, and use it to create a program that plays chess better than other programs. The tools must be sufficiently basic or this won't be interesting. If one of the tools is Fritz, it's obvious that the competition is doomed. Fritz gives you a solution to the problem, without requiring anything additional. The EGTB stuff is an extremely powerful tool, but the only reason people will even consider that this stuff should be considered to be part of a basic tool set is that the part of the game this helps in is boring, much effort is required to get to that part of the game, and it would be hard to improve this tool. The stuff is also easily integrated into anyone's engine. >>There has to be a line somewhere, to keep me from pulling your whole eval >>function out and using it directly. That might be good software reuse, but it >>screws up a competitive event, where the point is to have original code >>competing. > >I don't disagree there at all. I just don't consider a EGTB probe to be >anything like an evaluation at all. In my eval, I consider what patterns I >want to recognize and how they interact, and the weights they get. For an >EGTB probe, I get the same value whether I write my own or use the code >written by someone else... Perhaps we are making progress here. I agree with this, and that's why I say the EGTB thing is a marginal case. It does bear some thought though, or people will go beyond this. >>If I fix it in mine, and yours says mate in 78, and mine says draw, and 50 moves >>later the came is a draw by FIDE rules, I should get a half point. What could >>your argument be that I shouldn't get a half point. That "everyone" is using >>the Nalimov tables? This is my point exactly. > > >No. I agree with you 100% there. The "I don't buy that argument" was directed >at the statement you made about "the argument that everyone has." I don't >believe the rules should be bent to validate a database that has an obvious >problem with the 50-move rule. Good. This is a sensible answer. >>Someone who enters the mate in 78 ending without any tables at all should also >>get the draw 50 moves later. What's the alternative? To force this guy to >>reset the 50-move counter so it will continue to play, so you don't have to fix >>your bug? > > >Nope. I try to play within the rules... and my program will do everything it >can to not draw by 50 move rule, without turning a win into a loss. But it >can fail if there is no way to push a pawn at the right instant. The search >takes care of this in many cases. > >I don't want special treatment for any program, with or without tables... Good. >>I agree that the opening book is the biggest problem here. I would obviously >>give up the whole EGTB argument in exchange for the opening book argument. > >Back to my point: how to develop a policy that can be enforced? That is the >problem I see. It is already hard enough to ensure that a program isn't a clone >of another program. What about the books? How could I prove my book is from a >collection of random PGN games rather than pirated from (say) ChessBase and >Fritz??? Suppose I use the latter to play, but the former for your examination? > >This seems impossible to me... and if it is impossible to enforce, it is >probably not worth the effort to worry about it... If there is a rule, I will enforce it in my own program. Maybe others will enforce it in theirs. Every little bit helps. I am sure that people will cheat, since people already cheat on trivial things, like declaring a beta-tester to be a co-author on something because the author doesn't want to attend a tournament. That doesn't bother me that much. >>The issues here are similar to the issues involved when we're talking about >>plagiarism of academic works. > >I agree. But with academic works, we can compare word for word. Since most >don't publish their source, we will never know how rampant (or not) this is. >We have certainly seen at _least_ two copies of Crafty, (voyager and Le Petite >were certainly exact copies) not to mention others like Gunda and Bionic. I >wonder if that is "all" or "just barely the surface"?? The solution is not to make it legal, unless we suddenly decide that these clones are good and that we want them. There are a lot of people who don't even think about ethics of certain situations. Let's ask around about book sharing and see what people say. What is ChessBase going to say about sharing books between its engines? They are going to say that they do it because there is no rule against it, or more simply perhaps they will say that I am wrong. If I am right, and there is a rule against doing this, then doing this becomes cheating. And they will have to decide whether to cheat or not to cheat. Some people believe that there are costs to cheating, even if you don't get caught. >>Of course, but we "all" don't use "mate in 32", etc. source code written by >>others. > > >I see no more creativity in probing an egtb than I do in computing the sqrt() >of a number... Perhaps creating the database was interesting. Or developing >the complex indexing scheme to minimize the size was interesting. But once it >is done, I don't see how making everyone do it again changes anything. They >get the _exact_ same value whether they use Eugene's tables or "roll their >own" which is an important point. The results _must_ match or there is a bug >to fix... This is true. Perhaps the field of EGTB research is boring enough that we don't want or need to stimulate anything new. I'm not being sarcastic. >In a search or evaluation, this isn't the same at all... And clearly this field is not boring, so we want to stimulate new techniques. >>Yes, but the rule isn't even discussed now. How many programs are going to show >>up at the next WMCCC running the ChessBase interface and using some ChessBase >>book created using the same process and/or by the same person? > > >This already happens. IE in the SSDF testing, Crafty generally uses a normal >(not special) Fritz book via the ChessBase GUI. Good or bad? Hard to say. Bad, unless they are trying to factor out the opening book entirely. >>Here I am having to consider doing an incredible pile of work in order to avoid >>losing on move 13 to someone who never had to dick with any of this. >> >>bruce > > >Welcome to computer chess. :) That is why I am so interested in eliminating >the human side of this. I've been doing tournament preparation for so long... >and it is utterly boring and wasted time, except that it avoids embarassing >losses when you forget to do it. I'm familiar with all of this, and I'm also familiar with what happens when you are one guy trying to make a dent in this field by yourself. I can only try to bitch appropriately. bruce
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.