Author: Gordon Rattray
Date: 11:49:59 07/08/01
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On July 08, 2001 at 13:50:49, Otello Gnaramori wrote: >On July 08, 2001 at 12:47:36, Gordon Rattray wrote: > >>In *theory* chess is indeed only moves. So if any human or machine succeeds in >>calculating all the possibilities then I'd agree that being able to calculate is >>all that you need to do. Fortunately however we all know that in *practice* >>this is very far from the reality - the amount of calculating required, far >>exceeds the ability of any human or machine. >> >>Therefore, we need to support our calculation with other thinking methods, i.e. >>strategy and positional considerations. These are absolutely essential in >>helping to guide our thoughts through the overwhelming amount of possibilities. > >Exactly. But the positional considerations are involved at the end of the >calculus and are pretty straightforward, don't you think ? No. For many positions, it is difficult to evaluate them correctly. It is anything but straightforward. It is common for humans/computers to play towards a certain position, only to find that they had incorrectly evaluated it. For example, playing for an attack or an endgame position that isn't as good as it appeared from afar. >King safety , doubled pawns , open files ,center domination etc. don't require a >special effort to be evaluated. The major effort goes into calculus of >variations, since IMO the evaluation of the goodness of the position is easily >understood (by the computers too). Easily understood? You should either play for the world championship and/or start writing a chess program if you think that positional evaluation is straighforward... ;-) Why do you think that programmers keep adding more and more knowledge instead of just trying to get their programs to calculate deeper? Gordon > >> >>The fact is that chess is too complex for any player to play well on the basis >>of calculation alone. Talking about a theoretical machine that can calculate >>everything is a valid point, but not a realistic one (not for the near future >>anyway!). Remember that Deep Blue had lots of positional considerations in its >>evaluation function - it was not a case of finding checkmate or not. >> >>Gordon
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