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Subject: Re: What is the average NPS and Depth of Top Programs?

Author: Otello Gnaramori

Date: 14:55:23 07/26/01

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On July 26, 2001 at 17:37:02, Kevin Stafford wrote:

>
>>An engine that is twice as fast will find tactical shots in half the time.  This
>>is a *good* thing.
>>
>>But high NPS doesn't necessarily imply tactical speed, nor do low NPS
>>necessarily imply more positional knowledge.
>>
>>If a program does expensive stuff in order to try to improve move ordering,
>>nodes per second will decrease but the program will search faster.  This has
>>nothing to do with positional knowledge.
>>
>>Also, it's possible to add "knowledge" to an eval function that behaves like
>>search.  Here is an example:
>>
>>1) Program X searches 10 plies at a very high node rate, but doesn't see two-ply
>>tactics in its eval function.
>>
>>2) Program Y searches 8 plies and can see two-ply tactics in its eval function.
>>Its node rate is much lower because it is looking for two-ply tactics.
>>
>>Program Y is not smarter, it's just increasing its effective depth through eval.
>> Sometimes it's possible to increase effective depth by a whole lot, and
>>sometimes you can search 20 plies and have no effective depth, but a low
>>node-rate program does not necessarily get more effective depth just because it
>>runs at a low node rate.
>>
>>bruce
>
>The argument isn't really about node-rate in this case, but I can see the
>confusion as that is the topic of the thread. I was coming back to an earlier
>argument made by Otello that positional knowledge is effectively useless in
>chess, because chess is all tactics.

Not exactly all...but if I remember well the number was 99%.

Regards.

My point was that even the fastest engines
>today (measured however you wish, depth, NPS, etc) have a good amount of
>positional knowledge, and that positional considerations are hardly made
>obsolete by gaining the ply or two over the competition you'll get by using a
>quick (but less-intelligent) eval function. I hope that makes some sense.
>
>-Kevin



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