Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: The ecm test suite (bruce, bob?)

Author: Peter Fendrich

Date: 14:24:23 08/15/01

Go up one level in this thread


On August 15, 2001 at 13:08:12, Leen Ammeraal wrote:

>I would suggest the following way to clean up this
>test suite. Remove the following positions:
>
>1. those which are not solved even by a very strong chess engine
>   that takes a lot of time (position too difficult)
>2. those which are easily solved by most chess engines, even
>   when they use little time (too easy)
>3. those which show alternating results (position solved at
>   a certain depth but not solved at a greater depth)
>   with, say, two chess engines.
>
>Leen Ammeraal

Maybe not remove but create different suites. It all depends on what you want to
do with it.
I would like to keep a big amount of "too easy" ones for debugging resons. After
a change in the program and it doesn't find all the easy solutions something is
definitely wrong...
Under 1 we would have the wrong ones as well. It would be easier I think to
identify them when group 1 is created. Heavy analyses and endless (in some
cases!) discussions will follow...
//Peter

>
>On August 15, 2001 at 12:59:21, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>
>>On August 15, 2001 at 06:52:18, Peter Kappler wrote:
>>
>>>On August 15, 2001 at 05:03:20, Peter Fendrich wrote:
>>>
>>>>Has anyone tried to clean up the ecm test suite?
>>>>//Peter
>>>
>>>
>>>There was a big effort here (or was it rgcc?) a few years ago.  I don't know if
>>>anybody went through the effort of verifying all the fixes and publishing a
>>>"clean" version.  I remember that many of the fixes/alternatives were very deep
>>>variations and took a lot of CPU time to verify.
>>>
>>>Bruce Moreland has mentioned that he likes ECM -- he might have been part of
>>>this effort.  Probably Bob was in on the action, too.  I can't recall the other
>>>participants.
>>>
>>>It would be neat to try cleaning it up again.  Machines are much faster now.  :)
>>>
>>>-Peter
>>
>>The problem with that effort is that we didn't define what we were trying to do.
>> Were we trying to cull bad positions?  Were we trying to assure singular
>>correctness of positions?  Were we trying to assure that the key was the only
>>move that won to some degree or another?  Were we trying to find hard positions
>>that were correct?
>>
>>There are lots of types of suites that would be of interest to people.  A suite
>>comprised of hard positions that can be solved with present techniques in
>>between thirty seconds and an hour would be very useful, and would probably be
>>useful for several more years.
>>
>>The problem with ECM is that it takes a long time to run to any appreciable
>>depth, some of the problems are wrong, some have cooks, some end up being found
>>for "positional" reasons, and many are way too easy.
>>
>>If I take the ECM positions that Ferret doesn't find in 20 seconds and make a
>>suite out of them, I end up with a suite that almost by definition everyone else
>>will do better on.
>>
>>I think it might make more sense to grade the positions somehow, and break the
>>suite up into pieces that are easy or hard, get rid of the obvious mistakes, and
>>get rid of the ones what cause positional arguments.
>>
>>I don't have time to do this now since my plane leaves tomorrow.
>>
>>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.