Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 19:07:47 08/29/01
Go up one level in this thread
On August 29, 2001 at 19:07:33, Derek Mauro wrote: >On August 29, 2001 at 15:43:32, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On August 29, 2001 at 15:36:54, Uri Blass wrote: >> >>>On August 29, 2001 at 15:21:09, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>> >>>>On August 29, 2001 at 14:41:48, Mark Young wrote: >>>> >>>>>On August 29, 2001 at 14:03:49, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>On August 29, 2001 at 13:52:33, Uri Blass wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>>On August 29, 2001 at 12:52:15, Roy Eassa wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>>This sentence DOES say a lot, doesn't it: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>"By the summer of 1990--by which time three of the original Deep Thought team >>>>>>>>had joined IBM--Deep Thought had achieved a 50 percent score in 10 games played >>>>>>>>under tournament conditions against grandmasters and an 86 percent score in 14 >>>>>>>>games against international masters." >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>That was 7 years before, and many-fold slower hardware (and much weaker >>>>>>>>software, no doubt), than what played Kasparov in 1997. >>>>>>> >>>>>>>No >>>>>>>This sentence tells me nothing new. >>>>>>> >>>>>>>I know that humans at that time did not know how to play against computers like >>>>>>>they know today. >>>>>>> >>>>>>>Today programs got clearly better results than deep thought >>>>>>>and there is more than one case when they got >2700 performance inspite of >>>>>>>the fact that the opponents could buy the program they played against them >>>>>>>something that Deep thought's opponents could not do. >>>>>> >>>>>>Deep thought produced a rating of 2655 over 25 consecutive games against a >>>>>>variety of opponents. None of them were "inexperienced" in playing against >>>>>>computers. Byrne. Larson. Browne. You-name-it. That argument doesn't hold >>>>>>up under close scrutiny. >>>>> >>>>>In some ways, it appears that the GMs of today are >>>>>>prepared far worse than the GMs of 1992 were prepared to play computers. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>I don?t see how GM?s of today are less prepared to play computers. Anyone of >>>>>them can and has played computer programs at home stronger then the programs of >>>>>the early 1990?s. >>>> >>>>I am basing that on the games I have seen, plus the important detail that in >>>>1992, strong GM players at the US Open, the World Open, and other events >>>>(particularly those in the northeast US) knew they would be facing Hitech, >>>>Deep Thought, and at times, Belle and others. Since 1995 this has not been >>>>the case as it is nearly impossible to find a tournament in the US that will >>>>allow a computer to compete. If they aren't going to face the machines, they >>>>aren't going to study them. >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>>I don?t think preparation is the problem. It is the strength of the programs of >>>>>today. It seems if you are not in the top 100 of the Fide list your chances of >>>>>besting the better programs is not very good. >>>>> >>>>>It seems clear that the programs of today are stronger then Deep Thought of 1992 >>>>>that produced a rating of 2655 playing against "Byrne. Larson. Browne. >>>>>You-name-it". Do you agree with this? >>>> >>>> >>>>No I don't. I would agree that probably they programs of today are in the >>>>same league with Deep Thought of 1992, maybe. At least on the 8-way boxes. >>>>Their NPS speed would be similar. Deep Thought wasn't known to be an incredibly >>>>"smart" program, neither are today's programs. >>> >>> >>>I consider the top programs of today as clearly smarter than Deep thought. >> >>Based on what? Top programs of today _still_ seem to be unable to understand >>simple chess concepts like the pawn majority we have been discussing in another >>thread. I discovered, by bits and pieces, some of the knowledge in deep >>thought, and it was not "small" at all. Everyone assumes that the micros are >>much smarter... and that us old supercomputer guys simply depended on raw speed >>to win games. If you look at the game Cray Blitz vs Joe Sentef, from 1981, >>you will find a position that many programs today will blow, and that programs >>of 5 years ago would totally blow (bishop + wrong rook pawn ending knowledge). >>We weren't "fast and dumb" at all. Neither was DT, DB or DB2. Fast, yes. But >>definitely not "dumb". The "intelligence" of todays programs is mostly myth >>brought on by fast hardware that searches deep enough to cover for some of the >>positional weakness the programs have. > >If DB was "smarter" than today's programs (and I believe you that it was), and >you consider today's programs not to be super-intelligent, why is it that we >haven't been able to make smarter programs? It makes perfect sense that in 4 >years we should have made more progress. Did the DB guys just know a hell of a >lot more than we have figured out, or is it that because of some hardware issue >we just can't implement everything, or something else? > Building a chess program is very much like balancing a high-performance boat on the pad at 80 MPH. It takes a very good sense of balance, touch, and skill. In a chess engine, you have to balance speed vs smarts. Sometimes you have to sacrifice one for the other to fix a specific problem. Too often, the smarts has to take a back seat to speed or the smart program is too slow and gets ripped apart tactically. DB didn't have to make such compromises. In hardware, you can do as much as possible in parallel, and adding another parallel slice of computation doesn't slow it down at all unless you overflow the adder tree and are forced to add another level. IE there are lots of things I would _like_ to do in Crafty, but most of them hurt overall speed. And too much of that kills the overall skill of the program. If I could design the engine, knowing that anything I do is not going to crush search speed, I would have a _far_ different search engine than I do today. >> >> >> >>> >>>Deep thought had also a problem in the repetition detection and I believe that >>>the search algorithm of the top programs of today is superior because Deep >>>thought did not use null move or other pruning methods. >> >>There is nothing that says you must use forward-pruning methods to write a >>strong program. Nothing at all. DT had repetition problems in the chess >>hardware, yes. But in _spite_ of that it played like a super-GM. DB and DB2 >>had no such problems. >> >> >>> >>>Uri
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