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Subject: Re: Past - Presence : Genius 4 - Chess Tiger 14.1

Author: Ed Schröder

Date: 04:12:49 09/01/01

Go up one level in this thread


On September 01, 2001 at 04:00:15, Uri Blass wrote:

>On September 01, 2001 at 01:18:21, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On August 31, 2001 at 16:05:48, Peter Berger wrote:
>>
>>>On August 31, 2001 at 13:05:35, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>
>>>>It does not make any sense to talk about "optimizing for 386 or 486 tournament
>>>>time controls".
>>>
>>>How come ? It makes perfect sense IMHO : the conclusion ( and a very possible
>>>one) is that it never existed - if this conclusion ( or any other one btw) is
>>>reached it was useful to talk about it as a problem that obviously was of
>>>interest to some ( they took the effort to post ) was there and was resolved .
>>>People who think it is futile can keep away from the thread or ask for
>>>moderation if they think it hurts their general reading experience. People who
>>>have valuable information and feel like joining can provide it and help the less
>>>knowledgeable. If someone has no new information, opinions or questions he can
>>>still read and learn as long as interested.
>>>
>>>I sometimes think this policy could be useful in some of the Deep Blue threads
>>>also.
>>>
>>>And I don't see I suggested anything that contradicts your statement anywhere
>>>anyway - as I agree to your opinion.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>It would take years to achieve a task like this, and while this optimization job
>>>>would take place the author would not be able to make any serious change in his
>>>>program.
>>>
>>>Maybe your opinion is too extreme here ( or better your idea how such an
>>>optimization might happen) . It might be more about ways of testing . An extreme
>>>example : an author tests every major change he makes in 1000 1/0 bullet games
>>>against GNU on his dedicated test computer . The engine might end up being
>>>overtuned for being successful against GNU in the end - and it is conceivable it
>>>will be stronger in Bullet games than at slower time controls.
>>>
>>>I have read a few posts from chess programmers and beta-testers that explained
>>>how they do their tests and I think some of them seemed to show something that
>>>points into a similar direction but I am not the right person to discuss this.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>An author simply tries to make his program stronger, and that's already a task
>>>>difficult enough, from the human point of view.
>>>>
>>>>I do not know of any improvement that would be a blitz improvement only (I mean
>>>>an improvement that would only help in blitz and not at longer time controls).
>>>>Likewise, I do not know any improvement that would only help at long time
>>>>controls.
>>>
>>>I think some of the things Genius _seems_ to do might be better in blitz than in
>>>longer games- for example the way it seems to evaluate some pawn structures ,
>>>but I won't fall in the trap to talk about things I don't really understand and
>>>won't go on .
>>
>>
>>
>>I have a simpler explanation: Genius is handicapped at longer time controls
>>because of its higher branching factor.
>
>being handicapped at longer time control is the same as being oprimized for
>blitz.
>
>If you are interested in doing a good program for blitz you care less about the
>branching factor.
>
>Uri


As you know Rebel never was a great blitz player. The last 1.5 years I mainly
worked on search especailly lowering the branch factor. Suddenly I get good
(and steady) results playing blitz while Rebel's strength mainly came from
longer time control in the past. Bottom line: Christophe is right about
Genius. Genius is tuned to play on the top hardware of 1994-1996. To be
competitive again its search needs to be rewritten, probably from scratch as
its branch factor on nowadays top hardware is equal to suicide.

Ed



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