Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 17:36:49 10/30/01
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On October 30, 2001 at 20:04:41, Uri Blass wrote: [snip] >Deeper blue did not use null move pruning and I believe the algorithm of the >chess programs of today is superior(every top program that I know except Junior >is using null move and even Rebel started to use null move pruning). > >Junior also has other pruning rules. > >I do not believe that the deeper blue team were right in not using null move >when all the programmers of today are wrong. Some time ago, there was an America's cup race between New Zealand and the US, with the US using a [cough] Catamaran. Seems rather unfair, but -- there it was. The New Zealand skipper said something like, "If he's going to race a catamaran against a single hull, he ought to go all out." Connors replied that he was just being extra careful with the equipment. The point is, when you have a ludicrously unfair advantage, you can enjoy an enormous safety margin. Surely, Deep Blue could have searched a lot deeper with a nullmove heuristic. But then, it would have been prone to a large class of errors that it was not prone to with ordinary Alpha-Beta. Maybe, with nullmove, Deep Blue would have won the match 7-0. Or Kasparov might have found a tactical blindside and won the match 7-0. Playing it safe was the smart thing to do. Why take a risk when you don't have to?
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