Author: Ed Schröder
Date: 04:48:25 11/26/01
Go up one level in this thread
On November 26, 2001 at 07:11:09, Otello Gnaramori wrote: >On November 26, 2001 at 05:15:55, Ed Schröder wrote: > >>On November 26, 2001 at 04:08:27, Otello Gnaramori wrote: >> >>>On November 26, 2001 at 03:48:30, Ed Schröder wrote: >>> >>>> >>>>I have no idea Victor is talking about, Claudio has written some very >>>>interesting topics about computer chess, see: >>>> >>>>http://www.rebel.nl/claudio5.htm >>>>http://www.rebel.nl/claudio4.htm >>>>http://www.rebel.nl/claudio3.htm >>>> >>>>Ed >>> >>>I think that the following is the article mentioned by Victor : >>> >>>http://www.rebel.nl/claudio4.htm >>> >>>Infact it is written at a certain point : >>>(...) >>>According to Ed's announcement in this web page, several programmers are facing >>>the task of suppressing important amounts of programming code in the evaluation >>>function, to achieve more speed and conquer their computer competitors by the >>>brute force of tactical calculation. >>>(...) >> >> >>That is a complex subject. At the time (about 2 years ago) I have written a >>page about the issue to explain a bit. The topic was called "Chess in 2010" >>and its contents are found on: >> >>http://www.rebel.nl/ches2010.htm >> >>The page is still worthwhile reading but in the meantime my thoughts about >>this have a bit evolved. That is that you really can throw out unnecessary >>chess knowledge with the emphasis on "unnecessary". >> >>Some specific chess knowledge through the years become out-dated due to the >>speed of nowadays computers. An example: In the early days of computer chess, >>say the period 1985-1989 I as hardware had a 6502 running at 5 Mhz. Rebel at >>that time could only search 5-7 plies on tournament time control. Such a low >>depth guarantees you one thing: horizon effects all over, thus losing the >>game. >> >>To escape from the horizon effect all kind of tricks were invented, chess >>knowledge about dangerous pins, knight forks, double attacks, overloading >>of pieces and reward those aspects in eval. Complicated and processor time >>consuming software it was (15-20% less performance) but it did the trick >>escaping from the horizon effect in a reasonable way. >> >>Today we run chess program on 1500 Mhz machines and instead of the 5-7 plies >>Rebel now gets 13-15 plies in the middle game and the horizon effect which >>was a major problem at 5 Mhz slowly was fading away. >> >>So I wondered, what if I throw that complicated "anti-horizon" code out of >>Rebel, is it still needed? So I tried and found out that Rebel played as >>good with the "anti-horizon" code as without the code. In other words, the >>net gain was a "free" speed gain of 15-20%, thus an improvement. >> >>One aspect of chess programming is that your program is in a constant state >>of change due to the state of art of nowadays available hardware. I am sure >>a Rebel at 10 Ghz several parts of Rebel need a face-lift to get the maximum >>out of the new speed monster. >> >>One recent example: Century 4 eval is more speculative than previous versions. >>Why? Because I believe (confirmed by my test results) that the program can >>handle it because of the mixture of smart search and fast hardware. A deep >>search simply filters out most of the "too speculative errors" of eval and >>the net result is a better, even more attractive chess engine. >> >>Ed > >Thanks Ed for your explanation. >I would like to ask you one more question : > >Do you think that in light of the recent developments this statement coming from >the rebel site is still true ? : > >"We have tried to explain that adding new chess knowledge which makes a chess >program a better positional player could lower the playing strength in the >comp-comp area and that removing chess knowledge which makes a chess program a >lower positional player on the other hand could improve its performance in the >comp-comp area" The statement is still valid IMO. In comp-comp search is a much more dominant factor than in human-comp. >Thanks in advance. You are most welcome. Ed
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