Author: Paul Massie
Date: 10:43:38 12/27/01
Go up one level in this thread
It's my belief that humans operate largely by a stored database of positions, with associated good and bad plans and moves. This belief is based both on my experience at becoming somewhat stronger, and also by the rather limited research that has been done in this area. That suggests that weaker players spend a lot of time looking for the right move, whereas stronger players seem to use memory a lot more. The result is that every position is new to a weak player, so he/she has to grope for the right plan and move with little background. The strong player (IM/GM) appears to have a large database of stored positions that allows him/her to almost instantly find something similar and thus be able to look at only a few alternatives. This dramatically reduces the search tree and thus the NPS requirement. Humans seem to have an extraordinary ability to remember a huge number of positions, along with what moves and plans did and did not work in each. This is most useful because humans can also extrapolate from a position to a "similar" position, and thus attempt to apply the known plan. This explains why a very strong GM may suddenly play quite weakly in a particular game or position, if that position is something they're not familiar with. As players get stronger they seem to develop a larger database of positions, as well as understanding each position in the database better. I find this concept a little depressing, since it seems to reduce the game of chess to little more than a massive memory exercise. Also, I have no idea how one would program something like this, or even if it is a good approach. Paul
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.