Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 09:59:19 01/28/02
Go up one level in this thread
On January 28, 2002 at 08:03:08, Ed Schröder wrote:
>On January 28, 2002 at 06:33:26, Amir Ban wrote:
>
>>On January 28, 2002 at 06:12:53, Ed Schröder wrote:
>>
>>>>Will TACTIC's eventually REFUTE! Positional play?
>>>
>>>In the end yes.
>>>
>>>It is my (new) opinion that the nature of chess is just search.
>>>
>>>Elo progress of (professional) chess programs...
>>>
>>>1990 - elo 2000 (average depth 6-8) (TC 40/2h)
>>>1995 - elo 2300 (average depth 8-10)
>>>2000 - elo 2500 (average depth 11-13)
>>>2002 - elo 2600 (average depth 12-14)
>>>
>>
>>This begs the question, because the programs are newer and play positionally
>>different. Will a 1990/1995 program perform 2600+ on today's hardware ?
>
>No.
>
>Improved search and improved chess knowledge make nowadays programs way better
>than the programs of 1990-1995.
The first is utter nonsense: my search nowadays is much simpler than
in 1997. I do simple PVS with nullmove and a few extensions now that's
it. No big tricks there. Just well debugged search.
Also i have less hashtables now. I used to have from the start
- transpositiontable
- evaluation table
- pawn table
- bishop table
- king safety table
The king safety table only existed short it was removed soon as in
evaluation too much knowledge was added to use it. My bishop table
has gone too and most pawn patterns nowadays also can't get hashed
anymore so they are in other functions now.
In short what i have is
transposition table
evaluation table
pawn table (for only some basic patterns the majority can't be
stored in hashtable).
In 1997 i had all kind of search enhancements, like internal iterative
deepening, i remember all kind of weird independant move ordering
techniques. Also some dubious things near the leafs were done.
All that has been thrown out by now.
Qsearch i limited back in 1997 way more than i do now. Though the
code still is very sophisticated, in 1997 i had more 'smart' rules
to limit qsearch, now the principle is very simple: "a move that can
go to the position being more quiet , LET'S TRY IT". The result is that
i need more nodes for qsearch now than i needed back in 1997.
So it didn't get more efficient at all.
Of course diep runs parallel now, that's just to get more cpu power,
it doesn't improve the search in itself, whatever big the effort was
to get it working good.
The ONLY thing that really has become serious, huge, and put loads of
effort in, that is the evaluation function.
Still it is far from perfect of course, but the real progress is in the
EVALUATION, and nowhere else.
The 1998 version from diep would get like 15 ply easily on todays hardware.
In fact in 1999 in paderborn (IPCCC) i remember how i at a single cpu 450PII
searched like 11 to 12 ply easily at 3 minutes a move. IN the world
champs 1999 i searched 20 ply in the endgame at a quad xeon 400. that's
1.6Ghz in total. A dual 1.2 K7 gives way less than that in the same
positions now.
To get that now i need a dual 1.x Ghz K7.
Best regards,
Vincent
>
>
>>Doubtful.
>>
>>
>>>No way to stop it.
>>>
>>>No suprise Kasparov lost against Deep Blue.
>>
>>It was a surprise because he is clearly better.
>
>That was what I thought too in 1997.
>
>Maybe a 20 ply search plus some limited but smart chess knowledge is good enough
>to beat the world champion in a match. My above statistic implies it. Maybe we
>(the programmers) just have underestimated the power of search and what it does
>to human players.
>
>Something else, there is a new development / tendency among grandmasters. They
>state, "you can sinn against every chess rule as long as you calculate it
>right". Ring a bell?
Not a single GM ever said this, unless you talk about a
computergrandmaster (sorry correspondence grandmaster i mean).
Must be your age Ed.
P.S.
Since when do there live GMs in the northpart of Netherlands by the way,
i thought all 15 of them lived near the west and the south more.
>Ed
>
>
>
>
>>>The sad future: it will be in the headlines when a grandmaster occasionally will
>>>win from a computer.
>>>
>>
>>If this will happen due to positionally outplaying will you also consider it sad
>>?
>>
>>Amir
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