Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Is the Depth directly proportional to the program's strength? (YES!)

Author: Sune Fischer

Date: 07:36:51 02/07/02

Go up one level in this thread


On February 07, 2002 at 10:20:41, Dann Corbit wrote:

>On February 07, 2002 at 10:15:59, Sune Fischer wrote:
>[snip]
>>>The previous studies also showed that.  The real question is whether 16-18 plies
>>>has less benefit compared to 18-20 plies.  The reason I say that would be
>>>obvious if you look at the graphs of the studies.
>>
>>I think any effect out there will be hard to measure, the curve is just too
>>straight.
>>Compare 2-3 to 15-16 and I'm sure you will see the effect clearly.
>
>I don't think that has ever been in question.  The notion of diminishing returns
>is only interesting if they continue to diminish.  So (for instance) if after 20
>plys, you always get exactly 10% improvements, then the returns are not
>diminishing from that point forward.
>
>The only unanswered question is "do the returns of an additional ply continue to
>become less and less?"
>
>Every study I have ever seen shows that the initial plies are move valuable.  In
>fact, it's nothing but common sense.

Well then you can almost prove it by induction.

I think you will be hard pressed to measure any thing that deep.
If 15-16 plies is 45-55% lose-win, then 16-17 plies may result in 45.3-54.7% and
17-18 in 45.5-54.5% etc. converging to 50-50% at plies 338-339 :)

Those are very small effects that you are _expected_ to find, they will simply
not be visible because of the uncertainties, how do you expect to find 0.2%
difference?

You need to zoom in on this effect by comparing 6-7 plies to 16-17 plies.

-S.



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.