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

Author: Sune Fischer

Date: 08:23:56 02/07/02

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On February 07, 2002 at 11:00:18, Dann Corbit wrote:

>>>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.
>
>That comparison everyone already knows the answer to, so it isn't an interesting
>question.  The early plies are more important than the later ones.  The only
>unsolved question is "Are distant plies less and less valuable or does it level
>out at some point."

I don't understand why this is unsolved, we agree that there is DR in the lower
plies. We can also agree, I think, that DR must become more and more difficult
to measure as the whole thing converges to 50-50%.
Of cause we cannot prove it empiricly without unlimited computing power, but all
indications suggest there is continues DRs (by simple induction).

Unless chess happens to be tactics limited to ply 25 or something, I don't see
what could upset the obvious conlusion.

>Because chess is exponential, in 10 years we will see 5-10 plies deeper (if a
>branching factor of 2 could be achieved it would be 10).

Yes, and if you want to study the DRs between ply 21-22 and 22-23, it will
require a million games to prove statisticly the expected 0.01% change in
win-lose cases, good luck :)

-S.




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