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

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 08:34:12 02/07/02

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On February 07, 2002 at 11:23:56, Sune Fischer wrote:
[snip]
>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).

I think that the induction is probably wrong.  I suspect at some point, there is
not any further diminishing of the return.  I base this wild extrapolation on
the shape of the graphs and nothing more.  One thing for sure, intuition is
clearly wrong about it.

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

The current data does not support it (but is very inconclusive).

>>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 :)

In both studies that I have seen, there is about 13% improvement for each
additional ply at the late plies.  Consider that this is for EVERY MOVE.  I
supect that the increase in play strength will be way, way more than 1%.  In
fact, this is *exactly* what we see with increased ELO due to increased
computing horsepower.  It seems that we increase 50 ELO or so with each doubling
of compute power.  If there *WERE* diminishing returns, at some point, compute
power increases will have no effect on game play.  I don't think that will
happen, but I am not basing this guess on hard data.  Just an extrapolation from
the way my brain fits those graphs that I have seen.



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