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

Author: Wylie Garvin

Date: 02:55:10 02/08/02

Go up one level in this thread


On February 06, 2002 at 20:08:04, Sune Fischer wrote:

>On February 06, 2002 at 19:14:43, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>On February 06, 2002 at 18:54:28, Sune Fischer wrote:
>>[snip]
>>>I'm not saying that it would be easy to get all those test positions, but if you
>>>had them the test would be nice.
>>>I suppose one could do a 14 ply search as an approximation to the best move, it
>>>wouldn't change the distribution all that much I think.
>>
>>The problem (as I see it) of running test suites with only ce answers is that
>>the chess engine will [not infrequently] find a better solution or another
>>solution which is marked as "wrong" by the program looking for an answer.
>>
>>If you have not traced all the way to checkmate, then the best answer is not
>>certain.
>
>
>Listen, the idea is very simple :)
>
>A) We have X positions where we _know_ the best move.
>(of cause we can discuss how to get such a set of positions, but that wasn't
>really the point here, it is an *assumtion*, a mind/thought experiment if you
>will :)
>
>B) Run the engine brute force limitet to n ply.
>This will produce the previous posted distribution.
>
>C) How to interpret this distribution:
>The 1-ply searcher will often pick the right move, but for the *wrong* reasons
>in the sense that it cannot see the deeper tacticks.
>My point is, that this does not matter, because it will still play the *right*
>move! Pure luck, but that is okay.
>So the distribution should IMO reflect the chances of *being lucky*.
>The deeper you search, the more often you will pick the right move.
>Remember that even a 12 ply search is still making a guess at the right move
>just as the 1 ply searcher did, but more often the 12-ply'er guesses right.
>
>I haven't got any idea as to how fast the distribution converges or what kind of
>distribution we might be talking about, but interesting to find out I think.
>
>-S.

It seems likely to me that if everyone who has posted in this thread had simply
read the paper ( http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/junghanns97diminishing.html ), they
would agree that Schaeffer and his smart pals have it figured out.  <grin>

wylie



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