Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 13:01:13 06/24/98
Go up one level in this thread
On June 24, 1998 at 13:34:14, Ernst A. Heinz wrote: >I violently disagree with your "materialistic assessment". The programs that >like any of the two sacrifices (Nxe6, Rxe6) seem to be happy to trade material >for the attacking chances they see and score within their search horizon. In >this particular case, the speculation turns out to be wrong -- so what? > >As for the "program P finds move X in time T and iteration Y" posts in >general, you are right -- but sometimes its just nice to tell the world >that your program solves interesting positions ... :-) I admit that I threw gasoline on this, and along with Bob also throwing gasoline on it, we are probably bothering people. My criticisms aren't of Rebel, certainly, nor of speculative play. Bob seems to have a problem with speculation against strong players, but I don't. I think that computer chess is all about risks, even in a program that plays oatmeal chess. We are constantly exposing ourselves to pruning and evaluation errors. I don't think it takes that much more bravery to take risks that are visible on the board. At the same time, I wonder what position these programs are trying to get to. White is down a pawn, and immediately gets two pawns for a rook, which is a huge sacrifice, but (in variations at least) a few moves later can pick up the b7 bishop. This leaves white down the exchange for a pawn, which is not too much different from the current pawn-down situation. Perhaps the scores are going up somewhat because the programs are seeing that black gets ripped open as a result of this trade, but that is hardly a cause for excitement. If this is really what they are seeing, then there isn't much speculation happening here at all, is there? Maybe there is even a lot more that could be going on, but if the programs aren't seeing it, why give them credit? When mine played this as white against Crafty (I forced Rxe6 fxe6 and went from there), the material situation ended up the same as it started. Rxe6 is an exciting move, but it doesn't appear that it is even a sacrifice materially, it's not like these programs are seeing three pawns of positional compensation or something. bruce
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.