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Subject: Re: The probability to find better move is simply irrelevant for diminishing

Author: Sune Fischer

Date: 02:40:15 02/11/02

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On February 11, 2002 at 05:19:08, Uri Blass wrote:

>On February 11, 2002 at 04:25:46, Sune Fischer wrote:
>
>>On February 10, 2002 at 23:33:14, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>Note that I qualified my answer.  "there is no apparent DR for searches that
>>>we do today, or searches we might do in 2 years."
>>
>>Sure, but to me, it sound like you believe this is a case of assuming no-DR
>>untill proven otherwise. If anything I would probably say the opposite: assume
>>DR untill proven otherwise.
>
>I can imagine positions when there is an increasing returns.

And I can imagine positions where there are diminishing returns....

>Imagine a position when there is a trap when at small depth programs fall into
>the trap and lose the game.

...think of a simple recapture :)

>If you give program at small depth to play you may find result of 50% because
>the program that starts is losing because of falling into the trap and after
>falling into the trap finding the moves is simple.
>
>If you give programs at big depthes to play they do not fall into the trap so
>you may see result of more than 50%.

When we talk about DR or no-DR we mean _on average_. There will be positions
that can't be solved in 8 plies but requires 9 or more, that is not the point.
Rating is also an _average_ strength measure, sometimes or in some positions you
play bad and sometimes great, depends...

>I see no reason to assume that there is diminishing returns.
>It is clear that there will be 0 returns after solving the game and I tend to
>believe that usually there is a deminishing returns even before solving the game
>but when the game is not simple you are not close to solving the game and it is
>not clear for me that practically there is deminishing returns.

No it is not clear for me either, but a few things indicate there might be some
effect.

1) Once you have found the right move going deeper won't help.
2) Finding the correct move will be a "diminishing" function of the ply.
3) There are a lot more draws between higher rated players than amongst lower
rated. In fact someone plottet the curve once and it was slowly converging
towards 100% draws.

There might be some restoring effect, like the games will on average get longer,
and that will increase the chance of a blunder from the lower rated player. This
however is not so obvious I think, since GM games are AFAIK not longer than my
games. Computer games may show a different behavior, I don't know.

>I expect to see deminishing returns in chess in the future only because I
>believe that chess is relatively a simple game but it does not mean that it is
>simple enough to have  diminishing returns without big books on the hardware of
>today.
>
>Uri

-S.



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