Author: Gian-Carlo Pascutto
Date: 14:15:45 02/19/02
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On February 19, 2002 at 16:53:08, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>Blah. I don't agree with your assumption that active play only >>pays off versus an opponent making short-sighted mistakes, though >>I can't think of any way to prove one or another. > >It seems intuitive to me. Active play generally means weakening your position >to create play against the opponent. If the plan doesn't work out, you end up >eating the weaknesses you created and you lose endings that you hoped you >wouldn't ever reach. I see active play not as allowing a weakening of the position as such, but more as a tradeoff of 'fixed' positional advantages (pawnstructure e.g.) versus 'dynamic' advantages (space, development). This is really a tradeoff, not a gamble. If the opponent allows the dynamic advantage to get too big, he will lose. So he in turn will have to commit a weakening of a static nature. If you are willing to lose some of your dynamic advantage, you will (perhaps) be able to fix some of your static weaknesses. The difference is that usually a mistake where your opponent has a dynamic advantage will be punished much more heavily and faster than a position where that is not the case, and allows less chances for recovery. This is a trend you see in the top professionals right now; they all try to attain a dynamic advantage. Making mistakes in a dynamic position doesn't have to be a result of short-sightedness. Far from it. Many times the consequences of a move are so deep that it is impossible to correctly determine them. You have to guess. Speculative evaluation. The better guesser wins. Seeing x ply deeper will allow you to make more educated guesses, but you'll still be guessing. When Gambit Tiger first appeared, I don't think it's opponents were all simultaneously making short-sighted mistakes. Yet it was guessing...and winning. It was pounding on a knowledge hole. If you're missing that knowledge, searching deeper isn't going to help much. >>As for the endgame, even if they are missing some basic knowledge, >>it certainly doesn't seem to hurt them much... Not against humans, >>not against other computers. (...and I won't speculate about DB) > >The faster searchers are doing _well_ against other computers that are slower. >Check out the SSDF lists recently. I don't get your point or what you are meaning here? >But the speculative play doesn't work so well if your opponent sees >far more than you do, and more accurately to boot. Very true. But then again, there isn't anything else that will, either. -- GCP
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