Author: Gian-Carlo Pascutto
Date: 09:54:47 04/19/02
Go up one level in this thread
On April 19, 2002 at 12:31:46, Robert Hyatt wrote: >This is wrong thinking. If it will play the right move for the wrong reason, >then in similar positions it will play the _wrong_ move for the wrong reason, >and lose. > >All you have to do is add a simple endgame rule that says _always_ centralize >the king to see why this happens. Then give your opponent a passed pawn on >the edge of the board and see how much that king in the center helps. The >idea is that centralizing is not the right idea. The right idea is to get the >king to wherevere it is needed, whether that is the edge, the corner, or the >center. Just moving it to the center will be right in plenty of positions. >But it will be wrong in enough to make it obvious, too... Good example. Having the king in the center in the endgame is an excellent rule. It will be right much more than it will be wrong. You'll easily see a significant different in playing strength when comparing programs with or without this rule. Sure, it won't always be right. But it'll be right a hell of a lot of times and do much better than one that doesn't have this rule. If you play a program with and one without this rule and the one with the rule wins the endgame time and time again, do you still call that luck? After all, the rule could be wrong, so hey, the program is just lucky it was right all those times, because it doesn't really understand what's going on, is it? I don't think this kind of reasoning 'holds'... >> You can gamble, take risks, and make sure >>that you gamble better than your opponent. >> > >If you take this approach, then beating the top GM players will be totally >impossible. You can't rely on luck. Not at all. If your program estimates the risk well enough and gambles at the right times. It will win. You're saying a program as Junior can't compete with top GM's because of this? >>Chris Wittington realized this first, and Christophe Theron was next. Junior 7 >>also follows this strategy. If you take a closer look, you'll see that all >>top SSDF programs have elements of this playing style. > ><sigh> Another "new paradigm" thread? I don't think so. Comparing CSTal >with any other program is pointless. They are not the same. I specifically wanted to avoid that wording. But you can't deny there's been a shift towards more speculative attacking play, and it's been pretty effective. >>It's a design decision to make Junior play moves like Nxh6 without fully >>understanding or calculating where it's going to end up. Sometimes it will >>backfire. If you look at Juniors performances in tournaments, you'll realize >>it works much more often than it backfires. >> >>Junior gambles because it knows the odds are in it's favor. If you win >>a bet where you had, say, >95% winning chance, were you really 'lucky'? >> > >if it was _really_ 95%, no. But is it _really_ right that often? I doubt >it. If it's > 50%, that's good enough for me, because it will start winning games over programs that don't have it. -- GCP
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