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Subject: Re: 3 computer chess myths: which one has proven to be true?

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 12:03:29 04/22/02

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On April 22, 2002 at 09:01:30, Jouni Uski wrote:

>1. program X plays relatively better against humans than against computers

Not enough evidence to say, either way.  It is easy to get hundreds of games
with computer/computer matches, but computer verses human it is difficult to
collect a large volume of quality data under controlled conditions.

>2. program Y plays relatively better with longer time control

This is surely true for some programs.  Amy at G/1 minute will be clobbered by
TSCP.  Amy at G/5 minutes will be blasted by Wildcat.  At G/120, Amy will
destroy them both.  On the other hand, there are definitely programs where the
speed of play makes little or no difference in the quality of play.

At some point, the branching factor of any chess program will dominate the
quality of its play.  From that point forward, additional time will make no
difference in the quality of play against opponents where their branching factor
has also began to dominate.

>3. there are diminishing returns from speed doubling, when search depth is
>   increased

There are conflicting results for this.  I don't think we have enough data  to
say.

>I think definitely 3. is true - only the size of diminishing is unclear. E.g.
>from latest SSDF list (yes comp-comp play!) doubling gives only 40 points at
>current top level against 75 previously. But 1 and 2 are still open cases.

The error bar is far larger than the measurement, in this case.



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