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Subject: Re: So which programs beat which, only due to superior chess understanding?

Author: Terry McCracken

Date: 15:12:08 05/07/02

Go up one level in this thread


On May 07, 2002 at 13:35:12, Christophe Theron wrote:

>On May 07, 2002 at 07:44:16, Amir Ban wrote:
>
>>On May 06, 2002 at 18:06:47, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>
>>>On May 06, 2002 at 15:34:01, Amir Ban wrote:
>>>
>>>>On May 05, 2002 at 19:58:09, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>"Knowledge" in the sense of positional evaluation (that's what most people think
>>>>>about when they talk about knowledge) makes for 10% of the strength of a chess
>>>>>program.
>>>>>
>>>>>Chess is 90% about tactics (which is a concept close to "search").
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Before strongly disagreeing (as I guess I will), what does this mean ?
>>>>
>>>>If I freeze my search engine and work only to improve the evaluation, how much
>>>>do you expect the total strength to improve ? Is it limited ?
>>>
>>>
>>>I expect the strength of your engine to improve, but not much in regard to the
>>>energy invested. Because you are going to focus your efforts on an area that
>>>does not have the biggest potential in strength.
>>>
>>>On the other hand people will love it more and more because it will have a much
>>>better playing style.
>>>
>>>People can forgive gross tactical blunders, but not slight positional mistakes.
>>>Go figure...
>>>
>>>Here I'm talking about current top engines of today, naturally.
>>>
>>>Building a chess engine with a broken evaluation to demonstrate that a better
>>>evaluation could improve it tremendously is not in the spirit of my idea.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>I understand that you are saying that it will change the style but overall
>>>>strength will not be much changed.
>>>
>>>
>>>I do not know exactly how far we will be able to go with the 10% I attribute to
>>>positional evaluation.
>>>
>>>I'm not saying it counts for nothing and that overall strength will not benefit
>>>from research in this area.
>>>
>>>I believe that the positional evaluation is the part of a chess program
>>>responsible for only 10% of the strength, and that the rest is done by the
>>>search.
>>>
>>>I believe that the positional evaluation is responsible for most of what people
>>>perceive as the "playing style".
>>>
>>>Now you can strongly disagree, I do not have the absolute truth.
>>>
>>
>>Ok. I think this is wrong. Anyway I'm working for a long time under the
>>assumption that it's the evaluation rather than the search that needs work.
>>
>>The search engine of Junior7 is basically the same as Junior6.
>>
>>Junior5 was the last engine where I did extensive work on the search. Since then
>>in terms of effort it was at least 80% evaluation, no more than 20% search.
>>
>>Amir
>
>
>
>Then your work is a real success. That makes a lot of elo points gained from
>working almost exclusively on the evaluation.
>
>How much in your opinion? As Junior 7 is 93 elo points stronger than Junior 5 on
>K6-450 (with the usual error margin, of course), how much would you say come
>from your work on the evaluation? 60? 70? 80??
>
>I wouldn't have believed that it is possible, but obviously it is.
>
>I guess that the fact that you have a strong chess player in the team has an
>influence on the choice to work more on the evaluation, right?
>
>
>
>    Christophe

I don't know why Amir hasn't answered your post...maybe he's not had the time.
However, I found both your arguements interesting, and maybe Christophe you can
find something the comes closer to the truth!;)

Regardless both areas are worth exploring further...now get a GM on your
team!:o)

After Tiger 15, Tiger 16 will be a Monster!

Terry



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