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Subject: Re: computer calculations of number of ways to play first 10-ply

Author: Danniel Corbit

Date: 10:21:05 07/29/98

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On July 29, 1998 at 10:48:44, Tom Kerrigan wrote:

>On July 29, 1998 at 10:06:43, Danniel Corbit wrote:
>
>>Let's say, for the sake of jihad, that we define sensible moves in the following
>>manner:
>>From a given FEN position, look at what every GM who has ever visited that
>>position has done.
>>From the same FEN position, let every top commercial and amateur program examine
>>that position for 24 hours.
>>At this point, we would have, I suspect, a small list of possible very good
>>moves, a mid sized list of so-so moves, and a large list of bad moves.
>
>Perhaps.
>I don't know what this would accomplish, and it seems like similar things have
>been done by people who do opening book stuff.
>Basically, what you're writing isn't really related to the topic at hand.
I disagree.  It is related, because I believe that an exhaustive search has very
little value, and a careful analysis of the "ahem" good moves has a very high
value.

Here is an experiment that will demonstrate my point [I think].  Run any chess
engine you like against a set of 100 arbitrarily chosen FEN positions achieved
by at least 3 different GM's at least 6 moves into the game.  Analyze the
position for 7 plys, exhaustive.  Analyze the position for 8 ply's exhaustive.
See how often a move that was not considered one of the top three from previous
exhaustive searches gets introduced as the new choice.  I suspect it will be
less than one in a thousand.

If that is the case, then exhaustive searching has very, very little value.

We will certainly not be able to search 12 plys exhaustive for a long time,
anyway.  Exhaustive search will therefore never be competitive with Alpha-Beta
or any other real searching technique.  So what is it's value?  Only to find the
rare gem that conventional searching techniques might miss.  99.99999% of the
bogus games generated by the exhaustive search will be utter crap that even a 9
year old novice would not play.



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