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Subject: Re: Crafty - Forward vs. Backward Analysis

Author: Robert Henry Durrett

Date: 09:57:39 06/12/02

Go up one level in this thread


On June 12, 2002 at 11:39:31, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On June 11, 2002 at 20:58:37, Robert Henry Durrett wrote:
>
>>On June 11, 2002 at 18:01:40, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On June 11, 2002 at 15:56:19, J. Wesley Cleveland wrote:
>>>
>>>>On June 11, 2002 at 11:52:47, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On June 10, 2002 at 18:45:03, Dieter Buerssner wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>I'd like to add, that not for all engines, it is some sort of luck, when they
>>>>>>remember past analysis, and when not. I am convinced, that for my engine, it is
>>>>>>better in general, to analyze from back to front. I am also convinced, that it
>>>>>>will not forget previous analysis.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Regards,
>>>>>>Dieter
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>It _must_ unless you have a hash table of infinite size...
>>>>
>>>>If crafty stored the result returned from the prior search in the hash table,
>>>>made the age current when the hash table returns a valid score, and started ply
>>>>1 with the move in the game, it would always get the most useful value and
>>>>nearly always get the very useful values.
>>>
>>>Crafty does this.  Unfortunately _this_ search can overwrite the results from
>>>the previous search quite easily.  And then you have a problem.  Or, in lots of
>>>cases, just because the position after the move played at move 29 is found to
>>>be bad, when you back up to move 28, you find that the opponent can play a
>>>_different_ move at 29 and not wreck the score so you still don't see the
>>>"problem" since you didn't search down _both_ paths, just the path actually
>>>played in the game.
>>>
>>>in short, searching from the back to the front leaves huge holes in the tree
>>>you pretend to be searching.
>>>
>>>As I said, I tried this when I first started doing the "annotate" command
>>>in Crafty (which was several years ago) because it seemed to be an obvious
>>>idea.  But after lots of testing with many different people, it became apparent
>>>that it caused more questions than it solved problems...
>>>
>>>At least the current version is consistent in how it behaves, which (for a
>>>computer program) is a good thing...
>>
>>Why not find some sort of compromise?  Here's why you might want to:
>>
>>So far, GM games between the very top human GMs simply produce moves and lines
>>which are better than those produced by current chess engines.  [I believe this
>>to be true.] As long as this remains the case, then it seems prudent to take the
>>human GM's moves and lines into account, and give consideration of these higher
>>priority in searches.
>>
>>In other words, if asking the chess engine to do a post-mortem ["overnight"]
>>analysis of such a game, you would want to closely examine the human GM ideas
>>expressed in that game.
>>
>>Bob D.
>
>
>First, the "annotate" facility in crafty _does_ follow the actual game.
>
>But as to "giving priority to the GM moves/lines" I don't know how to do
>that within alpha/beta.  The evaluation of a program (Crafty in this case)
>guides the search regardless of the moves actually played in the game being
>examined...

I am not one to talk, since I could never do it.

But still:  Innovation a la Thomas Edison [software version] might do it



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