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Subject: Re: Depth vs Time

Author: Gian-Carlo Pascutto

Date: 23:40:59 06/24/02

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On June 24, 2002 at 18:53:24, Steve Coladonato wrote:

>>I wonder what you consider 'comparable'. There's no guarantee
>>they'll be similar whatsoever.
>
>That was not a well formed statement on my part.  What I meant was that for a
>given ply depth, the evaluation that program X comes up with should be
>comparable to the evaluation that program Y comes up with if both programs are
>fairly equal in overall strength.

No. There is no guarantee whatsoever that this is true.

>Therefore, if the algorithms/heuristics that
>program X uses allow it to get to ply M faster than program Y, then program X
>should win if the time allowed constrains how much time each program can use for
>analysis at that depth.  For example, if program X can get to ply 11 in 30 secs
>and program Y takes 1 min 30 secs to get there, the overall analysis that
>program X can generate during a game should be better than that generated by
>program Y and program X should win.  So it seems that the efficiency of the
>algorithms/heuristics will determine the overall strength of a program.

Again, this is completely false.

I will repeat what I said several times earlier in this thread, and that
is that plies are not comparable between chessprograms. The analysis of
one program at ply 11 can be completely different and of higher
quality than another at the same 11 ply. If the second program reaches
ply 11 faster, we have no information at all to make any solid conclusions
about the relative strength of those programs.

--
GCP



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