Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Depth vs Time

Author: Steve Coladonato

Date: 08:31:45 06/25/02

Go up one level in this thread


On June 25, 2002 at 02:40:59, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:

>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


I posted a reply to this but several layers up in the thread.

Steve



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.