Author: James Swafford
Date: 18:35:32 07/31/02
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On July 31, 2002 at 18:10:08, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >On July 30, 2002 at 22:43:36, James Swafford wrote: > >> >>Hey everyone. I'm at an AAAI conference in Edmonton. It's ironic (to me) >>that it's been mentioned here recently that Edmonton is a hive of computer >>chess enthusiasts. I don't know if that's true (what's a "hive"? :-), but >>there are certainly a few... >> >>Now to my question. I asked Jonathon Schaeffer today (who is a really >>nice guy, IMO) some questions about his experience with TD learning >>algorithms. He's (co?)published a paper entitled (something like) >>"Temporal Difference Learning in High Performance Game Playing." I >>thought the title was a bit misleading, because he focused on checkers. >>Checkers programs have much smaller evaluation fuctions than chess >>programs, obviously. I asked him if he thought the TDLeaf(Lambda) >>algorithm had potential in high calibre chess. (Yes, yes, I know >>all about Knightcap... but that wasn't quite "high" calibre.) >>He responded with a very enthusiastic "yes". He said "I'll never manually >>tune another evaluation function again." > >And he'll never do a competative chessprogram again either, he forgot to >add that too. > >>A natural follow up question (which I also asked) is -- then why isn't >>everyone doing it?? I don't _believe_ (and maybe I'm wrong about this) >>that any top ranked chess programs use it. His response was simply: >>"There's a separation between academia and industry." Schaeffer stated > >Schaeffer is well known for his good speeches and answers :) > >>that perhaps the programmers of top chess programs don't believe in >>the potential of temporal difference algorithms in the chess domain. >>Or, perhaps, they don't want to put the effort into them. > >>I believe Crafty is the strongest program in academia now. If not, >>certainly among the strongest. So, Bob -- have you looked at TDLeaf >>and found it wanting? It's interesting (and perplexing) to me that >>paper after paper praises the potential of TDLeaf, but it's _yet_ to >>be used in the high end programs. Knightcap was strong, but it's >>definitely not in the top tier. > >I remember Knightcap very well. TD learning had the habit to slowly >make it more aggressive until it was giving away a piece for 1 pawn and >a check. > >Then of course the 'brain was cleared' and experiment restarted. >So in short the longer the program used the TD learning the worse it >would play, from my viewpoint. > >Definitely from a chessplayers viewpoint it did. Of course we must not >forget that in the time it played online, that nearly no program was >very aggressive. So doing a few patzer moves was a good way to get from >perhaps scoring 11% to 12% or so. > >>Maybe Tridgell/Baxter quit to soon, and Knightcap really could've been >>a top tier program. Or maybe the reason nobody is using TD is because >>it's impractical for the large number of parameters required to be >>competitive in chess. Or maybe Schaeffer was right, and the commercial >>guys just aren't taking TD seriously. >> >>Thoughts? >> >>-- >>James So, I can put you on record as saying that TD-Leaf is never going to produce a high calibre player? -- James
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