Author: Uri Blass
Date: 04:09:57 08/16/02
Go up one level in this thread
On August 15, 2002 at 23:00:36, Will Singleton wrote: >On August 15, 2002 at 21:43:14, Russell Reagan wrote: > >>On August 15, 2002 at 18:04:56, Will Singleton wrote: >> >>>With regard to one of Hyatt's statements, "The commercial >>>programs are using some form of forward pruning that they won't discuss", I have >>>seen hints of such in dicussions here. >> >>There have been vague hints, yes. But nothing meaningful. When I think of their >>hints, it makes me think of a rocket scientist who discovered a way to travel to >>Mars and back in a matter of minutes. When asked about how he did it, he >>replied, "I made a space ship that travels at the speed of light." Gee, thanks. >>That's not really helpful now is it? The commercial author's will give "hints" >>like, "I use forward pruning". Neither the rocket scientist or the commercial >>engine author's tell you how they accomplished what they did, only that they did >>it, which isn't very helpful. Certainly not anywhere close to as helpful as >>anything Bob has done. Then again, the fact that they are "commercial" means >>they are in it for the money, not for educational purposes. It would be nice to >>see them give something back though, since they surely learned something along >>the way from a program like Crafty, or the other amateur engines out there. >> >>>But is it logical to assume that only >>>the commercials are using secret techniques? >> >>Not *only* the commercials, but _only_ the commercials are using "big" secrets. >>See below... >> >>>There are several strong amateur >>>programs whose authors also do not discuss their techniques. >> >>While this is true that there are amateur engines that keep secrets, I seriously >>doubt that any of those secrets are "big" secrets. I think it is 100% safe to >>conclude that the commercial engines are keeping some "big" secrets. Probably >>what Bob said, forward pruning methods. Here is my reasoning. >> >>1. Crafty makes use of techniques and methods that are well known, and in >>addition to that, Bob has always been willing to explain how any part of Crafty >>works. >> >>2. No amateur engine has drastically surpassed Crafty. Yes, some may be slightly >>better, but they are still much closer to Crafty's playing level than they are >>to the level of Fritz and friends. >> >>This leads me to believe that no amateur is using any "big" secret, or else they >>wouldn't be on par with Crafty, which has no secrets. I think there might be >>small secrets within some of the strong amateur engines, which would account for >>the slight increase in playing ability compared to Crafty, at times. >> >>I think the fact that there are only one or two amateur engines that can even >>score greater than 40% against the commercial engines some of the time says >>something. I think it's a little niave to believe that the commercial engines >>aren't keeping any secrets. >> >>>The commercials don't have a corner on secrecy, nor should they. >> >>They have a corner on the cutting edge secrets. IE the "big" secrets. >> >>Russell > >You make some good points, and I have no first-hand knowledge to refute them. >So I can only guess, and my guess is that there are no "big" secrets that the >commercials are using. They are just better at every aspect of what goes into >making programs play well. Nevertheless, I also believe that both commercial >and amateur authors are using some unknown techniques. > >Let's assume that I discovered some magic bullet pruning method, and it shrank >my tree in half. Sure, it would play better, but the opening book would still >suck, the crappy eval would still be there, and the code would still be riddled >with all kinds of bugs. In short, it would still lose to the commercials. I totally agree and I believe that movei is using a good idea that is not used by the commercial programs but the problem is that it does not use a lot of ideas that the top amateurs use. I have also a lot of ideas that the top programs do not use but these ideas are not implemented today. I think that the problem(at least for me) is not to think about new good ideas but to implement them correctly. Another problem is that I also do not devote a lot of time to my program and I prefer to watch games of it or to go to discussions. Uri
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