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Subject: Re: Checkers: Las Vegas and Chinook

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 19:00:28 09/15/02

Go up one level in this thread


On September 12, 2002 at 02:13:29, martin fierz wrote:

>On September 11, 2002 at 23:08:19, Dave Gomboc wrote:
>
>>On September 11, 2002 at 16:28:37, martin fierz wrote:
>>
>>>On September 11, 2002 at 07:23:38, Dave Gomboc wrote:
>>>
>>>>On September 10, 2002 at 17:03:26, martin fierz wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>if you want to compare, only if you do it properly - so only if i get the
>>>>>logfile afterwards :-)
>>>>>and i hope you realize that even with the logfile, comparing one position is
>>>>>rather meaningless.
>>>>
>>>>It's not my program, I can't make such a guarantee!  But he is having a party on
>>>>Saturday, so if I have a position I can bug him a bit to get him to log in and
>>>>run it...
>>>>
>>>>Yes, I know that comparing one position is meaningless.
>>>>
>>>>Dave
>>>
>>>4-8 about 3 moves after 11-15 in the game is the real mistake. 4-8 wins the man
>>>but loses. any normal checkers program should want to play 4-8 for a while, and
>>>if it's good, it should switch away from 4-8 after some time. the position is
>>>rather complicated, so you should make sure that it doesn't switch back. i've
>>>changed a couple of things in cake after LV to make it find this faster, which
>>>it does, but it still needs a lot of time :-(
>>>just try glancing over schaeffer's shoulder to see when it switches to a better
>>>move :-)
>>>
>>>aloha
>>>  martin
>>
>>Okay, I will try. :-)
>>
>>So are you saying that once you take the checker you're toast?  Like a forced
>>loss?  Or are there drawing resources later, but it's just that taking the
>>checker is quite a bad move?  And what should it play instead of 4-8?
>>Presumably not any move will do?
>>
>>Dave
>
>yes, there is only one move X to draw in this position AFAIK. and it's not 4-8.
>i don't want to bias your answer so i'll just wait and see what you guys get :-)
>
>i have this book generator, i think there are also people in your group who do
>this kind of stuff. i let it expand this line after las vegas, and it says 4-8
>is a dead loss, and X is a database draw.
>
>in the improved version, cake first wants to go 4-8 with a positive score, then
>it starts getting a negative score for it, then it switches to X with a negative
>score, and finally the negative score gets smaller. that's the reason i'd like
>to see a search log, because from that you can see at what point it realizes
>that winning the man is no good, and when it switches to X, and when it realizes
>that X is probably a draw. the thing is that at first both moves look good, then
>both look bad, and finally 4-8 looks real bad, and X only a bit bad. at least to
>cake. so the point where a program has "solved" this position is when it
>realizes that X is probably going to draw. not when it displays X as best move,
>because for a long while, whether you want to play 4-8 or X is just a matter of
>"taste", i.e. some parameters in the eval which have nothing to do with
>understanding this position.
>
>aloha
>  martin

Well, I couldn't run it... apparently the endgame database code is being
rewritten at the moment. :-)

Dave



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