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Subject: Re: Live chat with Feng-Hsiung Hsu (of Deep Blue fame) on ICC

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 18:57:34 10/11/02

Go up one level in this thread


On October 11, 2002 at 17:51:27, Omid David wrote:

>On October 11, 2002 at 11:51:13, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On October 11, 2002 at 07:43:40, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On October 11, 2002 at 07:12:34, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>>
>>>>On October 11, 2002 at 04:08:49, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Isn't his article clear enough yet?
>>>
>>>Bob Hyatt still claims that it was 12 plies software and 6 plies hardware
>>>so I prefer to hear an answer directly from Hsu.
>>
>>I agree.  But _I_ don't claiam _anything_ except that members of the DB team
>>specifically told me that 12(6) means 12 plies in hardware, 6 in software.  I
>>even posted the excerpt from the email that specifically said this...
>>
>>That is _all_ I have said about it...
>>
>
>No matter what they say, even under extreme theoretical conditions it is
>*impossible* to search 18 plies of brute force in chess, without any type of
>forward pruning whatsoever, and no hash tables.


However, they have _never_ said they didn't use forward pruning.  They have only
said "we don't use null-move for forward pruning" and nothing else.  And they
have
slowly leaked details.  But they pretty much had to since I had gone over their
log
files and discovered that theyt had a _very_ good branching factor, too good for
pure
alpha/beta alone...



>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>reporting a 12.2 average search depth fullwidth.
>>>>I guess you never searched with a decent program fullwidth
>>>>with extensions. If you did, you would understand that
>>>>getting 12.2 ply fullwidth with loads of extensions is already nearly
>>>>impossible. Every extended line is searched to the full depth,
>>>>no pruning happens!
>>>
>>>I agree that 12.2 plies with a lot of extensions and no pruning is impossible
>>>for normal programs and also is impossible for deep blue in case that
>>>there were real 6 more plies in the hardware.
>>>
>>>The only case when it may be possible is if the 6 more plies in the hardware are
>>>real selective search and it means more pruning than null move with R=3 and in
>>>this case the 6 plies in the hardware may be eqvivalent to only 2 plies in
>>>software because of big probability to miss things.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>The interesting 2 questions are
>>>>  a) did DB use 'no-progress pruning' in SOFTWARE (we know
>>>>     already it used it in hardware).
>>>
>>>They explained in the article that they did not want to take risks of missing
>>>something in the first plies so it is clear that they did no pruning in the
>>>first 12 plies.
>>>
>>>If they did some pruning in the software it is clearly after it.
>>>
>>>I do not know what is exactly no progress pruning.
>>>Is there a difference between it and null move pruning?
>>>
>>>Is no progress pruning more aggresive than null move pruning?
>>>
>>>Uri



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