Author: Russell Reagan
Date: 22:09:44 11/09/02
Go up one level in this thread
On November 10, 2002 at 00:11:16, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>I don't see how you could use my PV to predict anything. I have already played
>my move before I kibitz my PV, so how will you use it?
For example, I play 1. e4 against Crafty. Crafty thinks (no book) and replies
with 1. ... d5, and gives the PV line:
11 22.98 0.34 1. ... d5 2. exd5 Nf6 3. c4 c6 4. dxc6
Nxc6 5. Nf3 Bf5 6. d4 e6
Now my program takes this, and now my program knows that you're program is going
to ponder 2. exd5 (if that's of any use to me), and I can have a pretty good
idea that next time Crafty is going to play 2. ... Nf6, since that is what was
in the PV line. When I tried this manually, Crafty plays Nf6 like I thought, so
I would have pondered the correct move because of what you kibitzed.
Maybe I could go ahead and assume that several of the moves in the PV are going
to be correct, and I'll start my search from 1. ... d5 2. exd5 Nf6 and get an
extra ply or two. So now I'm pondering almost every move you play correctly, and
I've got a few plies of extra search if it turns out that I can assume the first
few moves of the PV will be what you play, which it probably will.
I'd like to know if this is possible with the current kibitzing requirement. If
it is, I think that's one of the worst rules I've ever heard of. My engine could
probably do something with the score you kibitz too. Maybe search longer if your
engine thinks it's better. Maybe it sees something I don't, so I'll search a
little longer. Or maybe, since I don't like this rule, my engine's PV's will be
1 move long, always, and my scores will be on some absurd scale, and in base 26.
I don't see what's wrong with kibitzing trivial information, such as time,
nodes, nodes per second, the resulting FEN string, or whatever. For someone to
fake that, they would have to estimate how many nodes they were at, estimate the
time in say, 10 seconds from now, compute the nodes per second real quick, type
all of that in before you hit the "in 10 seconds" time, then kibitz that, and
manually make the move, get the FEN string right, and never make a mistake in 10
games. If someone is consistently taking more time than usual between kibitzing
and making the move (IE not instantly) that's one tip off. If there's an error,
that's another tip off. If the time doesn't match up, that's another tip off,
because what are the chances that someone is going to get the time right that it
took between the opponent's last move and the time you kibitz, and not make a
mistake for the entire tournament?
Do this, and provide logs immediately after each game, and I don't see how
kibitzing PV info is any better, at least from a cheating perspective, and now
you can't cheat by pulling off someone's next move from the PV.
This is why I posted earlier about not just posting suggestions, but posting the
reason for them. If the reason is to prove you're automatic, I don't see any
reason for providing PV and score info. To me it's no different than if a
baseball team has a guy out behind the center field wall picking up the signs
from the catcher and relaying them to the batter. If a team did that, they'd
have a significant advantage over the other team. I know this because I've seen
it happen. Knowing that a fastball is on the way makes a big difference. I
imagine that knowing Nf6 is on the way also makes a big difference.
Require something that only the computer could provide automatically with a good
amount of accuracy. Things like time and nodes, then calculate the nodes per
second. A human would take longer to do these things, and fumble them up
eventually. Print the FEN string, that's something that would also take extra
time for the human. Maybe print a hash of the current position, and provide the
random numbers you used in a log file after the game. That would be almost
impossible for a human to hand produce accurately. Maybe print a list of all
squares with pieces on them. There are a lot of possibilities here, and no PV
info needs to be shared to acheive what you want.
Russell
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