Author: Bob Durrett
Date: 14:32:13 12/05/02
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Rolf: Before offering you a more complete expression of any [hopefully useful] "chess programming related" thoughts I might have on your topic, we need to clear up a point of confusion. I'm not clear what you mean when you say "Positional Position." [Also, what is it, exactly, that is "impossible"?] What do you mean when you say "a position without tactics"? I am no GM, but I have never been able to completely separate the two to my personal satisfaction. Exploitation of "positional" weaknesses seems always to involve tactics at some point. Perhaps a GM could come up with a counter example? Similarly, tactics often is associated with a positional weakness, which is to be exploited [or defended]. Going a bit further on this point, please let me say that all chess positions come about from the previous moves of the game. Creation of a positional weakness might have been accomplished by tactics or maneuvering. Sometimes they originate by blunders or mistakes. In that sense, no positional feature is independent from what came before in the game. But, I doubt that is what you are saying. : ( Incidentally, there are more than two "Bob's" here. Several "good" ones, in fact. : ) Bob D. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ On December 05, 2002 at 11:43:36, Rolf Tueschen wrote: <snip> >I see what you mean. But I think you won't deny that in a game of chess there >are no isolated positions. A chess game can be thought of as a sequence of chess positions related by the condition that each, except for the initial position of the game, is obtained from the previous by a legal move. But I don't think that's what you meant. Care to offer clarification regarding the interrelationships you refer to? <snip> >I was talking about "positional" positions. Positions that are allegedly >testable in the mentioned WM (=Wch) test by Gurevich. And the header of my >message says >it exactly what I meant: positional test positions are physically impossible. >Because, and that is important, the development is so important. Can you come with an example, which makes the correctness of your observation more evident? Please try. I'm not sure what all you would include in "this development." Incidentally, I am a chess amateur not yet at the GM level, so please try to make your explanation understandable at the chess amateur level. >I don't mean >development in the INFORMATOR language! I mean the development of the chess >game >up to that particular positional position. That is a position without tactics, >so without a Kings attack, but also without clear goals at all! At least for >amateurs and chess programs. <snip> >our program could have never attempted to get to that position >earlier on because it simply cannot ""see" the advantages of such a position. This may be a bit too much thinking of chess playing programs as being human, or having human attributes. They really are NOT human. [Alas! They are more like "aliens from outer space" : ) ] My impression is that part of the code in any modern chess engine is devoted to evaluation of chess positions. Crafty, for example, has about 4000 lines of source code just for that purpose. The programmer is at liberty to make that code evaluate *anything* he/she desires. [The execution of this code may include sequential processing similar to that in search algorithms, or it may be completely different. After all, PCs are sequential, unlike humans.] Why cannot the 4000 lines of "position evaluation" code in Crafty do what you want? Maybe "the other Bob" can give the answer? I prefer not to think of the programming task you discuss as being "impossible." At worst, it should be "difficult." That, anyway, is my preference. I hate the word "impossible." That's one of my personal quirks. >So I was concluding, that if you want to test machines for such positional play >you must take earlier position. But because of the actual blindness that can't >work either. Incidentally, I'm curious: WHY is it so impossible to examine ANY chess position and determine what move(s) are best? Or, did you not mean that? Is there something inherent is chess programs which make them incapable of doing that? If [?] humans can do it, why not computer programs? Or is it impossible for humans too? <snip> >Rolf Tueschen <snip>
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