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Subject: Re: Proving something is better

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 12:48:50 12/18/02

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On December 18, 2002 at 11:20:58, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:

>On December 18, 2002 at 11:07:49, Omid David Tabibi wrote:
>
>>Have you ever conducted any research? If so, you would have known that a
>>researcher doesn't examine everything since the creation of earth, he takes
>>something which is known to be better and tries to improve it.
>
>Which is why you investigated Heinz's adaptive nullmove.
>
>Oh, wait...
>
>>I didn't think that someone will seriously claim that std R=3 is better than >std R=3; but now, I'd be glad to write another paper comparing those two, and
>>also mentioning fixed time comparisons if people find it interesting. Because
>>although not appearing the article, I have conducted tens of other types of
>>experiments (including fixed time) and I _know_ that vrfd R=2 is clearly
>>superior to std R=3.
>
>'Everything you know is wrong'
>
>Whether R=2 or R=3 is better depends very much on the search below
>that nullmove. For a Crafty-style program (which Genesis appears to
>be), R=2 is going to be superior over R=3. But you can't claim that
>is a general truth.

The data in the article strongly implies that for this program, R=3 is better
than R=2.

I think that programs are different enough that if you are going to study
various tweaks of null move, you start by thorougly investigating the vanilla
techniques.

In computer chess, almost every assumption is baseless, because the programs are
different enough that you'll get different results.

To hash qsearch or not?  Bob doesn't, I do.  In mine, it is *definitely* better
to do it.  In Bob's, it is *definitely* better not to.  Who is right?  Both of
us.

Before I did *anything* with null move, I would first get baselines for all
manner of R.

I have done tests from R=1 to R=6, with fractional values in between.  I don't
do them just once, either, I do them ever year or so, to make sure that things
have not changed.  Straight R=2 is best, for me.

bruce



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