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Subject: Re: a question about the evaluation function of a chess programs

Author: jonathan Baxter

Date: 17:26:19 10/08/98

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On October 08, 1998 at 08:21:56, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On October 08, 1998 at 04:45:16, blass uri wrote:
>
>>I think that it is a good idea to have a not symmetric evaluation function.
>>
>>for example if a program is bad at rook endings it should be against going to it
>>with both sides, but the evaluation should be more symmetric when the time
>>control is longer because in this case the program has better chances to find by
>>search the right moves in positions that it does not understand.
>>
>>Is there a chess program that uses an evaluation function that is a function of
>>the time control?
>>
>>Uri
>
>many programs start out like this, but as the evaluation is improved, it is
>"turned off".  I can't think of anything asymmetric in my evaluation at
>present, other than one penalty for completely blocked pawns...

One big advantage with a symmetric evaluation function is that you can do
parameter learning even if you lose every game. I recently modified my program's
eval to be completely symmetric and got very useful learning playing against
crafty even though it lost a large portion of the early games. If the eval
is asymmetric and the program loses most of its games it will tend to use the
asymmetric features to learn that every position is a loss, which isn't very
helpful.

Jonathan Baxter
that "every position is a loss"



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