Author: Albert Silver
Date: 08:34:57 01/05/04
Go up one level in this thread
On January 04, 2004 at 22:10:34, Robin Smith wrote:
>On January 04, 2004 at 09:44:39, Albert Silver wrote:
>
>>The interactive analysis mode in CA is completely under the user's control.
>>That's why it is referred to as interactive, so perhaps you are thinking of
>>something else.
>
>No I am not thinking of something else, and yes, CA does give you some nice
>controls for "interactive" analysis; but when I am talking about interactive
>analysis of positions I mean you are sitting in front of the monitor and
>controlling the analysis the whole time, not that you set some parameters and
>walk away. To me that is not really interactive any more than a pilot turning on
>an autopilot by plugging in some numbers, and then going to sleep, is
>"interactive". But even for this type of automated "interactive" analysis, the
>Fritz GUI's "deep position analysis" (the most similar thing to CA's interactive
>position analysis) has a nice feature too, which I keep mentioning: you can
>specify multiple strong engines to do the analysis, including Tiger, Shredder,
>Fritz, Hiarcs and Junior, all at one time. As with CA, Fritz also lets you set a
>bunch of parameters to control the search, although CA's are a little more
>flexible and interesting. But not enough to make up for the lack of engine
>support. And besides, for the _best_ interactive analysis you should be guiding
>it at every step, not setting it up and going to sleep, although admittedly most
>people don't have time for this.
You are wrong about the interactive analysis. Once the interactive analysis has
started, according to the parameters you set, you retain full control though you
have the *option* of leaving it on automatic pilot.
You can start and stop it in mid analysis of a line, deepen the analysis of
specific lines of your choice, jump to the next position of interest in the
analysis of a line or subvariation, see what each and every move in the lines is
on the main board, and even see what is in the hash tables by selecting the hash
dialogue option in the local menu.
>>Much more so than other programs? If it is really so much more wrong than other
>>programs, how do you account for its superior results?
>
>Yes, _much_ more so than other programs. Its superior results have nothing to do
>with the magnitude of the evaluations. If you take a program, any program, and
>modify it by multiplying all the evaluations by 10, it will look very weird to
>human eyes, and be very confusing to someone not expecting this, but the program
>will play exactly the same moves, since all the evaluations were scaled by the
>same amount. Shredder is fairly consistantly optimistic, which does not hurt
>play at all, but "looks" very odd to the analyst and can mislead you if you
>don't know about it.
Eh? So it scores better because it is continuously more optimistic than every
other program? That doesn't make any sense to me. Scaling everything upwards
should have *disastrous* effects on the results. Can you imagine if everytime it
chose a losing continuation, spurning a repetition, because it thought it was
+1.00 instead of -2.00? It may indeed have optimistic evaluations based on piece
activity, attck potential, etc. more so than others, but I would be shocked if
it was simply scaled upwards universally, and this would somehow have no
detrimental effects on the results.
>Yes Fritz has this a little too, many engines do, but I think Tigers is bigger.
>Fritz 5 used to be very bad, but I believe each new version of Fritz has gotten
>better. I haven't seen it in Fritz 8, although I haven't looked for it real hard
>either.
I take it that you don't use it much then, since I presume the attention you
have devoted to the weaknesses of engines is universal and not limited to Tiger
and Shredder.
>
>>>Engine tournaments can be a very good analysis tool in some circumstances. I
>>>have writen a book on chess analysis that will soon be published by Gambit that
>>>will talk about this, amoung other things. I also have correspondence IM and SIM
>>>titles, a correspondence rating in the world top 100 (and soon will have a
>>>correspondence GM title), so your above statement is no longer true.
>>
>>I was referring to OTB IMs and GMs. I know two correspondence players here in
>>Rio, one who is also one of the top players in the world, and another who is an
>>SIM, but I admit to not being a big follower of the modality, mostly because I
>>think it has been spoiled by excessive use of engines.
>
>Yes, correspondence has been spoiled for many people by chess engines. Some
>people have stopped playing altogether because of it, while others have adapted.
>But I can assure you that at the top level there is much more to correspondence
>play than just plugging a position into a computer. I have run into many players
>rated around ~2300-2350 doing (I believe) this, but not any players rated ~2600.
You should talk with Uri Blass.
>By the way, OTB GM John Nunn is one of the editors of my book, and he has not
>had any negative comments regarding my section on engine tournaments. I think
>many people, both OTB players and correspondence players, have been keeping
>their program use tricks secret.
I tend to disagree. I have instructed classes of masters and grandmasters in the
use of both CA and CB, and have found their knowledge of these programs to be
rudimentary for the most part. Naturally, there are true power-user players, but
I think they are a strict minority. Furthermore, the fact that Nunn said nothing
bad means very little. I'm not saying he is secretly critical about it, but it
could also simply be that this idea of serious engine tournament use is novel to
him and thus he had nothing to say on the subject. It *is* your book after all,
and not his.
>
>>>>Actually, CA has a LOT more to it than that over CB with all due respect.
>>>
>>>I agree. And with all due respect, CB also has a lot more over CA.
>>
>>Such as?
>
>I have already mentioned the two biggest ones: many strong engines supported and
>the ability (in Fritz) to run tournaments.
You can run tournaments in CA, though the support is certainly not as extensive
as in Fritz. However you claimed this severely hampered its use as a top-level
analysis tool, and with all due respect, I think that's bunk.
That you found a way to use engine tournaments as an analysis tool is laudable,
but to claim that without identical support to Fritz, CA does have it after all,
it is no longer a top-level tool.... That's silly as you say.
You also went into detail on flaws in Tiger and Shredder that you perceive, that
make them unusable, but somehow the flaws in Fritz and Hiarcs, that you haven't
tried very hard to find in your own words, are less important.
CA also has incomparable tree support, which your lack of any mention other than
that they are better suggests you barely use, and better organizational and
repertoire tools all of which give it a serious productivity edge over CB and
Fritz (IMHO).
For me these are the main ones,
>although I also think:
>1) The CB GUI is, as you mention below, more attractive. This is not a small
>thing, the CA chess boards are not nearly as comfortable to look at for long
>periods of time. Of course if you set it up and walk away this doesn't matter so
>much.
>2) The CB GUI is easier to learn. One example out of hundreds of easier to
>learn... cutting a position to the clipboard in CB it is just the windows
>standard, <ctrl> C, rather than the harder to remember <ctrl> \ of CA.
>3) The CB GUI is easier to navigate your way around, probably related to the
>easier to learn part. Much of CA's "extra functionality" is fluff stuff I don't care about and that only makes the program harder to use.
Well, there is no doubt that what is important to some, is fluff to the next, so
that is rather subjective.
>4) I find that sometimes CA leaves engines running, even after you close the
>program, which then steals CPU time and memory resources until you notice.
You mean the engine is running in CA even though you closed the engine window,
or that the engine is still analyzing, even though you closed CA? In either
case, if you can reproduce such a bug, you should report it. I'd also be certain
you have the latest patch installed, though I'm presuming you do.
>5) If you do a search of a database of endgame positions, such as Comprehensive
>Chess Endings, looking for positions with a particular number of pieces, like
>7-8, it will show zero games, even though there are many.
Perhaps you are making a mistake in the search setup, such as leaving other
options activated that filter the search undesirably. If not, please give the
exact search conditions as I'd like to see this for myself.
>and some other little things. Not a big deal. I like _both_ CB and CA. But I use
>CB more.
>
>>>They each
>>>have strong and weak points. You talk almost as though CA is better than CB in
>>>every way. This is silliness.
>>
>>Not every way. CB is more attractive, but it is less functional. I'd be curious
>>to know what aspects of its functionality you find to be superior.
>
>See above.
>
>>>Yes CA is better than CB here. But I think Bookup is even better than CA for
>>>this.
>>
>>I wouldn't know as I do not own BookUp. Could you tell me what aspects of
>>repertoire building you think are better?
>
>Bookup is a position database, instead of a games database, sort of like CA
>trees. But Bookup allows you to assign position evaluations, both numeric (such
>as 25 for 25 centipawns) and symbolic (such as +/=) and then you can backsolve
>these positions, somewhat like a program performing minimax, so that positions
>closer to the root have their evaluations determined by the later positions.
>Bookup also imports and exports EPD files correctly, including position
>assessments, and Bookup makes it very easy to find moves that can transpose from
>one branch of the tree into a different branch of the tree. Bookup also shows
>you at a glance how many _positions_ result from a particular move choice, so
>you have a better idea how big each branch is.
I'd suggest a closer look at the CA manual. ALL of the above can be found in CA,
except for the last item. It will tell you how many games result from the
position, all the known moves that lead to it and from it, and it will also show
you at a glance every single known way to *transpose* to it.
For example, if the same position from a Caro-Kann Panov Attack could be reached
from a Nimzo-Indian, QGA, or other, I can see all those transpositions at once
in a glance. I can compare the statistics of this tree with those of several
others by simply flipping back and forth from tree to tree in a click.
- I can annotate or evaluate the move, the position, or the variation, and add
my own moves, positions, or variations to the tree (as symbol or numerical
evaluation) without having to rebuild the tree or have the move even exist in a
game. Though of course it will always give me an instant list of stats and all
the games to be found with said position.
- I can add special markers in the tree to find my special analysis again, or
export this all into a separate tree.
- I can import or export EPD moves and evaluations, and add them to the CAP
data.
- I can add a tree to the tree or subtract a tree from a tree
Within the tree, I can ask optimistic Shredder or buggy Tiger to:
a) Analyse the current position
b) Analyse the current position and then play against itself from there
presenting the results.
c) Automatically search for new moves. In other words, just tell the engine to
find an adequate opening novelty if possible.
d) Expand the best lines.
e) Check the variation in question with engine analysis.
f) Check the variation and try to find opening novelties in the entire
variation.
And heck, I'm just scratching the surface and am deliberately not mentioning
many other items. How they can be considered fluff or less interesting than
Engine Tournaments in terms of Top-Level Analysis is beyond me. I haven't even
mentioned the repertoire tools used in the classifiers.
Albert
Bookup is over priced for what it
>does compared to CA (costs more, at least for Bookup "professional" and does
>less), and I would never recommend Bookup as the sole program people use, but if
>you are into studying opening repertoirs then Bookup is pretty cool. Bookup can
>also help you study certain endgames that involve a number of transpositions.
>
>Robin
This page took 0.01 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.