Author: Matthew McKnight
Date: 10:20:03 01/28/04
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On January 28, 2004 at 11:45:47, Bob Durrett wrote: > >This general topic has been discussed considerably in prior threads and I do not >wish to revisit those earlier discussions. > >Generally, the research done by humans over the centuries [!!!] should not be >ignored because of the value of the findings. Therein lies the merit of opening >books. [It would be nice to also incorporate middlegame research findings too!] > >Nevertheless, it may be desired to produce an engine [using tablebases] which >could do a good job of finding best moves in ANY legal chess position. This is >at least of academic interest if not for practical purposes. > >It has been customary to classify positions as being "opening positions," >"middlegame positions," and "endgame positions." Transitions between these >might also add more categories. This customary way of treating positions is >largely based in the history of development of the game of chess and not >necessarily for any fundamental reason. > >The "opening principles," "middlegame principles," and "endgame principals" and >corresponding strategies [opening, middlegame, endgame, etc.] are largely >artificial, it seems to me. The ideal chess engine would look at a new position >and identify characteristics in the position which would suggest a way to >proceed from that position. Position evaluation and search algorithms should be >adaptable in the sense that they would automatically self-optimize on the spot >[in real time, instantaneously] based on the needs of the given position. I >doubt that this degree of real-time adaptation is being done in modern engines, >but cannot know for sure. > >The "perfect" chess-playing program should be able to play well from any >position even if access to historical findings were disabled. Or, at least, >that would be "nice." > >: ) > >Bob D. Let's say you could have a database of middle-game positions, and let's say it's a HUGE database (on the order of terabytes) Chances are, you would NEVER reach a middlegame position in actual play for which information could be found in the database. And if you did, there is no guarantee that the engine will understand the move, and just end up losing the game later. Therefore, this huge amount of data would be useless. Now onto the even more pressing point. Who is going to create these huge databases of nearly useless information? Remember, there are more possible chess positions than atoms in the universe. Matt
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