Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 15:49:22 04/02/04
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On April 02, 2004 at 16:22:19, Jonas Bylund wrote: >Thank you very much for your detailed answers! > >When you say Diep already runs in windows mode, does that mean that it runs DOS >or "real" windows mode? (sorry about not being clear on that in my original >post) You mean whether it's textmode or graphical i guess. It's graphical GUI :) >10GB for all the 3+4+5+6 tb's would be a HUGE success as would 20GB of course! Success is relative. I do not earn a penny on EGTBs. I just waste time in fact on it. I could earn money in that time instead. So success is relative. I do not see it as a success. Getting even 5th in world champs is way harder. Getting #300 on ATP list in tennis even harder than that. I have in total written 3 different generators now for egtb's and each project was only a few days worth. Very easy to make in fact. I'm sure any programmer who has past beginners stage can make it. If you compare that with a chess engine, a chessengine is 1000x harder to get to a strong level. Even generating the first 7 men which i expect to do real soon i do not consider as a big success. I'm sure Eugene could do that too knowing his huge hardware. However i plan to make a special generator for the 7 man a lot faster than any generator before. I had a while ago a generator which was very fast. It's easier than some guess to do all that. The problem is it is all volunteer work in some sense. Also the importance for chessprograms of egtb's is smaller nowadays than it used to be say in 1999. The impact of the first programs using 5 men was way bigger than 6 men now. The reason is the huge improvement of chess software (the top 10 of the world that is). I remember junior playing at world champs 2003 with just all 5 men turned on. Note i didn't use any egtb at the world champs 2003. In both cases i do not see the problem. Also note that where i love small egtb's, chessbase shows up with huge machines with a lot of ram and harddisk packs. I just cannot afford harddisk packs as i have no sponsor. I'm sure they keep on using nalimov for some years to go. No need to change. The effect of the egtb's is getting less anyway. The current generation of software is not stupid enough to allow to get to an endgame which is dead lost. Even when some hard egtb's come there: for example what happens sometimes is: KRP KRP it is very *unlikely* that by accident some commercial program goes to an endgame which is lost. if it is forced in such an endgame it probably is already down more than minus 2, so it not exactly volunteerly went into that position. the evaluations have advanced too much to let them get fooled easily. i noticed that fritz is doing a good job there especially. it has improved a lot in rook endgames the last so many versions. i was a live witness of that at world champs 2002 in fact. diep managed to get some won rook endgame (rpp versus rp) but fritz very convincingly drew it. diep had no clue it was a draw. fritz did. Even for yace i doubt whether any rook endgame EGTB will save its ass somewhere. It usually is doing it itself much better :) >I am not implying that we all have a similar standard when it comes to giving >our work away, but people who know me fairly well, knows that if they need >anything, that be music, webdesign, painting, ideas etc.all they need to do is >ask and i will provide it for free if i have the time. Not too long ago someone >saw one of my paintings (he lives in USA) and really liked one particular >painting and i sent it to him free of charge, - shipping charges. >I can say that giving without asking anything in return is _extremely_ >liberating, but if that dosn't do it for you, i respect that too. Why would i provide to competitors for free source code of egtb's? Note i wouldn't mind a few amateur programs, but what happens is the format spreads, that's what happens. Then competitors use it and they do not say 'thank you'. They just use it. They have always superior hardware and huge harddisks. in fact they do not need w/d/l even. They have sugh huge SCSI diskpacks in all their machines and such huge memory they can keep using nalimov's stuff for years to go. An important reason for me to write my own generator + format is because i want to generate some 7 men at a small PC and allow my users to freely download all 6 men in a small size. Note that i must generate some 6 men anyway. The 5 versus 1. So 1 side has just a king. For 5 vs 2 men that is needed. the 5 vs 1 is completely useless for this world. it is a waste of system time to generate them in some sense. but for a serious attempt at the 7 mens 5v2 you need to do it. Even though those will be probably useless too. Imagine KQQQQKN. Who wins that? Perhaps there is a few stalemates? This egtb is real useless. But i'm sure i'll generate it :) Nalimov won't generate those i guess. So he might be even able to start way sooner onto the 7 men than i can and cry victory before me :) Most likely i cannot start to generate 7 men until i get a machine from other sources. Like from university maastricht.
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