Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 23:51:29 04/13/04
Go up one level in this thread
On April 13, 2004 at 17:00:24, Matthew Hull wrote:
>On April 13, 2004 at 14:21:07, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On April 13, 2004 at 01:29:02, Russell Reagan wrote:
>>
>>>On April 12, 2004 at 23:07:46, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>
>>>>Further, wouldn't you just *hate* if I took the fun out of chess programming by
>>>>telling you everything? :)
>>>
>>>My gut feeling is that we would probably be disappointed for the most part. I
>>>bet a lot of us think all of you commercial authors are harboring lots of
>>>magical secrets that can turn an average program into a beast. Something similar
>>>to the improvements you get by going from minimax to alphabeta, or by adding
>>>null-move to an average program, and things like that. Those are very
>>>significant improvements.
>>>
>>>I have received the impression from you and other sources like Ed's webpage that
>>>this is not the case. There are some clever things on Ed's webpage, but for the
>>>most part, it is good ideas based on common sense, and then taking the time and
>>>effort to hammer out every last detail to make an idea work, followed by an
>>>efficient implementation.
>>>
>>>To illistrate the difference between what I think a lot of people would expect
>>>to hear from you if you divulged all of your secrets and what I think we would
>>>really get, consider null-move. Null-move is something that you can add to a
>>>program that uses no forward pruning, and once you spend a small amount of time
>>>getting it to work right, the program suddenly plays like it's on steroids
>>>(relatively speaking). However, if we took an average program and added in a few
>>>ideas from Ed's webpage, I wouldn't expect nearly as big of an improvement. I
>>>think you guys just take a lot of ideas and get small improvements here and
>>>there, and at the end of the decade, it amounts to a big improvement. 10%
>>>reduction in tree size here, 20% there, it adds up.
>>>
>>>Am I right? If we are expecting to see magical earth shattering secrets, would
>>>we be disappointed?
>>
>>
>>
>>I don't think you would be disappointed.
>>
>>But you are right in assuming that you would not see a dramatic improvement such
>>as the one you get from alpha-beta vs minimax.
>>
>>You know, one has to wonder where the difference in elo strength between Crafty
>>and the top commercial comes from.
>
>
>Compare this with your mileage at home. Many of the plus performance scores are
>against accounts running commercial programs.
>
>ICC Stats for Crafty since March 21, 2004
Stats on chess servers are extremely unreliable.
This is as close to a scientific experiment as we will ever get:
http://w1.859.telia.com/~u85924109/ssdf/list.htm
Christophe
>Blitz
> Account win loss draw pctg
>-- ------------ ----- ----- ----- ------
>br Deveraux 0 1 0 0.00
>br SinbadGonnaD 0 3 0 0.00
>br giant 0 1 1 25.00
>br glories 0 1 1 25.00
>br Bitpusher 1 6 9 34.38
>br BountyHunter 1 3 4 37.50
>br ajop2 1 1 0 50.00
>br allAdreamOfA 1 1 1 50.00
>br bookbuilder 2 2 3 50.00
>br Joecreek2004 0 0 1 50.00
>br Lindisfarne 1 1 2 50.00
>br NubianMagic 0 0 1 50.00
>br Somnus 1 1 0 50.00
>br TheBigChill 1 1 1 50.00
>br Vangard 1 1 0 50.00
>br pathologist 5 4 3 54.17
>br X-Engine 12 5 13 61.67
>br AmazingGrace 19 10 8 62.16
>br Dhaka 2 1 1 62.50
>br PostModernis 8 2 4 71.43
>br stormx 4 0 5 72.22
>br ajop 2 0 2 75.00
>br SearcherX 3 0 3 75.00
>br tlg 4 1 1 75.00
>br muse-comp 7 1 2 80.00
>br Amateur 2 0 0 100.00
>br Clooby 7 0 0 100.00
>br cro-magnon 1 0 0 100.00
>br HangerOn 1 0 0 100.00
>br Nutibara 1 0 0 100.00
>br rigacombinat 2 0 0 100.00
>br TAL9000 2 0 0 100.00
>
>Standard
>
>sr SearcherX 0 1 0 0.00
>sr Vangard 0 1 0 0.00
>sr workuta 0 2 1 16.67
>sr X-Engine 0 1 1 25.00
>sr DIEP 1 1 0 50.00
>sr Good-Boy 1 1 1 50.00
>sr Kronos 0 0 2 50.00
>sr RuffianY 1 1 1 50.00
>sr Sukkubus 2 2 4 50.00
>sr chepla 3 2 4 55.56
>sr HangerOn 1 0 1 75.00
>sr stormx 1 0 1 75.00
>sr thebaron 3 0 1 87.50
>sr BrassCube 1 0 0 100.00
>sr SpiderChessX 1 0 0 100.00
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>On a related note, this brings up a question. If it is true that a lot of things
>>>that give your program improvements at this stage are very minor things, then it
>>>seems logical that those things would not necessarily result in improvements if
>>>they were implemented in other programs, because your ideas probably fit into an
>>>overall system. Do you think it is important to have a good overall system,
>>>where all components compliment one another?
>>>
>>>For instance, a simple example of a system: the job of the full width search is
>>>to hand off nodes to a qsearch, which has the job of handing off quiet positions
>>>to an evaluation function. Under that system, you only want to evaluate quiet
>>>positions, not all positions. If you acheive that, then you make sure your
>>>qsearch is really delivering quiet positions. If it is, you are probably getting
>>>accurate analysis from the engine. If someone took that beefed up qsearch that
>>>was required to make that system work successfully and implemented it in their
>>>program, it may only cause a qsearch explosion and result in weaker play.
>>>
>>>Am I right in believing that it is important to have an overall view of the
>>>system, and that ideas that resulted in improvements in your engine may not help
>>>other engines at all?
>>
>>
>>
>>It is really hard to answer to this question.
>>
>>One thing I am convinced of is that if the top chess programmers started to
>>exchange ideas, like Ed and I did, you would see a significant increase in the
>>strength of these top programs. Clearly some of them would benefit more.
>>
>>
>>
>> Christophe
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