Author: martin fierz
Date: 07:38:52 04/14/04
Go up one level in this thread
On April 14, 2004 at 10:33:42, Matthew Hull wrote: >On April 14, 2004 at 10:21:55, martin fierz wrote: > >>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. >> >> >>this is irrelevant to the discussion - crafty on ICC is running on 4 processors. >>big hardware difference... >> >>it's just what christophe was writing about: crafty is competitive because it >>can use multiple processors (x4 = ~100 rating points). on single processor PCs, >>it is not competitive with top commercials. >> >>the reason is that the commercial programmers write a program for the user who >>buys it - and this user has 1 processor, with *very* few exceptions. if bob had >>spent his time on eval, he would be quite competitive too on single processors >>IMO, but that is not what he chose to do. >> >>i'm speculating here, but probably it's easier for him to focus on >>multiprocessing than on knowledge&search for "political" reasons. when you're >>paid by the university to do research, they want you to do something that the >>people in charge perceive as "useful". tweaking an evaluation function would >>probably sound less useful than accomplishing the parallelization of a complex >>program. parallelization is also interesting for computer science students, >>because the future will bring more multiprocessing systems - also because of >>things like hyperthreading on one processor. > > >I agree with all your points. That is why the ICC environment probably reflects >much better the value of each programmer's emphasis, rather than the SSDF list, >which unintentionally favors one programming emphasis over another. but you can't say that it's a coincidence! SSDF tests what 99% of all users have. and that IMO is the right thing to do. a commercial programmer simply can't emphasize multiprocessing to a big extent, because the time spent on that is "wasted" in a commercial sense. and yes, it is great that on ICC you can show up with what you programmed your beast to do. cheers martin > > > >> >>cheers >> martin >> >>>ICC Stats for Crafty since March 21, 2004 >>> >>>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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