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Subject: Re: Chess knowledge and speed.

Author: Andrew Wagner

Date: 10:26:09 08/19/04

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On August 19, 2004 at 06:44:12, Uri Blass wrote:

>On August 18, 2004 at 23:23:14, Andrew Wagner wrote:
>
>>On August 18, 2004 at 18:53:23, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On August 18, 2004 at 16:59:32, Jonas Bylund wrote:
>>>
>>>>Let's say that someone were to cramp as much knowledge in to his/her program
>>>>with the sole purpose of making it stronger for _really_ long analysis/play,
>>>>thus not caring for the loss of speed, would this actually make the program
>>>>stronger for _really_ long games/analysis?
>>>
>>>It may make the program weaker because the program may have a lot of new bugs
>>>thanks for the new knowledge.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>I have a feeling that most programs are tuned and optimized for standard, rapid
>>>>and blitz play, not for 1 month games :)
>>>>
>>>>My point is that if there is indeed an increase in strenght if you to some
>>>>reasonable extend discard the speed vs. knowledge aspect, couldn't someone make
>>>>a long analysis version of their engine along with their normal engine?
>>>
>>>I do not think that the problem is a problem of speed.
>>>The main problem is that you think that programmmers know to give their programs
>>>productive knowledge and the only problem is that their program is going to
>>>become slower if they implement it.
>>>
>>>This is not the only problem and in a lot of cases the main problem is to know
>>>if some knowledge is productive and to implement things without bugs.
>>>
>>>Programmers have enough problems to find if a new version is better in standard
>>>games and if they try to do their best for that purpose they have not time for
>>>developing a special version that is better for long analysis.
>>>
>>>Uri
>>
>>I don't understand this response at all. The same could be argued about any new
>>feature to a chess engine -- "Null-move pruning is a bad idea because it could
>>introduce bugs and is not clear how to best implement it." The point is that
>>because of diminishing returns, the number reached by a knowledge-heavy engine
>>will probably not differ from that of a more classical engine if they both
>>search for a month, right? So I would have to give the advantage to the
>>knowledge-based engine, but that's just me.
>
>I do not understand your response.
>I do not see what deminishing returns has to do with the problem.

Diminishing returns is important because eventually both engines will reach a
point where to get to another ply will take many months of searching. Having
each engine search for a month will cause that to happen each move. Therefore,
if they're both searching to the same ply, the engine with more chess knowledge
should, theoretically, win.

>
>The point is that you can test something for blitz or standard time control
>games but you cannot test something for analysis of one month.
>

Well, if you test it with fixed depth games, the engine with better knowledge
should win. That is how you figure out what "better knowledge" is.

>Null move is supposed to work at blitz so it is possible to test it.
>You do not have time to test something seriously for correspondnece games.
>
>Uri




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