Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 05:39:13 09/16/04
Go up one level in this thread
On September 16, 2004 at 08:19:20, martin fierz wrote: >On September 15, 2004 at 12:18:42, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On September 15, 2004 at 10:32:53, martin fierz wrote: >> >>>On September 15, 2004 at 09:53:53, Stuart Cracraft wrote: >>> >>>>Hi, >>>> >>>>Anyone know of some code somewhere that implements >>>>at least part (or all) of the originally described >>>>singular extension and/or any modifications to it that >>>>have proven worthwhile (if any)? >>>> >>>>I am curious what mediocre (or better) results people >>>>have gotten with singular extension. Originally Anantharaman >>>>hypothesized that it wouldn't be good at the slower >>>>speeds of most programs at the time and would require >>>>fast speeds to show effect. Has this proven true or >>>>false in the intervening 15 years? >>>> >>>>Is singular extension now generally discredited as a >>>>non-reproducible singularity in and of itself? >>>> >>>>Thanks, >>>> >>>>Stuart >>> >>>AFAIK, SE is 'interesting' in the sense that it does enable programs to solve >>>certain positions faster, but of course you pay a price. and again AFAIK, nobody >>>is really using it these days, because the price seems too high to pay. i.e. in >>>games it's no improvement. >>> >>>just because the deep blue team used SE doesn't mean it's any good. remember, >>>they also decided not to use null-move, which was an established concept by >>>then. >>> >>>cheers >>> martin >> >>Remember also that _others_ use/used SE. Cray Blitz did starting in 1993. >>Wchess (Kittinger used the PV-singular half of SE.) I suspect others did/do as >>well. IE we know that Ferret had an implementation of SE. > >of course others used SE. if deep blue had been using *anything*, others would >have tried it too. like everybody playing the kings indian after kasparov did... > >i have never seen anybody claim that SE is of any use. 1. It worked for CB. 2. Kittinger used it for several years in Wchess and claimed it worked well for him, using a "partial implementation". 3. Ferret used it. 4. HiTech used it. 5. Vincent claims to use it although he never explains what he is doing. One minute he bashes SE/deep blue, the next minute he claims to be using SE in his program. Perhaps that example is not so good of course. :) 6. It supposedly is used in Lang's programs, recent versions of Genius.. That's not exactly "nobody claimed that SE is of any use." The problem is that it is not exactly easy to implement. And I couldn't seem to make it work with the null-move stuff I do in Crafty, at least not well enough to keep it around so foar. But that doesn't mean I never will, after I invest enough time on it at some point in time... >lots of people must have >tried to get it working after all the miracles that were promised. nobody here >is using it or claiming it's any good. i think that is a clear enough indication >that SE is not very useful. for example, there is an SE-version of crafty. if it >was significantly stronger than the normal version of crafty, we would know >about it. people are testing these programs all the time. That conclusion is flawed. It says more about the _implementation_ than it does the idea itself. Others have had success with it as I mentioned above. I never claimed my implementation was the best that could be done (it was the "sorta-SE as used in Ferret but apparently Bruce did some tweaking later on and got it to work better than I did). > >one paper on the subject won't change my opinion. as an unrelated example, >michael buro et al published that (multi-?)-probcut would significantly increase >crafty's playing strength. when people here tested the MPC-crafty more >thoroughly, the promised gains didn't materialize IIRC. There I agree... > >contrast this with something like nullmove. everybody here is using it, and >everybody is saying it works. everybody uses check extensions and say they help. >if SE was that great, it would be the same for SE. > I don't know that _everybody_ uses it. DB is a counter-example yet it was horrifically strong. Others including Rebel did not use it for years and years.. >cheers > martin
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