Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: The Brick Wall

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 10:17:50 09/20/04

Go up one level in this thread


On September 20, 2004 at 12:56:27, Uri Blass wrote:

>On September 20, 2004 at 10:48:57, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On September 19, 2004 at 21:28:16, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On September 19, 2004 at 20:37:08, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On September 19, 2004 at 15:10:54, Stuart Cracraft wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On September 19, 2004 at 14:03:52, martin fierz wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>[snip]
>>>>>>
>>>>>>hi stuart,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>you seem to be very active programming your engine if the number of posts here
>>>>>>at CCC is any indication. i guess you have put in all the basic stuff in your
>>>>>>engine, and now it's playing some decent chess but is getting bashed on by the
>>>>>>stronger engines, and you're not happy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>i made a similar experience. after years of checkers programming, i started
>>>>>>writing a chess program, which played it's first game about one month after i
>>>>>>started on it, and improved in leaps and bounds for a couple of months, which
>>>>>>was no big surprise to me since i'm rather familar with most of the techniques
>>>>>>for chess programming from my checkers program.
>>>>>>after half a year progress got slower, and after 9 months i couldn't detect any
>>>>>>progress any more. i let it lie around for half a year now, and will try to find
>>>>>>areas of improvement. but i think that from now on, progress is not so simple
>>>>>>any more. i will have to take a good look at my evaluation for instance, and at
>>>>>>the various extensions, and do a lot of testing. i don't believe there is any
>>>>>>magic bullet that will do the trick. once you reach a certain level, every
>>>>>>further improvement will have to be earned the hard way.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>in this sense, i encourage you to keep working on your engine, without resorting
>>>>>>to this kind of 'senior programmer to the rescue' attitude!
>>>>>>
>>>>>>cheers
>>>>>>  martin
>>>>>
>>>>>I pulled back on an extension idea today and reduced another extension
>>>>>and the program reached 250 out of 300 on WAC. So that's a "good weekend"
>>>>>for me at this point. That I have two more days beyond today off to work
>>>>>on it makes it only taste sweeter. I saved the version under "4.06"
>>>>>and it is filed in the dusty history book area.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>You need to think about "cause" and "effect".  IE does doing well on WAC make a
>>>>program good, or does being good make a program do well on WAC?
>>>>
>>>>I believe the latter.  I don't tune for test suites at all.  As the program gets
>>>>better, it will do better at wac as a result...  Don't be confused and try to
>>>>make it the other way around...
>>>
>>>I believe both.
>>>
>>>There are cases that you can be almost sure of improvement in games based on the
>>>result of test suites.
>>
>>"in some cases".  But that isn't quite what is being discussed here.  It is
>>always "N is better than M if N > M" and that isn't always true.  IE you will do
>>better at WAC with Crafty, by setting the one-reply and recapture extensions
>>higher.  But it will play worse as it will extend too much and drop a ply or
>>more in normal positions...
>
>Yes but I believe that you can probably learn from it and extend more single
>reply in the right part of the cases and not extend in another part of the cases
>so you can score better both in test suites and not have the problem of droping
>one ply or more in normal positions.
>
>I do not extend single reply the same in all cases.
>
>Uri


Neither do I.  The deeper into the tree, the less they get extended.



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.