Author: Graham Laight
Date: 17:58:11 01/11/99
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On January 11, 1999 at 13:57:31, José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba wrote: >On January 09, 1999 at 05:55:25, Graham Laight wrote: > >>As I was sitting eating my breakfast just now, it occured to me that there are >>basically 3 items that, between them, will influence how close an evaluation of >>a chess position is to how good that position really is: >> >>1. The number of pieces of knowledge the evaluation function can call upon >> >>2. The quality of those pieces of knowledge >> >>3. The accuracy of selecting the right pieces of knowledge (and their >>appropriate weightings) for the position at hand >> >> >>Does anybody have any thoughts about this? > >I think that different evaluation functions are not comparable by themselves. Why not? You take a chess position, and run 2 different evaluation functions against it. The one that more accurately scores the position is the better evaluation function. >Overall program strength is. I mean, you can compare two evaluation functions >once you have all the other components of the programs fixed; but with a >different set of other components you can get different results. >Among the "other components" I can see: >1. Hardware: processor speed, and amount of memory used for hash tables. >2. The search algorithm, including extensions. >3. The opening book. >4. Endgame tablebases. >5. The time control. This is like saying, "You cannot evaluate the engine in a car unless you take into consideration the door handles and the headlights". I wanted to discuss the evaluation function of a program on its own - not the other stuff - important though I agree it is. Ah well - I have to admit that sometimes it's the door handles that sell the car. Graham. > I think that the correct "accuracy" of the weightings can dramatically change >with these factors.
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