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Subject: strange article : A Self-Learning Evolutionary Chess Program

Author: Michael Yee

Date: 19:49:37 05/09/05


I came across this interesting/strange paper today:

http://www.natural-selection.com/publications_2004.html
http://www.natural-selection.com/Library/2004/92jproc12-fogel.pdf

Some remarks:

(1) started with known good values for material and PSTs (so did in fact
incorporate human knowledge)
(2) doesn't say how they encoded the inputs for the 3 neural networks (whose
total contribution to the eval was at most 3*50 [or -3*50])
(3) had artificial rule that games lasting 50 moves were draws (although I can't
tell if this was just for during training)
(4) fixed search depth of 4 ply (or 6 ply when extending for quiescence), but
maybe only during training?
(5) gauged strength with matches vs CM8000 personalities and Pocket Fritz
(6) cites Kasparov communication as a reference...
(7) badmouths td learning but doesn't even reference knightcap paper
(8) doesn't cite what open source programs they "borrowed" from

I'm curious why they didn't just play automated matches against a winboard or
uci compatible program. I'm also curious how well a simple program on their
athlon 2400 would do against pocket fritz. Mostly, I'm skeptical because I can't
deduce all of the conditions of the experiments.

Michael



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