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Subject: Re: Crosstable

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 15:09:40 08/16/05

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On August 16, 2005 at 17:46:10, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On August 16, 2005 at 17:37:30, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On August 16, 2005 at 17:30:02, Paolo Casaschi wrote:
>>
>>>On August 16, 2005 at 17:26:28, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 16, 2005 at 17:16:33, Paolo Casaschi wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>I know that usually when program improve they improve in all time controls.
>>>>>>I do not know of evaluation changes or search changes that make programs weaker
>>>>>>at blitz but stronger at long time control.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>In thoery it can happen but I need to see a proof for it and I believe that
>>>>>>fabien mainly test in blitz time control(he can correct me if I am wrong)
>>>>>>because usually productive changes in blitz of adding knowledge to the
>>>>>>evaluation are also productive at long time control.
>>>>>
>>>>>Do you have any proof or evidence that there is some correlation between blitz
>>>>>strenght and slower speed strenght?
>>>>>If you dont, then we can only compare assumptions and I tend to agree with Bob
>>>>>Hyatt since the same non-correlation is evident with humans and because common
>>>>>sense...
>>>>
>>>>There is definitely a general correlation between strength at blitz and strength
>>>>at standard time control.  However, there are also exceptions to the rule.
>>>>
>>>>For instance, we will expect Fruit to be stronger than Golem at blitz, in the
>>>>same way that we would expect Kasparov to clobber me at blitz.
>>>>
>>>>On the other hand, Mike Valvo overperforms at blitz, and Amy used to
>>>>underperform badly (it was mostly due to bad algorithms for time management at
>>>>fast time control).
>>>
>>>Exactly my point.
>>>There is some correlation but there are exceptions and it's possible that
>>>different players have a different type of correlation, thus the point of Bob
>>>Hyatt stands.
>>>
>>>--Paolo
>>
>>I still need to see an example for programs without significant bugs that show
>>significant difference(Amy is not a good example because of bad time management)
>>
>>There may be cases when A is 50 elo weaker at blitz and 50 elo better at long
>>time control but I doubt if you can find cases when A is 100 elo weaker at blitz
>>and 100 elo stronger at long time control.
>>
>>Uri
>
>
>I'm not going to waste all day here, but a parallel search program can play
>worse in endgames than in the middlegame, if sufficient care is not taken.
>Would you really want to sic 8 cpus on a position which on average only has 4
>moves or less?  Overhead goes thru the roof.

It seems that 4 threads could work on the root node, and 4 threads on the next
elements of the pv as one possibility.  Probably a gross oversimplification, of
course.

>Same thing happens in blitz.  Trees are a fraction of their normal size.  To
>split them invites excessive search overhead.  In extreme cases (I have seen
>this in Crafty) I get to do _zero_ splits in a blitz game (this happened in a
>couple of the games Peter played today in fact) which means the search is
>running about 1/6 its normal performance level.  Think a factor of 6 slower will
>make a measurable difference in speed vs normal chess?  Easily.  over-compensate
>for that and you greatly slow the search down by having excessive split
>overhead.  And screwing up on this side of the equation can make the parallel
>search _slower_ than a single-processor search, which can totally wreck
>performance...
>
>Enough of this for the moment.  The problem is real...



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