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Subject: Re: Did Fritz cook the Nunn tests?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 15:43:24 02/24/99

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On February 24, 1999 at 11:43:12, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:

>On February 24, 1999 at 10:19:56, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On February 24, 1999 at 08:15:09, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>
>>>On February 24, 1999 at 06:57:57, blass uri wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>On February 23, 1999 at 18:53:28, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On February 23, 1999 at 18:47:36, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>>>>>On February 23, 1999 at 14:53:11, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>>>[snip]
>>>>>>>I don't think this is evidence of "cooking" -- more likely learning.  Quite
>>>>>>>likely, they have already analyzed this position set in their database and
>>>>>>>therefore know the best responses for each position.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Rather than indicating something underhanded, it probably just means that they
>>>>>>>have run extensive testing in this area.  Crafty would do the same thing.  If I
>>>>>>>ran crafty at very long time controls, it would update the learning data file
>>>>>>>about what to do in these situations.  Is crafty cheating?  Certainly not.  Not
>>>>>>>'cooking' anything either.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I don't see any evil conspiracy here.  That does not mean there is nothing
>>>>>>>afoot.  But I doubt it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>f5.32 gets shipped with Learning files already compiled for those
>>>>>>positions and another few thousands for auto232 at the auto232 version,
>>>>>>is that what u mean?
>>>>>I only suspected something of that nature.  But it certainly makes sense.  If I
>>>>>were a chess program manufacturer, I would have best move entries for thousands
>>>>>of known difficult positions.  Some of the Crafty and Covax postions turn up a
>>>>>lot in games, for instance.
>>>>
>>>>I do not think that they used learning files already compiled for these
>>>>positions
>>>>because if they did it then they did not need to calculate moves when they
>>>>played.
>>>>
>>>>They probably changed the evaluation function to have better results in the nunn
>>>>match.
>>>>
>>>>Uri
>>>
>>>Well first look 'what kind of learning' do chessprograms have.
>>>Chessprograms have only learning for bookmoves, and those are played at
>>>once. All experiments with position learning at non-book moves failed so far,
>>>commercially seen.
>>
>>
>>I don't agree.  I have spent more hours debugging stuff caused by forgetting
>>about crafty's "position learning" than anything else.  Because after a deep
>>search it stores the result as a permanent hash entry that goes into a file.
>>And when you play again, these 'learned positions' are loaded before doing
>>anything.  In my case, it wouldn't be hard to 'cook up something' for (say)
>>the Nolot test to get 'em all right.  And I would still do normal searches,
>>but the 'scores' would be doctored by the permanent hash entries.
>
>You are right here, but in the case of fritz it is something else that
>explains it, it is called hardcoding things in preprocessor,
>which is way simpler than position learning, and has also a much bigger
>impact.
>
>>>
>>>So any kind of 'learning file' in the Nunn positions cannot be true unless
>>>they play the move within a flash of a second (book move).
>>>
>>>The only thing that gets done is HARDCODING in the piece square tables
>>>the position. Fritz3 was clearly provable cooking BK test set,
>>>so much even that the b2-b4 position it played always b2-b4 if the
>>>pawn structure in the centre matched. It even did it
>>>when putting whites pawn from g2-g4 and blacks pawn from h7-h6. Then b4 is a big
>>>blunder as black gets 2 passed pawns after Qc8, but still it played it.
>>>all other chessprograms saw this within seconds, so would never play b4,
>>>but fritz did. It just didn't like b4 initially, so i guess Frans gave it
>>>so much bonus that it then always wanted to play b4, otherwise it got
>>>death penalty...
>>>
>>>To quote someone: "the people just test positions at it to see how strong
>>>programs are, so they ask for it". I'll not reveal his name, that would
>>>not be nice.
>>>
>>>I think he is completely right however.
>>>
>>>Most programs, including crafty solve win at chess position 2,
>>>at low depths just seeing that pawns get to 3d rank, where such
>>>kind of evaluation is very dangerous.
>>
>>
>>I don't think this is dangerous.  My 'evaluation' is not "just a pair
>>of connected passers on the 6th".  It is more complex.  And it was _not_
>>done for WAC2.  It was done because in bullet games it would be well
>>ahead and then lose when it allowed two connected passers to reach the
>>point where a rook can't stop them.
>
>It is dangerous in this case, as king is in quadrant.
>

I don't think it is as dangerous as it seems... because I have specific
code to turn this off if the king gets too close.  With a reasonable
search depth, the king can't get there in time..




>>This has saved a _lot_ more games, and _won_ a lot more games, than it has
>>lost.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>But abou the nunn positions: the only thing that can be done
>>>in order to play these positions ok with
>>>Fritz is to have new code implemented in the program that fills the piece
>>>square tables.
>>>
>>>This is a clear case of cooking.
>>>
>>>Of course Nunn selected in the past only more or less closed positions,
>>>as he got paid by chessbase. Later they even improved play here by doing
>>>this.
>>>
>>>Greetings,
>>>Vincent



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