Author: Tord Romstad
Date: 03:20:43 02/25/06
Go up one level in this thread
On February 25, 2006 at 06:15:01, Graham Laight wrote: >Instead of playing on an 8x8 board, play on an 80x80 board, with each side >having 80 pawns, 20 rooks, 20 knights, 20 bishops, 10 queens and 10 kings - each >of which must be taken to win the game (I'll call this "super chess"). > >For illustration, late me make some sweeping assumptions about chess: suppose >that each position has an average of 37 moves, and that a chess computer looks >at 2 billion (2*10^9) positions per move. In super chess, there would be an >average of well over 10*37 = 370 moves per position, because rooks, bishops and >queens would have more moves, and knights and other pieces would also have more >moves available on average, so lets say that the average number of moves would >be 1000 per position. > >In chess, the number of ply the computer can search comprehensively is: > >37^n = 2*10^9 >log(37)*n = log(2*10^9) >n = log(2*10^9)/log(37) >n = 5.93 > >We all know, of course, that extensions can reach a much deeper level than this. > >In super chess, the depth of the comprehensive search is: > >log(2*10^9)/log(1000) = 3.1 - which is not nearly enough to play well. The >extensions will be even more seriously impacted. > >So - each time the programmers get a bit uppity, all we have to do is challenge >them to a game of super chess! I fear you would be very disappointed by the results. Computer programs would play this game very poorly, but so would humans. You would leave your pieces hanging all the time. It isn't easy to see that the knight you just moved can be captured by a bishop 50 squares away. It's better to change to a chess variant with a roughly normal board size, but which computer programs can't evaluate well. Shogi (Japanese chess) would be a good choice. Tord
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.