Author: Vasik Rajlich
Date: 02:25:38 03/01/06
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On February 28, 2006 at 08:22:54, John Sidles wrote: >Dear CCCers > >I'm much more a "lurker" here than any kind of chess expert, but >I would be interested in learning from CCC's programming experts >mroe about how (if at all) chess programs evaluate, not the score >of the board, but the score of the move tree. > >The point being that maybe Rybka's surprising strength comes not >from its knowledge of chess, but from a superior assessment of >the branching and topology of the move tree. > >E.g., suppose white and black both look 15 moves ahead, and they >foresee that with optimal play, the board score will be roughly >equal. But even if the score is equal, if black's play is >essentially forced, while white's play has many strategic >options, then white has a huge advantage. In military language >white's advantage is called a "favorable strategic landscape". > >So it is clearly important for any chess program to steer the >game so as to achieve a favorable strategic landscape. There are >at least two ways to do this. The first way is a highly tuned >evaluation function, i.e., knowledge that rooks have a higher >weight than knights. > >The second, more subtle way, is achieved purely by examining the >branching and topology of the search tree, i.e., determining >whether the strategic landscape with a rook in it is more >favorable than the strategic landscape with a knight in it. This >latter technique, in principle, requires no chess knowledge. > >A good program will use both methods. So I would be very >interested to learn more about how chess program authors assess >their search tree. > >SIncerely ... John Sidles Are you daring to question minimax? :) Vas
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