Author: Ryan B.
Date: 14:56:42 03/01/06
Go up one level in this thread
On March 01, 2006 at 05:25:38, Vasik Rajlich wrote: >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 Some people pick the search tree that looks like a rectangle. Some people pick the search tree that looks like a triangle. However just like the little wooden blocks I used to play with the hole is a circle and there is no circle block to put in the hole (I still think someone took it to be mean!) I guess the triangle will have to work for now. The rectangle is far too much work to get in the hole and takes far too long. Ryan
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.