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Subject: Re: DB Chip will kill all comercial programs or.....

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 11:47:20 05/14/99

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On May 14, 1999 at 13:39:30, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On May 14, 1999 at 12:40:35, Dave Gomboc wrote:
>
>>On May 14, 1999 at 10:00:03, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On May 13, 1999 at 23:00:53, Eelco de Groot wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Robert, Mr. Hyatt, thanks for all the new info on the 'Deep Blue for consumers'
>>>>chip! Does Mr. Hsu already have a name for it? I suppose you could call it 'Baby
>>>>Blue' , but maybe that is too innocent a name for this monster... (A topic for
>>>>the polls, maybe, choosing a good name?). Regarding your thoughts on 'guts' , I
>>>>am not a programmer, but does not the 'soul' of a program  reside for a large
>>>>part in its positional understanding also? Since the chip can be operated in
>>>>parallel to a software program, could  it not be used mainly for a deep tactical
>>>>evaluation? Letting the program do a 1 ply search on all the positional features
>>>>Deep Blue is not very good at, while the chip does a 4 ply mainly tactical
>>>>search? It would be up to the programmer then to decide how much weight each of
>>>>the two evaluations must get to retain the original character of the program. Am
>>>>I making any sense here?
>>>>
>>>
>>>yes... but the problem here is that this is what programs like Fritz/Nimzo/etc
>>>do to an extent.  They do a lot of work at the root of the tree, and then have
>>>a very primitive evaluation at the tips.  And they make gross positional
>>>mistakes as a result.  The _right_ way to search is a good search, followed by
>>>a _full_ positional evaluation.  And that is _very_ slow (which is why the fast
>>>programs don't do this).  DB _does_ however, because they do the eval in
>>>hardware and the cost is minimal compared to our cost.
>>
>>"_Right_" depends on what works the best.  If you find assumptions that carry
>>over to all of the leaf positions that matter, and save yourself from the cost
>>of eval at each one of them, you will be much faster.  Sometimes a leaf position
>>that matters will get hit, and you get toasted up.  Tough one. :)  Zobrist
>>hashing is no different.  I don't think it is categorically an error to do such
>>a thing.
>>
>
>I can't think of a single things that I can evaluate at the root, and then
>expect for that to still hold 20 plies into the tree.  Not one single thing.
>Not even the fact that we are in an opening, or middlegame, or endgame position,
>because a _lot_ can happen 20 plies from the root.  And if you watch Crafty play
>on ICC, in blitz games it generally searches 9-10 plies all the time, except
>for when it reaches simpler endgames where this goes up to 15-20.  And for those
>9-10 ply searches, the PV is often 20+ moves long.  What would you notice at the
>root and expect that it _still_ applies that far away from the root?  Very
>little, IMHO.

Good argument, but what if we decide to to this e.g. 2 or 4 ply above the leaves
instead of at the root?  Now the error is reduced, and the time savings are
still mostly present.

Dave



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