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Subject: offline opening book learning

Author: Jay Scott

Date: 10:17:35 06/22/99

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On June 22, 1999 at 03:45:51, Dave Gomboc wrote:

>Keep track of the computed score for a position separately from the backed-up
>score for a position.  If they differ significantly, an important alternative
>was overlooked.

You're suggesting the obvious algorithm, almost exactly what I suggested
some months ago.

This bit is not quite right. The scores might differ solely because of
the effective search horizon. For example, after 1. e4 e5 2. f4, suppose a
normal search evaluates 2... exf4 as +100 for black, or close. Backing up deep
values from the book might give the move an evaluation around 0--and yet
still identify 2... exf4 as the best move. There's a big score difference,
but it doesn't have anything to do with overlooking an alternative.

The most powerful way seems to be this:

0. Having backed up all scores below a node,
1. load these scores into the hash table, marking them as exact values
so that the current search won't try to look beyond them. (They're
based on a deeper search, so this search won't be able to see anything new.)
2. Search from the node.
3. If the best move is not already in the book, the program has found
a novelty. This must be corrected immediately: add it to the book.

A more intensive novelty-search would find all moves within, say,
half a pawn of the best move. Just use the "Next Best" feature until
you've got 'em all. For the Kasparov effect, repeat the novelty search
on the novelties until you have a whole subtree of analysis ready for
your next opponent. The new scores float up the tree and may change
the best move at the original node--the ideal is to discover that the
novelty that seemed at first to be second-best is actually quite strong.

Offline book learning is *way* more powerful than the online book
learning that chess programs use now. Here's a paper about a simple
method (used in an othello program):

"Toward opening book learning" by Michael Buro
compressed postscript, five pages
http://www.neci.nj.nec.com/homepages/mic/ps/book.ps.gz

  Jay



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