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Subject: Re: Forced moves

Author: Ed Schröder

Date: 10:31:34 08/03/99

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On August 03, 1999 at 09:14:30, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On August 03, 1999 at 05:25:52, Ed Schröder wrote:
>
>>>Posted by leonid on August 02, 1999 at 21:23:37:
>>>
>>>>IMHO low-brain fast-searches like DB vs Kasparov have proved it is better to
>>>>forget about trouble makers and exceptions and just go for the brute force
>>>>approach. Fast and dumb rules. Forget about exceptions they are waste of
>>>>time.
>>>>You spend all clock cycles and programmer time on worrying about
>>>>exceptions and then you are full of bugs.
>>>>
>>>>Ciao
>>>>
>>>>Mark
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>And because of today's fast computers the exceptions fade away as for
>>>>>example the Cray Blitz position is seen by Rebel in 0.5 second.
>>>>>
>>>>>Ed Schroder
>>>
>>>I really agree with what was said obove. Now on very quick computers Rebel
>>>10 can see by "brute force" 6 plys ahead in just one or two seconds. Some
>>>less superficial revision of the moves but with "fixed horizon" can lead up
>>>to 10 or even 12 plys deep. This way of searching the move is best
>>>that some other method that care too much about exceptions. Exceptions
>>>that take that much space to care about and can produce anyway very
>>>suspicious result.
>>>
>>>Leonid.
>>
>>I do not agree with was has been said above except what has been said
>>by myself of course :-)
>>
>>If you have a commercial program and playing a 40/2:00 game for instance
>>you can not afford to think 6 minutes (or worse) on a simple recapture as
>>people are going to laugh on the stupidness of the silicon.
>>
>>So you are forced to come up with some intelligent software that handles
>>forced moves. This means you are going to have to deal with all the
>>exceptions. No choice.
>>
>>Ed Schroder
>
>
>That is debatable...  I think your reasoning is a dead match for the reasons
>that Slate/Atkin used for their famous "that was easy" idea in chess 4.x...
>they didn't like sitting for N minutes on an obvious recapture.  Many of us
>didn't want to look silly like that.  And often (or probably all of the time
>in fact) the fix was actually worse than the "problem".  But we didn't realize
>this until we got burned once...
>
>then the question is, which is worse...  to take forever on an obvious more or
>get burned by playing an 'obvious' move that really isn't?

That's an easy choice, I take my chances. As already said the problem simply
will fade every year due to faster hardware. These days it is a big exception
if the easy-move algorithm fails.

Ed Schroder



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