Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: N-best feature for Rebel

Author: Paulo Soares

Date: 21:22:16 08/09/99

Go up one level in this thread


On August 09, 1999 at 16:05:35, Eelco de Groot wrote:

>
>Thanks for trying that out, Paulo!
>That would be just about what you would expect, I suppose, if it follows the
>rule of thumb Robert Hyatt posted the other day; that the best move takes up
>about half the time of a normal search and that for n-best search for n>1 you
>can expect to have to add n-1 times that amount. In this case with n=6 it would
>be more or less 5X150=750 seconds to add to 300. But the key move wasn't found
>(I certainly do hope it was somewhere near the first six?) so this can mean for
>'really difficult' positions you have to search at least one ply deeper to get
>the same level of accuracy in determining the best move.
>
>Not really a problem if you are doing an overnight analysis unless somewhere
>along the way you're running out of hashspace... I suppose it does happen
>sometimes, even for those of us with 192 MB :-). Then the search slows down to a
>crawl. With n=6 the hash tables get full almost six times sooner too or am I
>wrong? I suspect Hiarcs already limits the extensions to try to postpone that,
>it would be my explanation why you didn't find d5.
>
>This is probably (just guessing) one of the reasons why Ed hasn't implemented
>n-best search yet, to do it really well you'd have to find (n-times) better
>algorithms and replacement schemes for not letting the hashtables run over, at
>least for n-best overnight analysis.
>And especially for customers who have some difficulty saying goodbye to their
>old machines that is the only way to go 'really' deep. I'm not saying I myself
>wouldn't like such an n-best feature though, but possibly to use it the way I
>think you are using it and for which Steve uses Analysis Exclude, to get an
>indication which moves are plausible. I would only use it for deep searches if I
>could run it comfortably in the back ground for a couple of days. You can't use
>a lot of hash, but that would be full quickly anyway.
>
>I'm not too fond of using Analysis Exclude for deeper searches either, it means
>duplicating a lot of the search each time? I know, only half of the time was
>spent on these moves in the last search, but that is still a lot of information
>you would be duplicating then. If you do one Analysis Exclude every night, when
>you are not using the computer for anything else, you get accurate results too
>but it still does seem inefficient.
>
>So what conclusion to draw? I think it is best to always start with a 'normal'
>search and for that I'd really like the Overnight Search which is to come with
>Rebel Century. Claudio Bollini's diagram of its efficiency was very impressive.
>Thanks for the reviews, Roy, Claudio!
>The examples help a lot. I hope we can expect some more?
>
>After this first search the best way to go forward still has to be invented I
>think.
>I'd prefer to do a normal search and if there are other moves that look
>plausible I'd rather carry them out on the board and start another search, now
>one ply deeper. Luckily Rebel doesn't have too much asymmetry in its
>evaluations, so after reversing the sign you have a good indication. And if I'm
>not using Rebel ECTool I can make use of Analysis Include with one move to
>include, so there should be no asymmetry at all.
>It is more risky this way (Analysing not using Analysis Exclude I mean), but you
>have to make a choice which moves to look at somewhere along the way anyhow.
>Still this approach is not the best one possible because the computer has
>already generated a lot of information about these moves in its first search.
>You are not using any of it in this way. There must be better approaches...
>Does anybody think some form of temporary position learning could be used here?
>My idea would be to have a separate register for each of what I call the
>non-principal rootmoves, in which to store just the deeper evaluations that
>arise after this move. Everything can be thrown away after leaving Analysis
>Mode.
>
>Regarding Rebel, I think it would really be already a useful help if, at the end
>of a search, using Rebel's warroom, the last warroom variations could also be
>written to the logfile. And it would be even more wonderful if there were
>alpha-beta scores for these moves...
>
>
>Regards,Eelco.
>
>On August 08, 1999 at 10:33:55, Paulo Soares wrote:
>
>>On August 07, 1999 at 17:04:31, Eelco de Groot wrote:
>>
>>>Paolo, I believe you are not the first to ask for this kind of feature :-).
>>>Maybe this would mean a major rewrite of Rebel's engine or even a totally
>>>separate N-best Engine? As it is written in assembly language, this would be a
>>>tough job. Maybe if you ask Christophe very nicely one day....(ChessTiger is
>>>written in C). Actually I have never tried this kind of feature, isn't it very
>>>slow?
>>>
>>>Regards,Eelco.
>>>
>>>On August 07, 1999 at 08:49:47, Paulo Soares wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 07, 1999 at 04:19:48, Tina Long wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On August 06, 1999 at 12:39:15, Paulo Soares wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Whithout doubt: Hiarcs7.32
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Paulo Soares
>>>>>
>>>>>I agree,
>>>>>The Fritz GUI allows: excellent "Correspondence Analysis",  printable gamefile
>>>>>with annotations, backwards with English (verbous) game analysis, good editable
>>>>>book, great database features, etc etc.
>>>>>
>>>>>Hiarcs is currently the smartest engine for the CBase family,  Fritz is much
>>>>>faster & deeper.  The slowsmart vs fastdeep is roughly equivalent at Tournament
>>>>>time, but (I feel) Hiarcs does better for long time analysis.
>>>>>
>>>>>Chessbase 7 does all this & a whole lot more, but is extremely expensive
>>>>>compared to F5.32 or H7.32
>>>>>
>>>>>Meanwhile Rebel Century may be worth waiting for. Ed says it's got a special
>>>>>"overnight" analysis level.
>>>>>
>>>>>Hi guys,
>>>>>Tina Long
>>>>
>>>>Tina, Rebel is a great program for analysis too, but I feel lack of
>>>>the "Infinite Analyses" feature (N moves). I like to analyze positions
>>>>looking at some moves, with its variants and evaluations. When Ed
>>>>goes to put this feature in Rebel?
>>>>
>>>>Paulo Soares
>>
>>Eelco, I never had made a comparison between  "normal" mode and "infinite
>>analyses" mode.  I was curious and I made the following experience:
>>
>>1. System: PII 300, RAM=192Mb, OS WIN98.
>>
>>2. Program: Hiarcs7.32, HT=64Mb, Position Learning=OFF, Playng Style=Normal,
>>            Selectivity=5, Contempy Value=15, Tablebase=OFF.
>>
>>3. Position: LCTII, Pos14, key move= d5.
>>	 FEN "r2qkb1r/1b3ppp/p3pn2/1p6/1n1P4/1BN2N2/PP2QPPP/R1BR2K1 w kq 0 2",
>>
>>4. Time to finish depth 9:
>>   4.1. Normal: 309"(5min 09sec)
>>   4.2. Infinite Analyses(N=6): 1000"(16min 40sec)
>>
>>5. Move chosen in the end of depth 9:
>>   5.1. Normal: d5 (Evaluation= +0.55)
>>   5.2. Infinite Analyses(N=6): a4 (Evaluation= +0.41)
>>
>>
>>Obs: I initiated each test after to give a boot in the machine.
>>
>>In the experience that I made the "Infinite Analyses" mode it's really
>>very slow, and the key move, d5, it was not found.
>>Independent of the result of that experience, I like to analize
>>positions using the "Infinite Analyses" mode, forcing the program
>>to make a move, with satisfactory results.
>>
>>Paulo Soares

Eelco, at the end of depth 9, with "Infinite Analyses", N=6:

		a4  +0.41
		Ne5 +0.39
		d5  +0.34---Key move
		Bg5 +0.16
		Bd2 +0.12
		Be3 +0.12

With relation to his post, I confess that I did not understand some
things, due to mine bad knowledge of the English language (exactly
using a translator), and also to my ignorance with respect to some
technician aspects. Of any form, thanks for the explanations.

Paulo Soares



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.