Author: odell hall
Date: 18:46:05 10/13/99
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On October 13, 1999 at 19:19:53, Ratko V Tomic wrote: >>Look at programs that can [be set to] calculate only 2 plies. Your 10 year old >>kids can beat it. If we go to 5 plies, it is quite a good opponent. At 10 >>piles, they play brilliantly. At 18+ plies they would be "the gifted of the >>gifted of the gifted" as far as tactics are concerned, and I think such a >>machine would actually have strategic power from time to time (depending on the >>board condition). > >Even the 18 plies in complex middle game (which may be 2-3 years off) still >hinge on the same old simple-minded evaluation of the terminal nodes. Unless you >find a clear cut advantage at that depth, the judgment of such position by a >strong human player is superior to material, square count and such simple >citeria. This depth eliminates only more of tactical shots (if there are many >left after certain depth but well before table-base level). So what the strength >gain is depends grat deal on the type of position. A human GM playing such >computer in a manner he would play another human would likely lose, since they >would generate typical kind of positions where the deeper search may find >something. But there arte positions where no tactical shots exist, or at least >no such that are beyond GM's vision. While these positions may be more rare, >when one plays in a normal manner (as if against another human), even the >relative bumbling patzers (like most of us) have gotten the programs into such >positions from time to time. > >If there was a strong enough incentive & motivation (and maybe there will be >some day) for the chess professionals community to work out the openings and >strategies which would steer the game with great probability into such >positions, the current programs, DB and the rest, would drop down to 2000 level >or worse (depending on how complex such strategy may be for humans to carry >out). If I (a mere 2100 player over a decade ago) can get Fritz 5.32 etc to just >shuffle rooks on the back rank with no clue what to do next, with no systematic >plan or technique for getting there on my part, the real pros, with real >motivation, and few years to perfect it, could turn it into an almost certain >game flow. You don't need a table base to win most endgames which are winnable. >Yes there are odd/paradoxical positions here and there, but they could chip off >at best a tiny fraction of GM's points. You don't need the best move to win, >just a good enough move (chess programmers don't seem to know this, as yet). > > >> >>Look how hard they would make an expert work. 17% of the time, a new ply gives >>you a better move. With 3 plies deeper, that is nearly 50% of the time you get >>a better move [(1-.83)^3] on average. If you are not prepared for it, you will >>have to think really hard about why a particular choice was made. > >I have seen few papers where they follow change of move choice with depth. But I >wouldn't say that a different move is automatically a "better move" as you >assume. The "better" here could mean one more square attacked by the program as >seen 12 plies deep (which often means nothing since fre moves later it can all >change). Even an apparent small material gain doesn't mean it is a better move. >If you look sometimes how a program goes queenside pawn hunting, seeing a >brilliant 10 ply combination to a win your b2 pawn, while you maybe see an >enemy Queen getting into his qeenside, likely to win a pawn or two, but counts >on his king side pawns to break open the program's castle and is readying his >pieces to take part in an attack 10-15 moves ahead. To draw programs queen into >such adventure, whenever chance occurs, I weaken my b2 or a2 pawns, knowing that >as soon as it sees a two-three move queen manouver to grab one or more of them >it won't be able to resist the temptation. Hi I have read several of your post where you say that you can positionally outplay several programs, At 2100 uscf this seems unlikely, although you may be a expert at anti-computer play if there is any real definition of this term , I would be interested in playing you a short match on ICC running chessmaster 6000, I would love for you to demonstrate to me your computer chess prowness!!!
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