Author: KarinsDad
Date: 09:44:21 10/14/99
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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. There is a point that you are not taking into consideration. A human will not even look at the position 18 plies down unless there is a basically forced variation. To say that a human can evaluate the position better 18 plies down ignores the fact that the human does not have the time to evaluate the billions of positions to get that deep. Humans play a VERY stupid game, even Kasparov. It just so happens that they play in this stupid manner against others who play even more stupid. In our arrogance, we believe that the GMs and superGMs are playing brilliant moves. And to us simple mortals, they do seem brilliant. But to a program that can avoid the tactical pitfalls for 50 ply down, some of the moves would appear to be extremely weak. When humans play chess, they play a game of avoidance. They attempt to play a move that gains the most and gives up the least. Unfortunately, what they do not always realize is that every move on the board weakens some areas of the board and strengthens other areas. Hence, without some form of "perfect" play, people will fall into deep tactical blunders on most every move without even knowing it. It may take 26 ply to take advantage of a given blunder, but the blunder is still there, regardless of whether your opponent can take advantage of it. Or, an even more extreme example: with perfect play, it may someday be found that 1. e4 is a blunder whereas 1. d4 is not. And that is the reason that additional ply continue to give additional strength. Because the computer plays a game of avoidance as well. The further it can see, the further it can avoid tactical blunders which lose space or material and the better it can play. Therefore, a computer is limited in strength based on it's event horizon, just like a human. This technique does not result in perfect play. It merely results in relatively consistent play. Chess is a game of tactics and only tactics. Humans put names such as positional and strategic around certain moves, however, these are just words we use to describe tactical concepts that are too difficult to analyze or truly understand. Instead, we have a limited understanding of the concept and make a move which follows the concept while at the same time appears to avoid any tactical disadvantage. 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. This is somewhat misleading. Although there are endgame positions and won positions where the tactics are understandable, the vast majority of positions are ones where there are hidden tactics, at least hidden to humans. 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). It will never happen since as your pointed out earlier, it is easier for a programmer to add more horsepower than it is to squeak out more efficiency. It is also easier for the programmers to add more horsepower than it is for GMs to work out complex strategies and openings in order to take advantage of the programs. Eventually, the programs will be stronger, regardless of which strategy is used against them (shy of using another program). It is inevitable. KarinsDad :)
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