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Subject: Re: ply search vs elo rating

Author: J. Wesley Cleveland

Date: 11:57:49 10/20/99

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On October 20, 1999 at 11:17:08, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On October 20, 1999 at 02:26:55, blass uri wrote:
>
>>On October 19, 1999 at 23:59:20, Jeremiah Penery wrote:
>>
>>>On October 19, 1999 at 17:15:30, blass uri wrote:
>>>
>>>>On October 19, 1999 at 16:57:41, Jeremiah Penery wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On October 19, 1999 at 16:48:36, walter irvin wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On October 19, 1999 at 10:30:18, rich buska wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>i understand that is a 1/2 move but what does equal in elo
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>2 ply 1100 ?
>>>>>>>4 ply 1400  ?
>>>>>>>6 ply 1600?
>>>>>>>8 ply  1800? etc?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>depends on program , but i noticed that you raise each ply by 200 .during the
>>>>>>first few ply may be worth more than 200 . plys deeper than 7 are worth less
>>>>>>usually .plys greater than 12 are worth even less vs humans .against computer
>>>>>>200 might work out , but not vs humans.
>>>>>
>>>>>The available evidence disagrees.  In "Crafty goes deep" and "DarkThought goes
>>>>>deep" (JICCA, sometime), it is shown that every increase in depth is relatively
>>>>>equal with regard to picking a new best move.  Therefore, the ratings difference
>>>>>should be roughly equal for each ply as well.
>>>>
>>>>It is not clear if the last consequence is correct.
>>>>and there is no evidence that it is correct against humans because humans can
>>>>go to positions when another ply is less important.
>>>
>>>But if the program picks a new best move when going to the next ply, it is just
>>>as important.
>>
>>This is not clear.
>>The question is if the new best move is leading to the same result of the game
>>or to different result of the game.
>>
>>It may lead to different result more times when you go from x plies to x+1 plies
>>relative to when you go from y plies to y+1 plies.
>>
>>Uri
>
>
>I personally believe that a depth N+1 search _always_ produces a better result
>(more accurate) than a depth N search, no matter what N is.  Because even if the
>two searches produce the _same_ best move, I know that it is more likely to be
>the right move because one ply deeper still liked it as best.  I _really_ worry
>about those positions where one ply deeper shows that the current best move is
>a loser.  And if you look at a chess program's output for a game, how many times
>does it fail low on the last iteration and have to change its mind?  In each of
>those cases, the extra ply saved the game, rather than allowing it to be lost
>instantly...

This relates to an idea I had for a new extension. Every time the PV changes,
extend one ply (or possibly more depending on the search depth). I tried some
experiments with Crafty and it appears that the PV does not change that often.
Since the value the PV search gives to a position is the static evaluation of
the one leaf node on the PV, I think that anything that would improve that would
be useful.



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