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Subject: Re: Bean counters argument

Author: Fernando Villegas

Date: 15:13:31 11/19/99

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On November 19, 1999 at 13:23:46, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>On November 19, 1999 at 03:08:35, Bernhard Bauer wrote:
>
>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Do I have a defective disc or is Nimzo 7.32 a defective program in this
>>>>>>area? Or have I missed something?
>>>>>>
>>
>>>
>>>There is no contradiction.
>>>you do not lose more than few elo ratings by not knowing KBN vs K and KBB vs K
>>>
>>>Uri
>>
>>This is the typical bean counters argument: Rating points.
>>You do not lose more than a few rating points by not knowing this and that,
>>so what you get is kind of a cripple chess with some nice features like the
>>insufficient material feature.
>>I want a chess program to be able to play chess in *any* possible position.
>>Every thing else is poor. I don't mind about rating points in computer chess.
>>Kind regards
>>Bernhard
>
>The programs are generalists, and that is the problem.  There are some specific
>cases they do not handle well.  KBN vs K in particular requires an extra
>heuristic in order to perform well.  In a normal endgame position you will not
>try to force the opposing king to the corner that is the same color as the
>bishop, but this bit of information is extremely important in KBN vs K.
>
>So unless you program some extra help in, a program will play that ending
>sub-optimally.
>
>There are always going to be positions that the program doesn't understand as
>well as a person, since it is different from a person.
>
>You are right to demand that specific rare yet interesting cases be covered,
>though.
>
>This probably applies just as well in the middlegame.  Computers play their type
>of game very well, and this is sufficient to do well in most middlegames, but
>there is obviously a lot of room for improvement.
>
>bruce

I think I have said this time and again, but here I go again: why not to develop
more "fragmented" programs, that is to say, not a full program supposed to do
well in any aspect of the game, but one with a specific module to identify what
is going on and then select another specific module to treat it? I presume
something of he sort is currently done, but I suspect that a lot more can be
done.  In fact, is what human beings does: we does not play chess with the same
package of ideas in the middle of ending, with this or that set of remaining
pieces. In our case is unconscious, we just change our parameters and to begin
with, pawns becomes a lot more important, the kind becomes ative, etc, but a
program could do so provided the super-module had a complete -or almost- table
of pattern positions to identify what is needed.
Cheers
fernando



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