Author: Ed Schröder
Date: 21:29:22 01/01/00
Go up one level in this thread
On January 01, 2000 at 18:26:05, Christophe Theron wrote: >On December 31, 1999 at 07:50:56, Enrique Irazoqui wrote: > >>On December 30, 1999 at 22:51:14, John Warfield wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> My question is simple curiosity, Is it really possible for this so-called >>>hidden Test of Dr enriques to accurately predict how a program will perform on >>>the ssdf. I find this difficult to believe, there seems to be alot of viarables >>>to deal with, how would a simple test set, perdict precisely how fritz6 or tiger >>>will score. I am open to be educated here. If this test really exist I would >>>love to get my hands on it, So Dr Enrique if you read this please send me the >>>test, or let me know when it will be availble . Thanks >> >>I am open to be educated too. :) >> >>This test exists and by now has 133 positions, all tactical, unambiguous, not >>included before in any test, therefore not cooked. The fact that so far it shows >>results very similar to the SSDF list came as a complete surprise to me. I don't >>trust positional tests, and what I wanted to get out of my tactical suite when I >>started building it was the difference between a tactical test and the SSDF >>list. I thought that with this I could see the value of non tactical stuff in a >>program. After running this test with some 30 programs, I was very, very >>surprised to see that ratings obtained with a tactical test and comp-comp games >>are basically the same, at least so far. >> >>As I said in other posts, any programmer can come with a version of his program >>optimized for tactics and such a program would do better in a test than in >>games. But since I test released, commercial programs tuned for real life and >>not for tests, my test is nod being fooled. >> >>So far it works, but... I ran this test with Junior 6 and Shredder 4, and in my >>opinion both programs scored less well than they should, according to what I see >>when they play, and I trust what I see better than any tests, including mine. I >>am extremely curious to see what will be the rating of J6 and S4 in the SSDF >>list. In case there is a big difference with my test, it will be interesting to >>know why these two programs are the only ones so far to do better in games than >>in a tactical test. Maybe, after all, my initial purpose will work and we will >>be able to see this difference tactical - not tactical (call it positional, >>strategic, whatever, but without a direct impact in the speed up of the search). >>Explaining this will be difficult, at least for me. >> >>(I hope this post is not too messy. While writing it I am instaling things in >>the new computer) >> >>I got the following results of the last programs: >> >> Test SSDF scale >>RT 12 2695 >>T12-dos 0 2683 >>CM6K -10 2673 >>N732 -20 2663 >>F532 -21 2662 >>F6a -22 2661 >>H732 -32 2651 >>J6 -53 2630 >>J5 -58 2625 >>S4 -69 2614 >> >>Enrique > > >I think your test shows something in what I believe since a while: positional >and tactical abilities are not separate entities. > >Improving the "positional" skills of a program improves also his "tactical" >abilities. A program with better positional understanding can also solve >combinations faster. For various reasons: >1) it spends less time hesitating between 2 inferior moves before finding a >third move (which is the key move) >2) with better knowledge a program can "sniff" a great combination one or 2 >plies deeper (I have seem CM4000 doing this rather often) > >The opposite is also true: a program that is better at tactics can look like a >superiorly knowledged program. If you play the same program at ply depth N >against the same at ply depth N+1, the first one looks as if it knew nothing >about chess. It will be badly beaten, most of the time for what a human player >will recognize as "positional" reasons. But in fact there is exactly the same >amount of knowledge in both opponents! > > >However I'm still surprised that your test is so accurate. I think that's >because all the top chess programs are very similar in term of the chess >knowledge they have. Or because the tradeoff involved in adding new chess >knowledge leads to a balance between search and knowledge. > >So programmers have to break this balance by finding a new concept that goes >beyond the usual tactical/positional dilemna, which in fact is an ILLUSION. > > > > Christophe I say AMEN to that. Ed
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.