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Subject: Re: a position when crafty is better than deeper blue

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 07:05:21 01/18/00

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On January 17, 2000 at 14:01:00, blass uri wrote:

>On January 17, 2000 at 12:55:37, Jeremiah Penery wrote:
>
>>On January 17, 2000 at 06:32:48, blass uri wrote:
>>
>>>When Deeper blue made his last move in game 2 it did not expect the right
>>>Qe3(see IBM logfiles).
>>>
>>>If I give crafty17.04 a long time it does expect the right Qe3.
>>>
>>>I know that no micro can find that Qe3 is a draw but some micro can at least
>>>understand that Qe3 is the best move for black when deeper blue could not
>>>understand it.
>>>
>>>Crafty is not the only micro that can expect Qe3.
>>>
>>>It increases the impression of most of the chess players that deeper blue was
>>>better in tactics but had not better positional understanding than the
>>>microcomputers.
>>
>>I was thinking about this last night.  I'm not sure it is a positional thing.
>>My guess is that DB saw that Qe3 led to a long series of checks, but couldn't
>>find the quiet moves at that depth to find a draw.  Since Qe3 doesn't lead to a
>>draw (I.e., DB couldn't see it.), then white can have more attacking chances at
>>black's king, because black's queen will be stuck on the other side of the
>>board. (In most of the PVs, DB thought Kasparov would trade queens.)
>>Of course this is just a guess, but it wouldn't seem completely inconsistent
>>with the way DB seemed to evaluate certain things.
>
>I see it as a positional thing.
>I think a good program should at least suspect that it is perpetual check.
>
>I think that if both sides have attacking chances it is illogical  not to divide
>the evaluation by a number bigger than 1 because it is clear that the position
>is unclear and if you cannot do it clear by search then the best evaluation is
>to admit that you are not sure by using smaller numbers for evaluation.
>
>I do not know if some of the programs that can expect Qe3 do it but it is clear
>that deeper blue's evaluation was illogical.
>
>Uri


I don't agree there.  Computers have _always_ played "inhumanly".  I can recall
hundreds of games (mostly crafty, but also Cray Blitz and even Deep Blue) where
a program will follow a line that appears to win quicker, but which leaves the
program dead lost if it makes _one_ mistake.  Where a human would follow the
path of a sure (but longer) win, while leaving a lot more room for mistakes.


The game from match 1 where DB was subject to a mate in 1 for several moves
while winning was one example.  I see Crafty follow these lines, which often
are like balancing on a razor's edge...  when it could easily trade queens and
win the ending.  And it _knows_ it could win, but the search finds a way to win
one extra pawn down an incredibly sharp line.



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