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Subject: Re: Conspiracy -- conshmiracy

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 05:22:03 01/20/00

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On January 20, 2000 at 03:22:56, Jeremiah Penery wrote:

>On January 20, 2000 at 02:18:51, Ed Schröder wrote:
>
>>On January 19, 2000 at 18:55:42, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>
>>>On January 19, 2000 at 18:34:52, blass uri wrote:
>>>[snip]
>>>>The question is if the move of deeper blue was the right move.
>>>>It is not clear that 36.axb5 was the right move.
>>
>>>So the argument against 36.axb5 was that it is not such a good move?
>>>Every program has bugs.  There are a very large number of tunable parameters
>>>with the deep blue machine.  Perhaps one (or many) of them was not optimal.
>>
>>You misunderstand. It's the DB main-line for 36.axb5 what made Kasparov
>>suspicious. In this main-line DB sacrificed 3 pawns for no direct win
>>but for a dangerous looking king attack, all very human-like. Kasparov
>>could not believe his eyes (he still can't) and started the accusation
>>human intervertion took place as he could not believe a computer was
>>able to produce such a (super) main-line.
>>
>>So this whole issue is NOT about the move 36.axb5 but about the asthonising
>>main-line DB produced.
>
>I think it depends completely on the evaluation, specifically the king-safety
>evaluation.  From looking at the log files, it seems that DB evaluated
>king-safety much differently than most (all?) other computers.  [I could be
>wrong here - I'm basing this by the fact that the last move of many of the PVs
>it gives were strange looking moves that seem to lose material to open lines on
>one of the kings, like in this PV from move 37 of game 2: Be4 Rcb8 g3 Qd8 Ra6
>Rxa6 Rxa6 Bc7 Rxf6.]  It may also have been asymmetrical, valuing its own
>king-safety higher than the opponent's.
>Certain modified Crafties I've produced will play axb5.  Some of them will play
>it right away, and some will switch from Qb6 after a deep search.  One in
>particular I remember liked Qb6 for a long time (15 ply, IIRC), then produced a
>line _very_ similar to the one DB produced for that move.  It switched to axb5
>before the next ply, just as DB did.
>
>I think I'll go back and analyze again the line DB gave for move 36. Qb6, to see
>if white could get improve on it and get better than a draw.
>
>Jeremiah


The PV of DB is totally unreliable.  Remember this:

When they did what they called an 11 ply search, that was 11 plies in software,
plus another 4 plies in hardware, plus captures.  And also recall that the
hardware only returned a score/best move...  there was no facility to try to
store the PV in hardware (Belle had the same problem).  Which means that the
only way to construct a PV is to probe the hash table.  You would think that
this is totally accurate, but it isn't.  In Crafty, when I get ready to do a
ponder search, I try three things:

1.  If I have a PV, and it contains 2 or more moves, I try the second move in
the PV.

2.  If 1 fails, I do a hash probe and if I hit, _and_ the entry has a move (all
entries don't have a best move, ie positions that failed low) I try that move
to ponder.

3.  I do a search for the opponent (short time limit) if 1 and 2 fail.

I see, fairly frequently, where I fail high at the last minute, which means that
I have no PV.  So (1) above fails.  (2) gets a hit and I ponder some move where
the score is +7.xx, even though the real score is only +1.  The opponent makes
a more reasonable move, and the score drops back to +1 or so.  If I produced a
PV with that move in it, it would look ridiculous.

Since DB's hardware can't back up a PV from the hardware, the hash table is
the _only_ place you can pick this up.  And the deeper you go, the farther you
get from reality.  The end of the PVs can be utter nonsense...




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