Author: Albert Silver
Date: 15:07:45 01/21/00
Go up one level in this thread
On January 21, 2000 at 17:28:08, Amir Ban wrote:
>On January 21, 2000 at 10:50:16, Albert Silver wrote:
>
>>On January 21, 2000 at 09:51:26, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>>
>>>On January 21, 2000 at 09:33:22, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>I don't think there is any doubt. But it will likely be at _least_ another
>>>>10 years and probably longer.
>>>
>>>You said earlier that the DB team discovered glaring holes in the evaluation
>>>functions of PC programs. Glaring enough that a seriously retarded version of DB
>>>could still whomp on them.
>>>
>>>So my question is, why doesn't FHH make a PC program with this ueber-function?
>>>It wouldn't be much work for him, and the cost is zero. Okay, it would run
>>>significantly slower in software than it does in hardware, but if the function
>>>is THAT much better, it would still be a win. He could throw in null move and
>>>probably achieve partiy.
>>>
>>>I think this is a real no-brainer, and the only reason he hasn't done it already
>>>is possibly because the evaluation function isn't all that it's cracked up to
>>>be.
>>>
>>>-Tom
>>
>>It could also be that the 'patches' for the eval function would be to taxing on
>>a PC system. How expensive would certain things like the x-ray effect of pieces
>>be? You know, lining up a rook-rook-queen battery behind pieces and pawns for
>>devastating effect, or pawn-bishop-queen. I once proposed this to a programmer,
>>suggesting values for who controlled a square through this battery effect (even
>>though the piece at the end would be quite a distance from the controlled
>>square). The idea was to speed up certain tactics this way, and the positional
>>understanding of the program on who had better square/space control. When I was
>>told this was too costly, I realized that systems that had super hardware
>>offered possibilities one could only dream of with PCs. I have no doubt that DB
>>probably had MANY such dreams implemented.
>>
>
>If they did they would show up in DB and DBjr games, and made a difference. If
>they didn't show up in the games, then they must not have been very important.
>
>Amir
Possibly, but I have a theory, and I'm still waiting for someone to explain to
me I'm dead wrong. I have often read here from Hyatt that DB2 had an enormous
amount of knowledge in it. I have no reason to doubt this, but have been
confounded by some of DB's decisions, and some of what I saw seemed to
contradict this. I don't mean to start a discusion on this, I'm just giving my
feel on the matter. In other words, it seemed its knowledge or its use thereof
was inconsistent at times. Perhaps this was just the World Champ's play that
caused this, but what I believe is that perhaps the balance of all this
knowledge was less than ideal. It was very much rushed and I imagine the ideal
balance was just a little hard to reach in the same year all this was
implemented. I have been led to understand the knowledge was at _least_ ten
times what any other program has to offer. If this were true then balancing it
all would be that many times harder, and many problems could stay well hidden
for a long time. This belief has been reinforced by the fact that the final DB2
chips were rushed so much at the end.
Albert Silver
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