Author: Albert Silver
Date: 20:39:00 01/21/00
Go up one level in this thread
On January 21, 2000 at 22:59:32, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>On January 21, 2000 at 18:07:45, Albert Silver wrote:
>
>>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.
>>
>
>
>Remember (and note I didn't know this until reading Hsu's book) that the DB2
>chips were delivered _very close_ to the 1997 match. They didn't have time to
>do alot of testing. Joel Benjamin mentioned that in game one mobility was
>turned up way too high and they hadn't noticed. He said that Campbell
>attributed the early queen move to this.
>
>I can _easily_ imagine why a very complex eval could produce some very
>bizarre things, with the small amount of testing they did with the real
>machine...
It would seem safe to say that even if Hsu couldnt make any hardware
improvements, he could probably seriously improve DB2 given a year with it.
Albert Silver
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