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Subject: Re: next deep blue

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 14:44:44 01/22/00

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On January 22, 2000 at 15:18:53, stuart taylor wrote:

>On January 22, 2000 at 10:30:25, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On January 22, 2000 at 05:40:11, blass uri wrote:
>>
>>>On January 21, 2000 at 22:54:36, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On January 21, 2000 at 17:22:08, Amir Ban wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On January 21, 2000 at 15:08:16, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On January 21, 2000 at 13:56:40, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On January 21, 2000 at 11:44:22, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>It would run so much slower it would get killed tactically.  Remember that their
>>>>>>>>king safety included not just pawns around the king, but which pieces are
>>>>>>>>attacking what squares, from long range as well as close range.  Which pieces
>>>>>>>>are attacking squares close to the king, etc.  That takes a good bit of
>>>>>>>>computing to discover.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I realize that it takes a good bit of computing to discover. But I doubt it
>>>>>>>takes so much that it's prohibitive. There are very successful micro programs
>>>>>>>with extremely expensive evaluation functions, e.g., MChess and the King, and to
>>>>>>>a lesser extent, HIARCS and Zarkov. These programs all reportedly have terms
>>>>>>>similar to the ones you describe. I seriously doubt that the DB evaluation
>>>>>>>function is an order of magnitude more complex than, say, MChess's...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>-Tom
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Add Junior to the above list.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>But they don't take the time to find out which pieces are attacking squares
>>>>>>around the king "through" another piece.  IE a bishop at b2 attacking g7, but
>>>>>>only if the Nc3 moves.  Or only if the pawn on d4 or e5 moves.  That gets very
>>>>>>expensive computationally.  DB gets it for nothing.  I think it would slow me
>>>>>>down by a factor of 100 or more, depending on how far I wanted to take it...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>That might make me more aware of king attacks, but it would hide many plies
>>>>>>worth of tactics since a factor of 100 is over 4 plies.  Only a wild guess
>>>>>>of course on the factor of 100, but since the eval is done at every node in
>>>>>>the q-search, this is probably within an order of magnitude or two of the
>>>>>>real answer.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I can guarantee you it is more complex than the above evaluations.  And I don't
>>>>>>even know all the things they evaluate.  One new idea mentioned in Hsu's book
>>>>>>was the concept of "a file that can potentially become open" so that you put
>>>>>>rooks on that file, even though you can't see exactly how you are going to open
>>>>>>it within the 15 plies + extensions they were searching.  "Potentially open"
>>>>>>takes a lot of analysis on the static pawn structure.  I do some of this
>>>>>>pawn structure analysis myself, and even with pawn hashing it slowed me down
>>>>>>significantly when I added it a year+ ago to better handle/detect blocked
>>>>>>positions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Remember that they claimed about 8,000 static evaluation weights in their
>>>>>>code, this reported by someone that went to a DB talk by Murray Campbell.
>>>>>>8000 sounds like a big number...
>>>>>
>>>>>It's big, but what does it really mean ? Some of it must have been piece-square
>>>>>tables for some features that were downloaded from the hosts, and that's
>>>>>hundreds of entries per feature.
>>>>>
>>>>>Besides, where is all this sophistication showing up in the DB & DBjr games ?
>>>>>Forget the numbers, whatever they mean. Show us the positions & moves.
>>>>>
>>>>>Amir
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>It would seem that the _results_ would speak for themselves.  Who else has
>>>>produced results like theirs?
>>>
>>>The question if their good results  was because of deeper search or because of a
>>>better evaluation function.
>>>
>>>You cannot get answer for this only by the results.
>>>
>>>Uri
>>
>>
>>No, but if you take the 40 games Hsu/Campbell played against micros in their
>>lab, with a very slow single-processor version of DB, you might conclude that
>>speed wasn't all they had.  IE 38-2 was the reported result that several
>>reported here after attending talks by the two.  That is evidence that they
>>are doing something quite good...
>
>
>   Didn't I see in "Selective Search" Some time after the last DB vs Kasparov
>match, some games played by DB against some comercial program where DB was
>without its main speed hardware, and DB in that case was far inferior to
>top comercial programs?
>S.T.


No.  Because deep blue can't play "without its main speed hardware".  It is
based totally on hardware.



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