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Subject: Re: next deep blue

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 07:12:24 01/23/00

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On January 23, 2000 at 01:09:24, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>On January 22, 2000 at 10:28:34, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On January 22, 2000 at 06:01:51, Amir Ban 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?
>>>
>>>There is no difference between DB and DBjr in this aspect, and DBjr was
>>>according to its games an unremarkable machine with unremarkable results.
>>>
>>>Amir
>>
>>
>>Which GM players beat DB Jr in a match?  They played _many_ such matches at
>>conferences all over the world.  I _never_ saw it lose a game in the three
>>matches I saw it play against GM players.  One against Byrne.  The others
>>I didn't really know (IE I wouldn't recognize Dlugy if I bumped into him,
>>although we have chatted a lot on ICC).
>>
>>And you say "no difference between DB and DBJr" which I agree with.  But _I_
>>remember a significant match DB won (the last match it played.)  I would not
>>call that "unremarkable"...  Until everybody can do it...
>
>Why haven't I seen these matches published?  Were they played at 40/2, or were
>they 30 0 matches, or what?
>
>bruce


They were generally faster than 40/2 (the ones I saw) because they were done
as demonstrations at conferences where 40/2 is not very interesting to
spectators.  But they did play 40/2 games as well.  As to why they were not
published, I don't know.  Cray Blitz played several such games.  I didn't
take the time to publish them (IE CB beat GM Paul Van Den Stearen (I am not
sure about how it was actually spelled) in a game broadcast over Dutch radio
but I didn't have any particular interest in publishing the game as I didn't
see anything particularly unusual about this at the time (late 80's)).



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