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Subject: Re: next deep blue

Author: Jeremiah Penery

Date: 11:50:36 01/23/00

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On January 23, 2000 at 14:27:02, Tom Kerrigan wrote:

>Here's my original question, which started this whole argument: if FHH knows how
>to make such a terrific evaluation function, why doesn't he put one in a PC
>program and make a lot of money from it?

My question is "Why hasn't someone _else_ done it?".
It sounds pretty much like DB just had a bunch more knowledge, and extended
more/differently than PC programs.  If it would be a good program this way, why
hasn't someone else implemented all their knowledge and search techniques (as
much as they can figure out) already?  Probably because it would perform
pathetically on the PC.

Take CS-Tal, for example.  Ignoring its speculative evaluation, it often gets
tactically killed by the current 'top' micro programs.  It gets at most 10k NPS
on fast hardware(?), and I doubt it has even as much knowledge as DB.  It also
uses a selective search, which DB does not do.  If you add all the extra DB
knowledge, the program will be even slower.  With no forward pruning/selective
search, the depth will be even less.  With all the extensions DB did, the depth
would be still less.

But you're asking why Hsu doesn't do it?  Here's what I think would happen:
It would probably sell a bunch.  So what?  It won't perform very well, and the
anti-DB stuff will be even worse.  A lot of people won't really understand the
speed difference between this and the real DB; they will call DB weak and
stupid.  People who already think DB wasn't very good will have their opinion
reinforced.  It's pretty much a no-win situation for Hsu.  Besides the money,
which he probably doesn't need (or may not care about, if you consider the
above), there is absolutely no motivation for him to do something like this.



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