Author: Albert Silver
Date: 15:22:14 01/25/00
Go up one level in this thread
On January 25, 2000 at 16:51:09, Mike Castañuela wrote:
>On January 25, 2000 at 15:26:45, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On January 25, 2000 at 12:17:02, Mike Castañuela wrote:
>>
>>>
>>><snip>
>>>Not my desire to stir the things, but it's a
>>>funny post with plenty of fine irony.
>>>I'm stay without understand as Dr. Hyatt is partial
>>>(yet very intelligent persons have prejudices) towards
>>>anything related to DB; is my impression that him will defend
>>>with too much more decision DB that own Crafty.
>>
>>
>>Did you ever consider that this is maybe because I know a lot about _both_
>>of them. And I know what my program can/can't do with respect to theirs.
>>
>>They did something _nobody_ has done. Either before them or after them.
>>Something I doubt will be done for at least another 10 years unless someone
>>bites the bullet and starts a hardware design project similar to theirs.
>>
>>The post you responded to wasn't particularly funny, IMHO. Just extreme
>>hyperbole of out-of-context discussions. Which is typical...
>
>
>First, my apologies if my previous answer appears harsh to you,
>I respect your work and trajectory.
>
>Sure you're know a lot about DB, but the apparent (and well distinguished)
>and only merit of DB is relative at their hardware approach, comparing to
>micros.
That's not what I concluded from what has been presented here. Here's some of
what has been presented regarding DB's knowledge:
- It was _very_ large with some 8000 static evaluation weights.
- Everything imaginable (by the DB team) and worthwhile was included there. In
fact to such a point that short of ideas on what else to include, they even
tossed in KP vs. K tables on the chip.
- The whole process took about 8 months (the DB2 project only started 3 months
after the 1996 match) before the first chip was produced after which they had
about 2 weeks to finalize the testing before the big match.
- Although everything imaginable was included, lack of time, caused only about
HALF to be actually used.
- We are told that even this half was poorly tuned due to a lack of time, and
that even in the midst of the match, problems showed appeared (strange early
queen sortie). This seems incredible to some, but remember that it DID still
have its huge speed and depth to help keep it out of trouble. You can talk about
badly adjusted weights being enough to be its downfall, but at 15 full plies not
to mention the extensions, this will take some doing.
If we accept the above, one can say that its excess (that's right: excess) of
knowledge may have been just as much a hindrance as a help due to the poor
tuning. If I teach you all the principles of positional play, but don't
prioritize it correctly, and you misjudge some positions because you believe the
wrong aspects to be the more important ones, then the problem isn't that the
knowledge isn't there, the problem is it is only confusing you. I have followed
the debate closely, and haven't concluded DB2 was dumb, not even more or less
equal to the micros, just so big and optimized on such short notice that some
50% wasn't even taken out of the closet. Just my opinion based on what I've
understood and until newer information presents itself.
Albert Silver
>
>Howewer, the data provided by Chris Carson about DT performance vs.
>humans is only average, not impressive in thruth.
>
>I think that the debate between DB and competitors, must be centered,
>not between results and performance (by stupid that appears this),
>but between which evaluation function is better, by obvious reasons.
>
>I don't think that those of best micro programs be worse.
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