Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 10:48:12 01/29/00
Go up one level in this thread
On January 29, 2000 at 01:41:09, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>On January 27, 2000 at 13:51:01, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On January 26, 2000 at 18:28:22, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>
>>>On January 26, 2000 at 18:23:50, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>>>
>>>>On January 26, 2000 at 18:10:10, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>IOW, more horsepower is a tough way to make chess programs play better. There
>>>>>is also evidence (according to some) that the increase in speed has
>>>>>*diminishing* returns. Hence, it may take a terahertz to get there. Don't know
>>>>>of any material that could do that, not even a Josephson Junction.
>>>>
>>>>I think it's a great way. You just take a vacation, preferably a long one, and
>>>>when you come back you make one call to Gateway and poof, free Elo points.
>>>>
>>>>Got an article that shows that the Elo curve flattens out with increased depth?
>>>
>>>Darn. I knew someone would ask that! I just read it somewhere, but I will have
>>>to go and look for it now.
>>>:-(
>>
>>
>>Just my 2 cents: this "dimishing returns" theory is an urban legend.
>>
>>You are almost certain to have seen this demonstrated, you'll find people that
>>will tell you they have seen this demonstrated, but you'll eventually find no
>>proof of this.
>>
>>But everybody wants to believe it because it fits so well our common sense. When
>>everybody in a group believes in something, it eventually because "real" for
>>this group.
>>
>>Computer chess is CROWDED with legends like this one.
>>
>>The programmers that do better than their peers are those who do not believe
>>these legends.
>
>> Christophe
>
>Chess is a tough game. Draughts is a tough game. perhaps even tougher for
>now as chess, as a national player can easily beat any draughtsprogram,
>though those find any combination of any world champion at blitz level.
>
>Draughts is an ideal testcase as branching factor is very small there.
>Of course not only programs search deep, humans too.
>
>Positions the program doesn't understand it doesn't matter what depth it
>searches. I simply don't see better moves at bigger depths. it has a certain
>move, or it doubts between 2 bad moves. That from ply 12 til ply 29 usually.
>
>Deduction from draughts to chess gives your proof of diminishing returns.
>
>Now we can fight here for years about it, and we will sure do,
>but just make a draughtsprogram, join the tournaments, and you'll know it very
>soon after you start testing at positions it did wrong in either endgame,
>opening, or middlegame.
>
>With a small computer you can already do tests at night which require
>incredible mighty machines. At tournament level we search like 12 to 14 ply
>at 60 moves in 60 minutes (so 1 minute a move). At overnight tests its
>depth goes easily to near to 30 ply. Talking about opening now.
>
>Further up in game and near endgame you already search in game at incredible
>depths. The whole diminishing return depth issue is easily solved by looking
>at that game which seemingly is a lot simpler than chess (from branching
>factor viewpoint). Only after starting to study it you see problems
>where in computerchess world we also get confronted with. More and more
>you see how tough it is for programs to win endgames. How tough it
>is for them to make better moves if the knowledge isn't there, how games
>do not get tactical decided (even in blitz you slowly start seeing that
>in some games from computer-computer), etcetera.
>
>Seen that already years ago in draughts computer games...
>
>Vincent
Another big difference seems to be that zugzwang happen very often in draughts,
isn't it?
Christophe
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