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Subject: Re: Position Evaluation and Plies

Author: Steve Coladonato

Date: 09:52:29 02/24/00

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On February 24, 2000 at 11:35:22, Laurence Chen wrote:

>On February 24, 2000 at 11:02:28, Steve Coladonato wrote:
>
>>Given a position, let's say at move 19 for white, the computer program will
>>evaluate it and return either a numeric or symbolic evaluation and a variation
>>that is considered best for both sides.  Also, let's say that at the position
>>for the next to last move in the variation that is returned, say move 22 for
>>white, that in actuality four ply beyond that, move 26 for white, there is a
>>refutation of the complete variation.  The outcome being that the suggested
>>variation is not good at all.  This would probably be discovered at move 21 for
>>white, but in the interim, the player is being directed down a bad line.  Given
>>all that, my question is does this really happen in an evaluation of a position
>>and if so, how is it handled?  I can understand that if the program "learns"
>>that it probably would not choose this variation again.  But even then how far
>>back does it need to go to correct the line?
>>
>>Please disregard errors in the ply count.
>>
>>Steve
>I've yet to see a program learn from this.  All programs suffer from this
>problem, it is known as the horizon effect.  Do you know any program which
>learns from this?  I guess the easiest solution is to edit the opening book, and
>mark the variation as bad so that the engine will completely avoid the position
>before it arrives to that crucial position. On the other hand, if you set up a
>position then how will the engine learn from it. From a human perspective, it
>can be a trap for those who depends too much on computer evaluation, and then
>the human player complains that the engine sucks because it mis-evaluated the
>position completely.  Hence, there's still a lot of improvements to made for
>chess engines, and they still got a long road to climb.
>Laurence

I can understand what to do if the condition happens while you are still in the
opening book, but I'm mainly interested for the condition occuring in the middle
game.

I haven't seen the commercial programs "learn" from this, but I'm not strong
enough to beat them at sensible time controls.  I have seen the Sapphire II
learn from a losing game, but it doesn't change it's move order early enough in
subsequent games.  It still works itself into a hole only a little differently.

Steve



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