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Subject: Re: Chess program improvement project (copy at Winboard::Programming)

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 01:39:52 03/07/06

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On March 07, 2006 at 03:47:06, Dann Corbit wrote:

>On March 07, 2006 at 03:02:17, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On March 07, 2006 at 00:46:27, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>
>>>On March 07, 2006 at 00:41:55, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>
>>>>On March 07, 2006 at 00:34:48, Stuart Cracraft wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On March 07, 2006 at 00:31:45, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On March 07, 2006 at 00:27:43, Stuart Cracraft wrote:
>>>>>>[snip]
>>>>>>>Very interesting indeed. A clever test.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>If one's results do not rotate approximately as described
>>>>>>>for the four positions and you say the evaluation is an
>>>>>>>issue, what kinds of evaluation issues have you seen that
>>>>>>>could explain it?!?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The most common thing that I see is something that is good for white being
>>>>>>counted as positive for black also on the evaluation.  Often, when we are
>>>>>>writing the eval, we are thinking from the perspective of white. And so if we
>>>>>>are not very careful, we may invert the sign of some evaluation component and
>>>>>>count something that is good for white as something that is good for black (or
>>>>>>vice versa, though the reverse is seen less often for some reason).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>There are, of course, many other possible causes besides that.
>>>>>
>>>>>A good point. I try to avoid that by always doing things from the
>>>>>side on move, almost always. There are a few in there however with
>>>>>respect to white and black specifically, but they are then folded
>>>>>together with the stm variable and stm^1 which translate to white/black
>>>>>or black/white depending on who's on move. I could try this: rerun
>>>>>your rotation test with successively less in the evaluation table
>>>>>until nothing but material and see what happens.
>>>>
>>>>Right.  If you have divided off the eval components, you could binary search
>>>>until you find the problem component.
>>>>
>>>>Now, we do not know for sure that it is an eval sign problem.  However, the fact
>>>>that the records are similar in pairs makes it very suspicious.
>>>
>>>I guess that when you have gotten your eval symmetrical, you will miss less than
>>>ten problems on WAC.
>>
>>I think that you are wrong here.
>>Stuart may have evaluation bugs but his main problem is the search.
>
>I think it likely that it is both.
>
>Given:
>5rk1/2p4p/2p4r/3P4/4p1b1/1Q2NqPp/PP3P1K/R4R2 b - - bm Qg2+; id "-rotXTDa.1";
>1kr5/p4p2/r4p2/4P3/1b1p4/pPqN2Q1/K1P3PP/2R4R b - - bm Qb2+; id "-rotXTDg.1";
>r4r2/pp3p1k/1q2nQpP/4P1B1/3p4/2P4R/2P4P/5RK1 w - - bm Qg7+; id "-rotXTDc.8";
>2r4r/k1p3pp/PpQn2q1/1B1P4/4p3/R4P2/P4P2/1KR5 w - - bm Qb7+; id "-rotXTDe.8";
>
>When I changed to material only eval, here is the result:
>
>st 5
>ts
>position file? [wac.epd] rot.epd
># of test positions to test? 4
>maxtime = 500
>Interrupt current ply and return move at timeout
>Testsuite: rot.epd 4 positions
>*** Problem   Solution(s): Qg2+ (bm)
>[D] 5rk1/2p4p/2p4r/3P4/4p1b1/1Q2NqPp/PP3P1K/R4R2 b - - bm Qg2+
>*** Problem   Solution(s): Qg2+ (bm)
>-- ** -- ** -- BR BK **
>** -- BP -- ** -- ** BP
>-- ** BP ** -- ** -- BR
>** -- ** WP ** -- ** --
>-- ** -- ** BP ** BB **
>** WQ ** -- WN BQ WP BP
>WP WP -- ** -- WP -- WK
>WR -- ** -- ** WR ** --
>mv 1 stage 0, black to move, computer plays black
>hash=62305c813f5fad4
>pawnhash=3da7edf6c1ba87ea
>0 0 0 0 0 0
>Alpha=-400 Beta=400 Maxdepth=9999999 MaxTime=500 xboard=1
>Ply Score Time  Nodes PV
>1.  40     3 12 c6d5 e3d5
>1.  900     5 74 f3g2 e3g2

Qg2+ is a sacrifice so it is not logical so if the computer choose it at depth 1
then it means that there is a serious bug.

Uri



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