Ali Baba and the 40 positions

[bob]

Bob, I find it hard to understand why you feel the need to constantly attack me personally. I will dig up all the cases where you did so if you don't believe me.

You can also believe me that by now I have many things I could post that I am restraining myself to post. I don't understand why you cannot show the same restraint.

OK, let's start a new thread. I'll be happy to drag up all the posts where you first make some statement, or attribute something to me, or claim I must have meant, or ... each of which was wrong. Because for some reason you seem to think that everything that is mentioned is directed toward you personally or toward your program. I don't call people "idiots" until they earn the title. I don't call them "paranoid" until they earn the title. Get the drift here???

So feel free to find one single post where I just from out of the blue insulted you. I'll be waiting...

[Uri Blass]

Bob, I find it hard to understand why you feel the need to constantly attack me personally. I will dig up all the cases where you did so if you don't believe me.

You can also believe me that by now I have many things I could post that I am restraining myself to post. I don't understand why you cannot show the same restraint.

OK, let's start a new thread. I'll be happy to drag up all the posts where you first make some statement, or attribute something to me, or claim I must have meant, or ... each of which was wrong. Because for some reason you seem to think that everything that is mentioned is directed toward you personally or toward your program. I don't call people "idiots" until they earn the title. I don't call them "paranoid" until they earn the title. Get the drift here???

So feel free to find one single post where I just from out of the blue insulted you. I'll be waiting...

The problem started from the fact that you simply posted irrelevant post

Nicolai Czempin asked a simple question in his first post if there was done mathematical analysis of the position that you use for tests that
no 2 positions give similiar results.

Here is his question from the first post of this thread:

"Has this kind of analysis been done (mathematically, not intuitively like I assume it has been) for the Nunn positions or that set of 40 positions that Bob uses for his tests?"

You simply ignored his question and only showed that intuitively there is no reason to suspect that the positions are dependent.

Nicolai responded:
"Bob, please, are you serious? Did I claim that they did? How many disclaimers do I have to make when I take an extreme example to illustrate a point so I can keep you from latching onto that example and using it as a straw man argument?"


You responded:
"Here is some blunt advice. Grow up"

I think that both of you could behave better but the first post that caused the problem was your post.

1)Nicolai could simply respond and explain that you ignored his question
but I understand the reason for his response(see my explanation later).

2)You could understand that his example of similiar positions was only done to clarify that dependence is possible and he did not mean to ask if the reason for dependcy can be that reason.
He meant to ask only if people showed no dependency by mathematical analysis.

The fact that you ignored his question cause him to feel that you suggest that he claimed that your positions may have positions that are similiar based on intuition and not based on mathematical analysis and you responded with an insulting comment.

Uri

[bob]

Bob, I find it hard to understand why you feel the need to constantly attack me personally. I will dig up all the cases where you did so if you don't believe me.

You can also believe me that by now I have many things I could post that I am restraining myself to post. I don't understand why you cannot show the same restraint.

OK, let's start a new thread. I'll be happy to drag up all the posts where you first make some statement, or attribute something to me, or claim I must have meant, or ... each of which was wrong. Because for some reason you seem to think that everything that is mentioned is directed toward you personally or toward your program. I don't call people "idiots" until they earn the title. I don't call them "paranoid" until they earn the title. Get the drift here???

So feel free to find one single post where I just from out of the blue insulted you. I'll be waiting...

The problem started from the fact that you simply posted irrelevant post

Nicolai Czempin asked a simple question in his first post if there was done mathematical analysis of the position that you use for tests that
no 2 positions give similiar results.

Here is his question from the first post of this thread:

"Has this kind of analysis been done (mathematically, not intuitively like I assume it has been) for the Nunn positions or that set of 40 positions that Bob uses for his tests?"

You simply ignored his question and only showed that intuitively there is no reason to suspect that the positions are dependent.

Nicolai responded:
"Bob, please, are you serious? Did I claim that they did? How many disclaimers do I have to make when I take an extreme example to illustrate a point so I can keep you from latching onto that example and using it as a straw man argument?"


You responded:
"Here is some blunt advice. Grow up"

I think that both of you could behave better but the first post that caused the problem was your post.

Why don't you re-read what you quoted, I'll include it here:

"Bob, please, are you serious? Did I claim that they did? How many disclaimers do I have to make when I take an extreme example to illustrate a point so I can keep you from latching onto that example and using it as a straw man argument?"

So that sounds like a completely polite response? "So I can keep you from latching onto that example..." ??? And then he does exactly the same thing (latches onto a word, assuming it applies to his program when it does not)???

1)Nicolai could simply respond and explain that you ignored his question
but I understand the reason for his response(see my explanation later).

2)You could understand that his example of similiar positions was only done to clarify that dependence is possible and he did not mean to ask if the reason for dependcy can be that reason.
He meant to ask only if people showed no dependency by mathematical analysis.

The fact that you ignored his question cause him to feel that you suggest that he claimed that your positions may have positions that are similiar based on intuition and not based on mathematical analysis and you responded with an insulting comment.

Uri

[nczempin]

Bob, I find it hard to understand why you feel the need to constantly attack me personally. I will dig up all the cases where you did so if you don't believe me.

You can also believe me that by now I have many things I could post that I am restraining myself to post. I don't understand why you cannot show the same restraint.

OK, let's start a new thread. I'll be happy to drag up all the posts where you first make some statement, or attribute something to me, or claim I must have meant, or ... each of which was wrong. Because for some reason you seem to think that everything that is mentioned is directed toward you personally or toward your program. I don't call people "idiots" until they earn the title. I don't call them "paranoid" until they earn the title. Get the drift here???

No, sorry, I don't know what you mean. Please elaborate.


You can start your thread with those bits where I thought that everything was directed at me or my program, when it wasn't.

So feel free to find one single post where I just from out of the blue insulted you. I'll be waiting...

Oh, so insulting is fine as long as it is not out of the blue??

The problem started from the fact that you simply posted irrelevant post

Nicolai Czempin asked a simple question in his first post if there was done mathematical analysis of the position that you use for tests that
no 2 positions give similiar results.

Here is his question from the first post of this thread:

"Has this kind of analysis been done (mathematically, not intuitively like I assume it has been) for the Nunn positions or that set of 40 positions that Bob uses for his tests?"

You simply ignored his question and only showed that intuitively there is no reason to suspect that the positions are dependent.

Nicolai responded:
"Bob, please, are you serious? Did I claim that they did? How many disclaimers do I have to make when I take an extreme example to illustrate a point so I can keep you from latching onto that example and using it as a straw man argument?"


You responded:
"Here is some blunt advice. Grow up"

I think that both of you could behave better but the first post that caused the problem was your post.

Why don't you re-read what you quoted, I'll include it here:

"Bob, please, are you serious? Did I claim that they did? How many disclaimers do I have to make when I take an extreme example to illustrate a point so I can keep you from latching onto that example and using it as a straw man argument?"

So that sounds like a completely polite response? "So I can keep you from latching onto that example..." ??? And then he does exactly the same thing (latches onto a word, assuming it applies to his program when it does not)???

Perhaps it is not a "completely polite response". If you found it rude or insulting, I apologize. I can assure you that at the time I was severely restraining myself and actually toned it down compare to what I was thinking.

I'll try to explain now that I have calmed down: Several times in other threads, I was making "extreme examples" to illustrate certain points I was trying to make. But instead of using them for this purpose, namely as metaphors so that it is (or should be, so I thought) clear that I didn't mean to take them literally (the blackjack example comes to mind).
I thought, okay, so perhaps I didn't explain sufficiently that idea of using "pointed" examples, and I'd better state explicitly how they are meant.

So then I asked specifically not to take them literally, and you did exactly the opposite. I don't know how you react in such a situation, but when I try to get a real answer for something and someone seems to just dwell on the example and not on the question, I can begin to think that this person is either actually making fun of me or not seriously trying to help. That, or he could be extremely dense, a hypothesis I dismissed before even thinking about it.
So that feeling of being made fun of prompted the "Bob, are you serious?" part. I thought hard about whether this could be taken the wrong way, and decided that, given that I had only a short time before stated explicitly that I would like to avoid any situations where something I write in disagreement, perhaps strong disagreement, could be taken as a personal attack.

I try very hard not to insult anybody. Again, I can only apologize if this remark was taken that way. I only know that if someone reacted to me the way I did to you, I would make some funny comment and leave it at that. Certainly not tell anybody to grow up, unless after the funny remark he still can't see the lighter side of things (like Torsten in another thread, whose case seems hopeless, yet I still managed to get by without insulting him unless what I just wrote is an insult).

1)Nicolai could simply respond and explain that you ignored his question
but I understand the reason for his response(see my explanation later).

2)You could understand that his example of similiar positions was only done to clarify that dependence is possible and he did not mean to ask if the reason for dependcy can be that reason.
He meant to ask only if people showed no dependency by mathematical analysis.

The fact that you ignored his question cause him to feel that you suggest that he claimed that your positions may have positions that are similiar based on intuition and not based on mathematical analysis and you responded with an insulting comment.

Uri

[/quote]

[nczempin]

I suspect you will have changed your methodology by then so it will be moot. It is going to be _very_ difficult to get to 2000 on tactics alone. I've not tried to play games with crafty using no eval but material in the last 10 years, but when I last did that, it was very ugly. Not every position has a tactical solution. In fact, most don't. Making horrible moves in those positions means you only reach positions where you will finally see tactically that you are lost.

Bob:
What do you know about the positional strength of my engine?
Where did you get this information?
Did I mention anything about the relative strengths of my positional play vs. my tactical play anywhere?
Have you ever even touched my engine?

1. absolutely nothing. And I intend to keep it that way.

This is yet another rude, uncalled for, comment.

You have a serious issue that you need to deal with. You asked a pretty rude question. I gave you a dead-on honest response. If you don't like the response, how about not asking stupid and provocative questions??? Ever think of that?

It would not have been rude if you had left out the second part. I didn't ask you what you planned to do with my engine, I just wanted to clarify that you were making unsubstantiated claims based on uninformed speculations.

Problem is I had _zero_ speculations in my post. Absolutely zero.

You just don't read carefully and think about what _might_ be under discussion, and assume everything is directed toward you personally, or else toward your program.

The speculation is that my engine is running on tactics alone; I'll copy what you said here, emphasis by me:

I suspect you will have changed your methodology by then so it will be moot. It is going to be _very_ difficult to get to 2000 on tactics alone.

I don't see that the follow-up somehow refers to some other engines. You are telling me first that "my methodology" will not get me to 2000, and the following was not in any way separated from those other sentences. So in what way am I being paranoid or thinking that the world revolves around my engine (not your words) when I assume that in these words you are still referring to my engine, my methodology?

[quote
I've not tried to play games with crafty using no eval but material in the last 10 years, but when I last did that, it was very ugly. Not every position has a tactical solution. In fact, most don't. Making horrible moves in those positions means you only reach positions where you will finally see tactically that you are lost.
[/quote]

I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt: Okay, so you were not talking about my engine any more or my methodology. But do you think it is possible that someone could understand it that way? And that, if it was your intention to speak about something else, it could have been made a ittle clearer?

[bob]

Bob, I find it hard to understand why you feel the need to constantly attack me personally. I will dig up all the cases where you did so if you don't believe me.

You can also believe me that by now I have many things I could post that I am restraining myself to post. I don't understand why you cannot show the same restraint.

OK, let's start a new thread. I'll be happy to drag up all the posts where you first make some statement, or attribute something to me, or claim I must have meant, or ... each of which was wrong. Because for some reason you seem to think that everything that is mentioned is directed toward you personally or toward your program. I don't call people "idiots" until they earn the title. I don't call them "paranoid" until they earn the title. Get the drift here???

No, sorry, I don't know what you mean. Please elaborate.


You can start your thread with those bits where I thought that everything was directed at me or my program, when it wasn't.

So feel free to find one single post where I just from out of the blue insulted you. I'll be waiting...

Oh, so insulting is fine as long as it is not out of the blue??

Boy, you are difficult to communicate with. But here's the point: if you make a statement that provokes aggravation, then don't whine when you get a similar statement back. That was my point. You like to make some sort of comment that is uncalled for, and then complain when you get something back you don't like...

The problem started from the fact that you simply posted irrelevant post

Nicolai Czempin asked a simple question in his first post if there was done mathematical analysis of the position that you use for tests that
no 2 positions give similiar results.

Here is his question from the first post of this thread:

"Has this kind of analysis been done (mathematically, not intuitively like I assume it has been) for the Nunn positions or that set of 40 positions that Bob uses for his tests?"

You simply ignored his question and only showed that intuitively there is no reason to suspect that the positions are dependent.

Nicolai responded:
"Bob, please, are you serious? Did I claim that they did? How many disclaimers do I have to make when I take an extreme example to illustrate a point so I can keep you from latching onto that example and using it as a straw man argument?"


You responded:
"Here is some blunt advice. Grow up"

I think that both of you could behave better but the first post that caused the problem was your post.

Why don't you re-read what you quoted, I'll include it here:

"Bob, please, are you serious? Did I claim that they did? How many disclaimers do I have to make when I take an extreme example to illustrate a point so I can keep you from latching onto that example and using it as a straw man argument?"

So that sounds like a completely polite response? "So I can keep you from latching onto that example..." ??? And then he does exactly the same thing (latches onto a word, assuming it applies to his program when it does not)???

Perhaps it is not a "completely polite response". If you found it rude or insulting, I apologize. I can assure you that at the time I was severely restraining myself and actually toned it down compare to what I was thinking.

I'll try to explain now that I have calmed down: Several times in other threads, I was making "extreme examples" to illustrate certain points I was trying to make. But instead of using them for this purpose, namely as metaphors so that it is (or should be, so I thought) clear that I didn't mean to take them literally (the blackjack example comes to mind).

Extreme examples are fine and I have no problems with them. I then followed up by pointing out that the positions I am using don't come anywhere near your "extreme point". I was not just "latching on to that one idea" I was simply responding to say "that is not applicable" because I have actually studied all the Silver positions in great detail as I have tried to (in the past) understand why we got blew out in a couple until we fixed a couple of eval weaknesses. So I know exactly what they look like, I know that not every program will naturally play to reach some of those positions, but then I also know that those positions are actually pretty representative of what one might play if one had a pretty broad set of opening systems he/she was willing to play.

I thought, okay, so perhaps I didn't explain sufficiently that idea of using "pointed" examples, and I'd better state explicitly how they are meant.

So then I asked specifically not to take them literally, and you did exactly the opposite. I don't know how you react in such a situation, but when I try to get a real answer for something and someone seems to just dwell on the example and not on the question, I can begin to think that this person is either actually making fun of me or not seriously trying to help. That, or he could be extremely dense, a hypothesis I dismissed before even thinking about it.
So that feeling of being made fun of prompted the "Bob, are you serious?" part. I thought hard about whether this could be taken the wrong way, and decided that, given that I had only a short time before stated explicitly that I would like to avoid any situations where something I write in disagreement, perhaps strong disagreement, could be taken as a personal attack.

I try very hard not to insult anybody. Again, I can only apologize if this remark was taken that way. I only know that if someone reacted to me the way I did to you, I would make some funny comment and leave it at that. Certainly not tell anybody to grow up, unless after the funny remark he still can't see the lighter side of things (like Torsten in another thread, whose case seems hopeless, yet I still managed to get by without insulting him unless what I just wrote is an insult).

1)Nicolai could simply respond and explain that you ignored his question
but I understand the reason for his response(see my explanation later).

2)You could understand that his example of similiar positions was only done to clarify that dependence is possible and he did not mean to ask if the reason for dependcy can be that reason.
He meant to ask only if people showed no dependency by mathematical analysis.

The fact that you ignored his question cause him to feel that you suggest that he claimed that your positions may have positions that are similiar based on intuition and not based on mathematical analysis and you responded with an insulting comment.

Uri

[/quote]

OK, then how about we start to discuss the issue of testing, and simply avoid anything that turns personal? works for me...

[bob]

I suspect you will have changed your methodology by then so it will be moot. It is going to be _very_ difficult to get to 2000 on tactics alone. I've not tried to play games with crafty using no eval but material in the last 10 years, but when I last did that, it was very ugly. Not every position has a tactical solution. In fact, most don't. Making horrible moves in those positions means you only reach positions where you will finally see tactically that you are lost.

Bob:
What do you know about the positional strength of my engine?
Where did you get this information?
Did I mention anything about the relative strengths of my positional play vs. my tactical play anywhere?
Have you ever even touched my engine?

1. absolutely nothing. And I intend to keep it that way.

This is yet another rude, uncalled for, comment.

You have a serious issue that you need to deal with. You asked a pretty rude question. I gave you a dead-on honest response. If you don't like the response, how about not asking stupid and provocative questions??? Ever think of that?

It would not have been rude if you had left out the second part. I didn't ask you what you planned to do with my engine, I just wanted to clarify that you were making unsubstantiated claims based on uninformed speculations.

Problem is I had _zero_ speculations in my post. Absolutely zero.

You just don't read carefully and think about what _might_ be under discussion, and assume everything is directed toward you personally, or else toward your program.

The speculation is that my engine is running on tactics alone; I'll copy what you said here, emphasis by me:

I suspect you will have changed your methodology by then so it will be moot. It is going to be _very_ difficult to get to 2000 on tactics alone.

I don't see that the follow-up somehow refers to some other engines. You are telling me first that "my methodology" will not get me to 2000, and the following was not in any way separated from those other sentences. So in what way am I being paranoid or thinking that the world revolves around my engine (not your words) when I assume that in these words you are still referring to my engine, my methodology?

[quote
I've not tried to play games with crafty using no eval but material in the last 10 years, but when I last did that, it was very ugly. Not every position has a tactical solution. In fact, most don't. Making horrible moves in those positions means you only reach positions where you will finally see tactically that you are lost.

I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt: Okay, so you were not talking about my engine any more or my methodology. But do you think it is possible that someone could understand it that way? And that, if it was your intention to speak about something else, it could have been made a ittle clearer?[/quote]

Take the following in context:

(1) you mentioned "tactics first strategy second" as a way of teaching;

(2) I have never seen your source code;

(3) you claim your engine is 1600 or so.

In light of all of those, it would be reasonable to guess "minimum search, minimum evaluation". If you have more evaluation than I suspected, and less search, OK. But evaluation work is essential (IMHO) to reach any decent level of play. Tactics alone won't do it. I'm going to try to set up a temp account on ICC to test this theory using Crafty, just to get some data. Knowing that ICC ratings are pretty badly inflated.

[nczempin]

OK, then how about we start to discuss the issue of testing, and simply avoid anything that turns personal? works for me...

Okay, it works for me, too.

Please point out when I'm being rude, instead of returning the favour. I am actually quite a reasonable guy, and I assume you are, too.

[bob]

OK, then how about we start to discuss the issue of testing, and simply avoid anything that turns personal? works for me...

Okay, it works for me, too.

Please point out when I'm being rude, instead of returning the favour. I am actually quite a reasonable guy, and I assume you are, too.

I try. I don't always succeed however...

[nczempin]

Take the following in context:

(1) you mentioned "tactics first strategy second" as a way of teaching;

(2) I have never seen your source code;

(3) you claim your engine is 1600 or so.

In light of all of those, it would be reasonable to guess "minimum search, minimum evaluation". If you have more evaluation than I suspected, and less search, OK. But evaluation work is essential (IMHO) to reach any decent level of play. Tactics alone won't do it. I'm going to try to set up a temp account on ICC to test this theory using Crafty, just to get some data. Knowing that ICC ratings are pretty badly inflated.

Yes, it would reasonable in context given only those three bits of information. I was sure that I had given more information than that, but perhaps for some reason or other these bits got lost in the mountains of discussion.

Let me clarify:
1) The approach is "teach the basic strategy, such as: Develop your pieces, control the center, castle quickly, avoid isolated pawns, knight on the rim is dim, king opposition in pawn endgames etc.". Beyond that basic strategy, only above about 2000 Elo (international, not USCF) will a human normally have the tactical capabilities and things like concentration to be able to avoid simple blunders and, in particular, have the ability to hold their own in a coffee-house full-scale attack.
More specifically what this means is that one should avoid advanced concepts such as Reti and fianchetto. It's like teaching curveballs to kids: Yes, they will win more games with it in the short run, but they will be short-changing themselves because it will be much harder for them to develop a good fast-ball.
This approach is not unique to the German chess federation, incidentally, but comes from the Russian school of chess. and I believe, but'm not sure, the USCF also advocates that approach. Note that the approach is meant for promising children good enough to be future members of the national team, and these will progress very quickly beyond 2000.

2) And it's better that you haven't, because it is violating many of the solid software engineering principles that I use in my daily work.
You wouldn't need to see it, its approach can be seen directly in games, examples of those can be found on Olivier Deville's ChessWar site, Eden is still deservedly in the lowest division, or on the UCI engines ligue site. There's no need to look there, and I'm not taking it personally that you haven't decided to adopt my engine as your new pet
Looking at PGNs of Eden's games against similar opponents, it can be seen that:
-Eden's moves look much more natural (just look at Apilchess for an extreme counterexample)
-The other engines usually go at least two plies deeper than Eden
-Eden usually likes disregarding individual pawns and prefers stopping the opponent from castling, and really likes to open lines against the king. Usually in positions where you'd normally think there should be some way to use this sort of dynamic compensation, Eden doesn't know how to finish the job, the attack fizzles out and the material usually starts to get felt. Mainly because I haven't put any eval in that would entice it to throw everything at the opposite king...

Not sure if it can be seen by looking at the games, but I but in some of Larry Kaufman's ideas, long before everybody talked about Rybka probably having done so. Worked really well for me (at a very modest level, of course).

When watching a game, it can be seen that Eden still has a lot of potential regarding branching factor and nps (currently about 50,000 nps). I had a version with many of the deficiencies removed and got perfts of around 1.7 Mps, apparently still not much, but much better than now and acceptable to me considering it is written in Java.

3) I have not measured Elo in any meaningful way that would make it directly comparable to USCF or DWZ, the 1600 is a very rough estimate based on my own strength. Because my engine plays more human-like than most others at its level, perhaps this estimation is a little easier. As you mentioned, engine-engine Elos do not necessarily bear any relationship to Human numbers.


In the end, saying that tactics will get you a long way is an extrapolation of such subjects as Deep Blue, Fruit and most of the engines I "meet", which all seem to have a heavy emphasis on pure speed and almost no knowledge. They play horrible games (I mean the lower-level ones) but they still beat Eden's nicer moves.

Incidentally, the name "Eden" is a nod to David Wilkins' program "Paradise", that I discovered in 1989, when I was wondering why I couldn't find any papers that cited the article in all those 13 years. I looked recently, and it seems to have got a little more recognition since then.