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Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Apr 25, 2008 12:08 AM UTC:

This is an interesting and thought-provoking conversation. I've got a couple questions.

If the game has a large-enough branching ratio that computers can't adequately search in 'reasonable' [however it's defined] time, then wouldn't the different values that a human and a computer might assign to the same pieces *possibly* contribute to or result from the person's 'intuition'/superior playing ability?

Following is a quote from a recent HG Muller post:
'Making the branching ratio of a game larger merely means the search depth gets lower. If this helps the Human or the computer entirely depends on if the fraction of PLAUSIBLE moves, that even a Human cannot avoid considering, increases less than proportional. Otherwise the search depth if the Human might suffer even more than that of the computer.'

If each side gets multiple moves per turn, this would increase the branching ratio. But without changing other things about chess, the human would probably be even more at a disadvantage; in Marseilles Chess, for example, with its 2 moves/side/turn, because the computer would calculate that out easily, correct?

Consider a larger game, with several kings and several moves per turn. Let each side have as many moves per turn as they have kings. Restrict movable pieces on each side to only those friendly pieces within close proximity of the kings. This begins to shift the advantage to the human, I suspect, especially when there are maybe 6 - 8 kings or more per side, the pieces are reasonably simple, easy to understand and use, work well in groups, and number few in variety, with fairly high numbers of each type of piece. This should shift the game more toward pattern recognition and away from pure brute-force calculations, which would seemingly take rather long. Opinions?

Btw, I really haven't played FIDE seriously in 4 decades and I never got a rating, but my ratings at CV are 1550ish lifetime and bouncing around in the 1600's for the past 18 months, and I'd really love to get a chance to play against a program in games like the kind described above.

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Comments

Aberg variation of Capablanca's Chess. Different setup and castling rules. (10x8, Cells: 80)

💡📝Hans Aberg wrote on Sat, May 3, 2008 04:43 PM UTC:

H.G.Muller:
| But the point is that this does not alter the piece values.

Right, though that might be just a preferred way to structure theory because it suits human thinking. Essentially, define contexts, and attach values to them. First define piece values in nutralk settings. Then observe that the bishop pair gets an added value. Then try to figure out values for good and poor bishops. And so on. By contrast, computers tend to be very poor at handling such contexts, so other methods might be suitable for programs.

Derek Nalls wrote on Sat, May 3, 2008 03:26 PM UTC:

Muller:

You have my best regards toward your worthwhile effort to publish your
empirical, statistical method for obtaining the material values of pieces
in the ICGA Journal.  My assessment is that it will surely be a much
better paper than the junk [name removed] published in the same journal
regarding piece values.

[The above has been edited to remove a name and/or site reference. It is
the policy of cv.org to avoid mention of that particular name and site to
remove any threat of lawsuits. Sorry to have to do that, but we must
protect ourselves. -D. Howe]

H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, May 3, 2008 03:22 PM UTC:

Sure, this is what people do and have done for ages. It is well known that the advantage of having the move is worth 1/6 of a Pawn, (corresponding in normal Chess to a white score of 53-54%) and that, by inference, wasting a full move is equivalent to 1/3 of a Pawn.

But the point is that this does not alter the piece values. It just adds to them, like every positional advantage adds to them. In my test the advantage of having the lead move is neutralized by playing every position both with white to move and black to move.

💡📝Hans Aberg wrote on Sat, May 3, 2008 11:50 AM UTC:

H.G.Muller:
| As piece values are only useful as strategic guidelines for quiet
| positions, they cannot be sensitive to who has the move.

At the beginning of the game, white is thought to have a slight advantage, and the first task of black will be attempting to neutralize that. And it might be possible set a picee value to that positional advantage, just as when reasoning in terms of getting positional compensation for a sacrifice. Somewhat less han a pawn, perhaps. If one knows about the black/white winning statistics, one might be able to set a value on it that way. It may not be usable for a computer program as it does not change sides, but only computes the relative values of moves.

H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, May 3, 2008 10:34 AM UTC:

As piece values are only useful as strategic guidelines for quiet positions, they cannot be sensitive to who has the move. A position where it matters who has the move is by definition nont quiet, as one ply later that characteristic will have essentially changed. So at the level of piece-value strategies, Chess is a perfectly symmetric game.

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