To kick off some technical discussions

[hyatt]

What a pleasure to see you here, Bob! Respect what Chris W told to you and what you answered, I cannot add nothing but just the banal assertion that when you have a massive tool to do something, better to drop the old stone hammer.
What I do fully take from Chris thinking, not expressed here but elsewhere and lot time ago, is his idea that there is something Ok in the engine pushing the adversary to uncharted waters, that is, choosing sometimes lines that are not the best in terms of conventional scores, but are the best in terms of risky sub lines coming from there. Against humans this is usually lethal. At that you can add a superb improvement in the amount of interesting games.
I wonder if you could program a Crafty tailored specifically to take humans.
My best
Fern

Older versions of crafty had a lot of anti-human type code in them. Avoid trading material, avoid locked pawn structures, avoid certain types of problematic opening positions (Stonewall as an example where a program usually mishandles things and falls into a kingside attack before it realizes what is going on). But over time, I have removed many of those crutches because as depth/speed has gone up, the ability to handle those with general knowledge has improved. Nowadays there is really nothing wrong with playing black against a strong human, and walking into a Stonewall setup. Programs should not fear endgames and therefore avoid trading, because they play endgames extremely accurately also.

In short, for a good while we needed "anti-human" strategies in a chess engine to avoid playing into positions where the computer's strength was nullified. Nowadays, it seems to be the humans that are trying to rely on anti-computer strategies, and the computers are getting better at dealing with them, without needing special-case code...

Yes there are a few small holes scattered around, but overall...

[Chris Whittington]

What a pleasure to see you here, Bob! Respect what Chris W told to you and what you answered, I cannot add nothing but just the banal assertion that when you have a massive tool to do something, better to drop the old stone hammer.
What I do fully take from Chris thinking, not expressed here but elsewhere and lot time ago, is his idea that there is something Ok in the engine pushing the adversary to uncharted waters, that is, choosing sometimes lines that are not the best in terms of conventional scores, but are the best in terms of risky sub lines coming from there. Against humans this is usually lethal. At that you can add a superb improvement in the amount of interesting games.
I wonder if you could program a Crafty tailored specifically to take humans.
My best
Fern

Older versions of crafty had a lot of anti-human type code in them. Avoid trading material, avoid locked pawn structures, avoid certain types of problematic opening positions (Stonewall as an example where a program usually mishandles things and falls into a kingside attack before it realizes what is going on). But over time, I have removed many of those crutches because as depth/speed has gone up, the ability to handle those with general knowledge has improved. Nowadays there is really nothing wrong with playing black against a strong human, and walking into a Stonewall setup. Programs should not fear endgames and therefore avoid trading, because they play endgames extremely accurately also.

In short, for a good while we needed "anti-human" strategies in a chess engine to avoid playing into positions where the computer's strength was nullified. Nowadays, it seems to be the humans that are trying to rely on anti-computer strategies, and the computers are getting better at dealing with them, without needing special-case code...

Yes there are a few small holes scattered around, but overall...

Bob,

I like reading your posts and I think what you've done over the years, with Crafty and other stuff is really excellent. But, there's always a but ....

Fernando does have some understanding of what I tried to do in the past and what he spoke of just now is part of that but it's as if what he said doesn't exist in your answer and possibly even in your mindset. All your posts that begin "In Crafty we do ...." or similar, I think oh god, here we go again, Crafty and Bob have to be doing or have done all that is possible in computer chess - it's as if you want to own all the computer chess space and deny others a look in for other ideas. What you are referring to in the above post "In Crafty ..." has nothing to do with the idea postulated by Fernando, although you make it seem that it does. It may be of little loss to you, but if I'm going to have a dialog with someone else in the field, I expect some of my ideas and thoughts to get across and be reflected back to me some way by the other person, in other words, I need to feel as part of the dialog that my space and your space overlap somehow. Not a feeling I get with result I tend to drop out of the conversation. Probably no loss to you

[benstoker]

What a pleasure to see you here, Bob! Respect what Chris W told to you and what you answered, I cannot add nothing but just the banal assertion that when you have a massive tool to do something, better to drop the old stone hammer.
What I do fully take from Chris thinking, not expressed here but elsewhere and lot time ago, is his idea that there is something Ok in the engine pushing the adversary to uncharted waters, that is, choosing sometimes lines that are not the best in terms of conventional scores, but are the best in terms of risky sub lines coming from there. Against humans this is usually lethal. At that you can add a superb improvement in the amount of interesting games.
I wonder if you could program a Crafty tailored specifically to take humans.
My best
Fern

Older versions of crafty had a lot of anti-human type code in them. Avoid trading material, avoid locked pawn structures, avoid certain types of problematic opening positions (Stonewall as an example where a program usually mishandles things and falls into a kingside attack before it realizes what is going on). But over time, I have removed many of those crutches because as depth/speed has gone up, the ability to handle those with general knowledge has improved. Nowadays there is really nothing wrong with playing black against a strong human, and walking into a Stonewall setup. Programs should not fear endgames and therefore avoid trading, because they play endgames extremely accurately also.

In short, for a good while we needed "anti-human" strategies in a chess engine to avoid playing into positions where the computer's strength was nullified. Nowadays, it seems to be the humans that are trying to rely on anti-computer strategies, and the computers are getting better at dealing with them, without needing special-case code...

Yes there are a few small holes scattered around, but overall...

Bob,

I like reading your posts and I think what you've done over the years, with Crafty and other stuff is really excellent. But, there's always a but ....

Fernando does have some understanding of what I tried to do in the past and what he spoke of just now is part of that but it's as if what he said doesn't exist in your answer and possibly even in your mindset. All your posts that begin "In Crafty we do ...." or similar, I think oh god, here we go again, Crafty and Bob have to be doing or have done all that is possible in computer chess - it's as if you want to own all the computer chess space and deny others a look in for other ideas. What you are referring to in the above post "In Crafty ..." has nothing to do with the idea postulated by Fernando, although you make it seem that it does. It may be of little loss to you, but if I'm going to have a dialog with someone else in the field, I expect some of my ideas and thoughts to get across and be reflected back to me some way by the other person, in other words, I need to feel as part of the dialog that my space and your space overlap somehow. Not a feeling I get with result I tend to drop out of the conversation. Probably no loss to you

Are trying to say you disagree with Bob?

[hyatt]

What a pleasure to see you here, Bob! Respect what Chris W told to you and what you answered, I cannot add nothing but just the banal assertion that when you have a massive tool to do something, better to drop the old stone hammer.
What I do fully take from Chris thinking, not expressed here but elsewhere and lot time ago, is his idea that there is something Ok in the engine pushing the adversary to uncharted waters, that is, choosing sometimes lines that are not the best in terms of conventional scores, but are the best in terms of risky sub lines coming from there. Against humans this is usually lethal. At that you can add a superb improvement in the amount of interesting games.
I wonder if you could program a Crafty tailored specifically to take humans.
My best
Fern

Older versions of crafty had a lot of anti-human type code in them. Avoid trading material, avoid locked pawn structures, avoid certain types of problematic opening positions (Stonewall as an example where a program usually mishandles things and falls into a kingside attack before it realizes what is going on). But over time, I have removed many of those crutches because as depth/speed has gone up, the ability to handle those with general knowledge has improved. Nowadays there is really nothing wrong with playing black against a strong human, and walking into a Stonewall setup. Programs should not fear endgames and therefore avoid trading, because they play endgames extremely accurately also.

In short, for a good while we needed "anti-human" strategies in a chess engine to avoid playing into positions where the computer's strength was nullified. Nowadays, it seems to be the humans that are trying to rely on anti-computer strategies, and the computers are getting better at dealing with them, without needing special-case code...

Yes there are a few small holes scattered around, but overall...

Bob,

I like reading your posts and I think what you've done over the years, with Crafty and other stuff is really excellent. But, there's always a but ....

Fernando does have some understanding of what I tried to do in the past and what he spoke of just now is part of that but it's as if what he said doesn't exist in your answer and possibly even in your mindset. All your posts that begin "In Crafty we do ...." or similar, I think oh god, here we go again, Crafty and Bob have to be doing or have done all that is possible in computer chess - it's as if you want to own all the computer chess space and deny others a look in for other ideas. What you are referring to in the above post "In Crafty ..." has nothing to do with the idea postulated by Fernando, although you make it seem that it does. It may be of little loss to you, but if I'm going to have a dialog with someone else in the field, I expect some of my ideas and thoughts to get across and be reflected back to me some way by the other person, in other words, I need to feel as part of the dialog that my space and your space overlap somehow. Not a feeling I get with result I tend to drop out of the conversation. Probably no loss to you

I understood your old comments of "steer into the fog". But I've never found a workable way to do that, directly. I have found ideas to complicate the position (when it is appropriate) by piling on pieces when the opponent's king is unsafe, or maintaining tension rather than relieving it by trading pawns or pushing to lock them. But I've not found anything that works as you described. Not that it can't be done, but that I have not thought of a way to make it happen. I am not trying to dictate what others do, by any means. I do often mention what I have tried and whether or not it worked, and I often mention things I plan on trying in the future. And I have also quite often taken an idea I have not tried, code it up, and find that it works. These are usually mentioned in the comments in main.c to give credit to the person that came up with the idea.

In the above, Fernando explicitly mentioned "in Crafty". And I explained what we had done previously (although as I explained, much of that has been removed as the search depths have grown so much). If you have ideas to suggest, fire away. I can't ever remember dismissing an idea I have not tried, outright. I sometimes might well decide "way too hard to code efficiently" or whatever.

[Chris Whittington]

What a pleasure to see you here, Bob! Respect what Chris W told to you and what you answered, I cannot add nothing but just the banal assertion that when you have a massive tool to do something, better to drop the old stone hammer.
What I do fully take from Chris thinking, not expressed here but elsewhere and lot time ago, is his idea that there is something Ok in the engine pushing the adversary to uncharted waters, that is, choosing sometimes lines that are not the best in terms of conventional scores, but are the best in terms of risky sub lines coming from there. Against humans this is usually lethal. At that you can add a superb improvement in the amount of interesting games.
I wonder if you could program a Crafty tailored specifically to take humans.
My best
Fern

Older versions of crafty had a lot of anti-human type code in them. Avoid trading material, avoid locked pawn structures, avoid certain types of problematic opening positions (Stonewall as an example where a program usually mishandles things and falls into a kingside attack before it realizes what is going on). But over time, I have removed many of those crutches because as depth/speed has gone up, the ability to handle those with general knowledge has improved. Nowadays there is really nothing wrong with playing black against a strong human, and walking into a Stonewall setup. Programs should not fear endgames and therefore avoid trading, because they play endgames extremely accurately also.

In short, for a good while we needed "anti-human" strategies in a chess engine to avoid playing into positions where the computer's strength was nullified. Nowadays, it seems to be the humans that are trying to rely on anti-computer strategies, and the computers are getting better at dealing with them, without needing special-case code...

Yes there are a few small holes scattered around, but overall...

Bob,

I like reading your posts and I think what you've done over the years, with Crafty and other stuff is really excellent. But, there's always a but ....

Fernando does have some understanding of what I tried to do in the past and what he spoke of just now is part of that but it's as if what he said doesn't exist in your answer and possibly even in your mindset. All your posts that begin "In Crafty we do ...." or similar, I think oh god, here we go again, Crafty and Bob have to be doing or have done all that is possible in computer chess - it's as if you want to own all the computer chess space and deny others a look in for other ideas. What you are referring to in the above post "In Crafty ..." has nothing to do with the idea postulated by Fernando, although you make it seem that it does. It may be of little loss to you, but if I'm going to have a dialog with someone else in the field, I expect some of my ideas and thoughts to get across and be reflected back to me some way by the other person, in other words, I need to feel as part of the dialog that my space and your space overlap somehow. Not a feeling I get with result I tend to drop out of the conversation. Probably no loss to you

Are trying to say you disagree with Bob?

I think I'm trying to say I find Bob's world view too exclusive and that he has a tendency to claim ownership of all the space in computer chess for the Bob-Crafty combo. Apart from that and overlooking the Alabama-ness, he's a great guy

[Chris Whittington]

What a pleasure to see you here, Bob! Respect what Chris W told to you and what you answered, I cannot add nothing but just the banal assertion that when you have a massive tool to do something, better to drop the old stone hammer.
What I do fully take from Chris thinking, not expressed here but elsewhere and lot time ago, is his idea that there is something Ok in the engine pushing the adversary to uncharted waters, that is, choosing sometimes lines that are not the best in terms of conventional scores, but are the best in terms of risky sub lines coming from there. Against humans this is usually lethal. At that you can add a superb improvement in the amount of interesting games.
I wonder if you could program a Crafty tailored specifically to take humans.
My best
Fern

Older versions of crafty had a lot of anti-human type code in them. Avoid trading material, avoid locked pawn structures, avoid certain types of problematic opening positions (Stonewall as an example where a program usually mishandles things and falls into a kingside attack before it realizes what is going on). But over time, I have removed many of those crutches because as depth/speed has gone up, the ability to handle those with general knowledge has improved. Nowadays there is really nothing wrong with playing black against a strong human, and walking into a Stonewall setup. Programs should not fear endgames and therefore avoid trading, because they play endgames extremely accurately also.

In short, for a good while we needed "anti-human" strategies in a chess engine to avoid playing into positions where the computer's strength was nullified. Nowadays, it seems to be the humans that are trying to rely on anti-computer strategies, and the computers are getting better at dealing with them, without needing special-case code...

Yes there are a few small holes scattered around, but overall...

Bob,

I like reading your posts and I think what you've done over the years, with Crafty and other stuff is really excellent. But, there's always a but ....

Fernando does have some understanding of what I tried to do in the past and what he spoke of just now is part of that but it's as if what he said doesn't exist in your answer and possibly even in your mindset. All your posts that begin "In Crafty we do ...." or similar, I think oh god, here we go again, Crafty and Bob have to be doing or have done all that is possible in computer chess - it's as if you want to own all the computer chess space and deny others a look in for other ideas. What you are referring to in the above post "In Crafty ..." has nothing to do with the idea postulated by Fernando, although you make it seem that it does. It may be of little loss to you, but if I'm going to have a dialog with someone else in the field, I expect some of my ideas and thoughts to get across and be reflected back to me some way by the other person, in other words, I need to feel as part of the dialog that my space and your space overlap somehow. Not a feeling I get with result I tend to drop out of the conversation. Probably no loss to you

I understood your old comments of "steer into the fog". But I've never found a workable way to do that, directly. I have found ideas to complicate the position (when it is appropriate) by piling on pieces when the opponent's king is unsafe, or maintaining tension rather than relieving it by trading pawns or pushing to lock them. But I've not found anything that works as you described. Not that it can't be done, but that I have not thought of a way to make it happen. I am not trying to dictate what others do, by any means. I do often mention what I have tried and whether or not it worked, and I often mention things I plan on trying in the future. And I have also quite often taken an idea I have not tried, code it up, and find that it works. These are usually mentioned in the comments in main.c to give credit to the person that came up with the idea.

In the above, Fernando explicitly mentioned "in Crafty". And I explained what we had done previously (although as I explained, much of that has been removed as the search depths have grown so much). If you have ideas to suggest, fire away. I can't ever remember dismissing an idea I have not tried, outright. I sometimes might well decide "way too hard to code efficiently" or whatever.

Fernando would probably like a Crafty System Tal

[Fernando]

Crafty System Tal?
You should do it, Chris, as Crafty is an open project and you can go into its bowels and make SOME mishaps there

Fern

[Chris Whittington]

Crafty System Tal?
You should do it, Chris, as Crafty is an open project and you can go into its bowels and make SOME mishaps there

Fern

I think the SEE and Qsearch renders the sacrificial element codings very difficult if not impossible

[Fernando]

In that case, Chris, you should take ANY open chess engine available and do the trick.
Just drinking a wonderful Carmenére 2007 vintage, yup yup

Fern

[Chris Whittington]

In that case, Chris, you should take ANY open chess engine available and do the trick.
Just drinking a wonderful Carmenére 2007 vintage, yup yup

Fern

We're still tracking down the local wines but, although this is Armagnac country, there's no AOC vineyards near here and much of the production of what there is ends up at the distillery. The local whites are weird - ever heard of Gros Manseng before? and a bit too flowery for my taste. There's good spicy reds from Midiran region over the far side of the department and also from Montreal sur Gers which is closer-ish. Next week we go chateau touring to see what can be found direct.