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Hans Aberg wrote on Mon, Apr 28, 2008 08:35 PM UTC:

H.G.Muller:
| I am not sure what 'brute force' you are referring to.

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_chess

| What do you mean by 'classical theory'?

What was used before the days of computers. A better term might be 'deductive theory' as opposed to a 'statistical theory', i.e., which has the aim of finding the best by reasoning, though limited in scope due to the complexity of the problem.

| What does it matter anyway how the piece-value system for normal Chess
| was historically constructed anyway?

It is designed to merge with the other empiric reason developed to be used by humans.

You might have a look at a program like Eliza:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA
It does not have any true understanding, but it takes while for humans to discover that. The computer chess programs are similar in nature, but they can outdo a human by searching through many more positions. If a human is compensated for that somehow (perhaps: allowed to use computers, take back at will, or making a new variant), then I think it will not be so difficult for humans to beat the programs. In such a setting, a statistical approach will fail sorely, since the human will merely play towards special cases not covered by the statistical analysis. The deductive theory will be successively strengthened until in principle the ideal best theory will emerge. This latter approach seems to have been cut short, though by the mergence of very fast computers that can exploit the weakness of human thinking, which is the inability of making large numbers of very fast but simple computations.

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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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