4 ms·

"" If the chess engine suggests the opponent’s move, the claimant wins the game. If not, their opponent wins instead. "" How? Top engine move changes with eval

"" If the chess engine suggests the opponent’s move, the claimant wins the game. If not, their opponent wins instead. "" How? Top engine move changes with evaluation time. Longer the wait, better the move.

nicoburns 4y ago
> Top engine move changes with evaluation time I think that's like saying you can't play scrabble because the dictionary changes over time. You specify the engine and wait time before you start a game.
- danuker 4y ago
  You can't. You have to share the best move ahead of each move. Waiting for a specific duraion may yield different results depending on CPU usage or other variables.
  - scott_s 4y ago
    Players only reference the engine to resolve a claim, after the move has been played.
    - danuker 4y ago
      Ah. So part of the fun is not knowing which move is forbidden, ahead of time.
      - scott_s 4y ago
        Yes. You also have to be good enough to be able to guess what is most likely to best the best engine move.
- bmacho 4y ago
  No, there are no top engine moves in practice, and in theory.
  - WJW 4y ago
    Only in the general case, for simple (mostly endgame) positions it is quite possible to exhaustively search the move tree and find the absolute best move. Those can be found by current engines and future engine development won't change them anymore. Such a move would therefore always be the top engine move.
kadoban 4y ago
You can make the engine choice deterministic just by choosing an evaluation time and settings.
- rrobukef 4y ago
  Where time is measured in the number of positions evaluated.
- irishsultan 4y ago
  not quite deterministic when you consider multithreading and monte carlo search.
  - kadoban 4y ago
    Yeah, deterministic is not actually the concept I want here I think. It's fine if it's random, it just needs to be unambiguous. So you just choose in advance what settings to run with and the stopping condition. And then it doesn't matter that if you had run it with different settings, you may have gotten a different answer.
    - rocqua 4y ago
      It is less fun if the outcome is non-deterministic. It means that occasionally the win is determined randomly. That takes away a certain element of skill.
      - kadoban 4y ago
        I guess if you let it run for a long time it should converge on a first move? I don't think there's a real fix for the issue, unless someone effectively solves chess someday. Otherwise your win/loss is fundamentally based on the imperfect evaluation of a particular engine. If it's really just the nondeterminism that bothers you (which is fair enough, preferences vary), there's engines that either are deterministic or can be made so with settings.
- ht85 4y ago

nicoburns 4y ago

> Top engine move changes with evaluation time I think that's like saying you can't play scrabble because the dictionary changes over time. You specify the engine and wait time before you start a game.

danuker 4y ago
You can't. You have to share the best move ahead of each move. Waiting for a specific duraion may yield different results depending on CPU usage or other variables.
- scott_s 4y ago
  Players only reference the engine to resolve a claim, after the move has been played.
  - danuker 4y ago
    Ah. So part of the fun is not knowing which move is forbidden, ahead of time.
    - scott_s 4y ago
      Yes. You also have to be good enough to be able to guess what is most likely to best the best engine move.
bmacho 4y ago
No, there are no top engine moves in practice, and in theory.
- WJW 4y ago
  Only in the general case, for simple (mostly endgame) positions it is quite possible to exhaustively search the move tree and find the absolute best move. Those can be found by current engines and future engine development won't change them anymore. Such a move would therefore always be the top engine move.

kadoban 4y ago

You can make the engine choice deterministic just by choosing an evaluation time and settings.

rrobukef 4y ago
Where time is measured in the number of positions evaluated.
irishsultan 4y ago
not quite deterministic when you consider multithreading and monte carlo search.
- kadoban 4y ago
  Yeah, deterministic is not actually the concept I want here I think. It's fine if it's random, it just needs to be unambiguous. So you just choose in advance what settings to run with and the stopping condition. And then it doesn't matter that if you had run it with different settings, you may have gotten a different answer.
  - rocqua 4y ago
    It is less fun if the outcome is non-deterministic. It means that occasionally the win is determined randomly. That takes away a certain element of skill.
    - kadoban 4y ago
      I guess if you let it run for a long time it should converge on a first move? I don't think there's a real fix for the issue, unless someone effectively solves chess someday. Otherwise your win/loss is fundamentally based on the imperfect evaluation of a particular engine. If it's really just the nondeterminism that bothers you (which is fair enough, preferences vary), there's engines that either are deterministic or can be made so with settings.
ht85 4y ago