ICGA Journal - Volume 28, issue 2 - Journals

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Table of Contents / Editorial

Authors: van den Herik, Jaap

Article Type: Other

DOI: 10.3233/ICG-2005-28201

Citation: ICGA Journal, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 65-66, 2005

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Comparing Move Choices of Chess Search Engines

Authors: Levene, Mark | Bar-Ilan, Judit

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Anecdotal evidence exists that in many positions two distinct chess engines will choose different moves and, moreover, that their top-n ranking of move choices also differ. Here we set out to quantify this difference, including the difference between move choices by chess engines and those made by humans. For our analysis we used FRITZ 8 and JUNIOR 9 as representative chess search engines and the POWERBOOK opening book as representing human choices. We collected the top-5 ranked moves and their scores as reported by FRITZ and JUNIOR , after 15 and 30 minutes of thinking …time, and the top-5 moves recorded in the POWERBOOK , for the Nunn2 test positions and the initial board position. The data analysis was carried out using several nonparametric measures, including the amount of overlap in the top-5 choices of the engines and their association as measured by three variants of Spearman’s footrule. Our preliminary results show that, overall, the engines differ substantially in their choice of moves, and, furthermore, the engines’ choices also differ substantially from human choice. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/ICG-2005-28202

Citation: ICGA Journal, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 67-76, 2005

Price: EUR 27.50

An Optimistic Pondering Approach for Asynchronous Distributed Game-Tree Search

Authors: Himstedt, Kai

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Taking computer chess as an example an idea is presented how to use the early available principal variations for optimistic pondering under real match conditions, even before the opponent is on move. This way, several processors of a distributed environment can be used to search asynchronously ahead in parallel to achieve a greater thinking-time amount for the game-tree search of a single move. The actual principal variations which can be provided by all typical chess programs during their iterative deepening are the only information needed for this method. The implementation of the idea for a prototypical environment is described and …the major results collected so far from this environment are presented. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/ICG-2005-28203

Citation: ICGA Journal, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 77-90, 2005

Price: EUR 27.50

The Nature of Retrograde Analysis for Chinese Chess - Part 1

Authors: Fang, Haw-ren

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Retrograde analysis is widely applied to construct databases of deterministic, finite, two-player zero-sum games with perfect information. However, its application to Chinese chess is limited because of the special rules about indefinite move sequences. Problems caused by the most influential rule, checking indefinitely 3 , were successfully solved in practical cases, with 50 selected endgame databases constructed in accord with this rule, where the 60-move rule was ignored. Other special rules were verified having much less impact on contaminating the databases via a rule-tolerant approach. For constructing complete endgame databases, we need rigorous algorithms. There are two rule …sets in Chinese chess: the Asian rule set and the Chinese rule set. In this article, algorithms are successfully developed to build win-draw-loss endgame databases in accord with the Asian rule set. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/ICG-2005-28204

Citation: ICGA Journal, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 91-105, 2005

Price: EUR 27.50