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Grandmaster-level chess without search

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Re: Grandmaster-level chess without search

#51

Post by squidgedcricket »

jeremyjh wrote: post #47
squidgedcricket wrote: post #45

Would it be feasible to create a complete lookup table of 'best' moves for all given board configurations? I'm not sure how to determine the total number of configurations. Not the same as a tablebase, just a single next move rather than sequence to checkmate. It wouldn't be competitive against top tier players and AI, but I wouldn't be surprised if it could beat me. 'Instantly' knowing the next move would be a cool…

There are more possible chess games than there are atoms in the universe. It can't be solved by brute force.

There's a lot of chess configs, but there's a LOT of atoms in the observable universe. I suspect there's a few in the unobservable universe too.

Chess configs = 4.8 x 10^44, Atoms > 10^70

https://tromp.github.io/chess/chess.html https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/47941/dumbed-dow...

You might be able to pull off a low-resolution lookup table. Take some big but manageable number N (e.g 10^10) and calculate the maximally even distribution of those points over the total space of chessboard configurations. Then make a lookup table for those configs. In play, for configs not in the table, interpolate between nearest points in the table.

Re: Grandmaster-level chess without search

#52

Post by salamo »

hinkley wrote: post #40
janalsncm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantage of this flavor of engine is that it might make parallel position evaluation extremely efficient. Calculate 1024 leaf positions and batch them to the model, take the top 10% and explore their sub-trees either via further GPU batching or minimax eval. NNUE already tries to distill a subtree eval into a neural net, but it’s optimized for CPU rather than GPU.

As a game player I want to play an opponent that behaves like a human. Otherwise I’m always looking for the flaw in the design that I can exploit, which wins me the game but is less fun. What you’re discussing sounds like intuition with checking, which is pretty close to how humans with a moderate degree of skill behave. I haven’t known enough Chess or Go masters to have any claim on how they think. But most of us do…

The issue is that humans and computers don't evaluate board positions in the same way. A computer will analyze every possible move, and then every possible response to each of those moves, etc. Human grandmasters will typically only analyze a handful of candidate moves, and a few possible replies to those moves. This means human search is much narrower and shallower.

If you want a computer that plays like a human, you will probably need to imitate the way that a human thinks about the game. This means for example thinking about the interactions between pieces and the flow of the game rather than stateless evaluations.

Re: Grandmaster-level chess without search

#53

Post by WhitneyLand »

tzs wrote: post #20

OT: what's the state of the art in non-GM level computer chess? Say I want to play chess with an opponent that is at about the same skill level as me, or perhaps I want to play with an opponent about 100 rating points above me for training. Most engines let you dumb them down by cutting search depth, but that usually doesn't work well. Sure, you end up beating them about half the time if you cut the search down enoug…

What’s your rating, have you tried gpt4o?

It’s supposedly good up to about 1300, but aside from that the ability to prompt can make the style of play somewhat tunable for ex aggressive, defensive, etc.

Re: Grandmaster-level chess without search

#54

Post by levocardia »

jackmalpo wrote: post #34

what i would love is an engine that thinks more like a human. presumably since this uses stockfish annotated games, it basically ends up thinking like a computer. thinking like a human would be awesome for game reviews to walk through things to note in different positions (tuned to my elo).

Or a model whose performance is measured via its efficiency of learning--in other words, how many games does it need to play to learn to play at X level? The reason Magnus Carlsen is impressive is because he's reached his ability level in chess under enormous time and computation constraints, compared to a computer. His efficiency of learning is extraordinary compared to that of any chess engine.

Re: Grandmaster-level chess without search

#55

Post by sourcepluck »

I believe GM and chess author (and all-round lovely fellow) Matthew Sadler rigged up Leela Zero to effectively play off intuition and do very little or no search for training games. He could usually beat it, but not always. Think it might have been in The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement.

Re: Grandmaster-level chess without search

#56

Post by roenxi »

squidgedcricket wrote: post #45

Would it be feasible to create a complete lookup table of 'best' moves for all given board configurations? I'm not sure how to determine the total number of configurations. Not the same as a tablebase, just a single next move rather than sequence to checkmate. It wouldn't be competitive against top tier players and AI, but I wouldn't be surprised if it could beat me. 'Instantly' knowing the next move would be a cool…

That is basically what a neural network based chess engine is. The function the neural network is encoding is logically equivalent to "probability this move is the best for this board state".

The resolution isn't great, and adding search to that can be used to develop an implicit measure of how accurate the function is (ie, probability the move suggested in a position remains unchanged after searching the move tree for better alternatives).

Re: Grandmaster-level chess without search

#57

Post by andrelaszlo »

Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #48
tzs wrote: post #20

OT: what's the state of the art in non-GM level computer chess? Say I want to play chess with an opponent that is at about the same skill level as me, or perhaps I want to play with an opponent about 100 rating points above me for training. Most engines let you dumb them down by cutting search depth, but that usually doesn't work well. Sure, you end up beating them about half the time if you cut the search down enoug…

I'm currently trying to build one, fwiw.

Cool! I've been wondering for s while if it wouldn't be possible to use lichess games for various ratings to make typical mistakes.

I'm also curious about if it would be possible to mimic certain playing styles. Two beginners can have the same rating but one might lose because they have a weak opening, and the other one because they mess upo the end game, for example.

Random mistakes doesn't mimic human play very well.

Re: Grandmaster-level chess without search

#58

Post by andrelaszlo »

k2xl wrote: post #46
squidgedcricket wrote: post #45

Would it be feasible to create a complete lookup table of 'best' moves for all given board configurations? I'm not sure how to determine the total number of configurations. Not the same as a tablebase, just a single next move rather than sequence to checkmate. It wouldn't be competitive against top tier players and AI, but I wouldn't be surprised if it could beat me. 'Instantly' knowing the next move would be a cool…

The amount of data that would be required for a lookup table for all best moves for every board configuration would be infeasible. They have managed to create one for 7 pieces. Last update on trying to get to 8 piece database: https://www.chess.com/blog/Rocky64/eight-piece-tablebases-a-...

Almost halfway there ;)

Re: Grandmaster-level chess without search

#59

Post by anamexis »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #53
tzs wrote: post #20

OT: what's the state of the art in non-GM level computer chess? Say I want to play chess with an opponent that is at about the same skill level as me, or perhaps I want to play with an opponent about 100 rating points above me for training. Most engines let you dumb them down by cutting search depth, but that usually doesn't work well. Sure, you end up beating them about half the time if you cut the search down enoug…

What’s your rating, have you tried gpt4o? It’s supposedly good up to about 1300, but aside from that the ability to prompt can make the style of play somewhat tunable for ex aggressive, defensive, etc.

Do you know if there are any interfaces to play against got4o? Or is it just typing in algebraic moves back and forth?

Re: Grandmaster-level chess without search

#60

Post by hinkley »

salamo wrote: post #52
hinkley wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a game player I want to play an opponent that behaves like a human. Otherwise I’m always looking for the flaw in the design that I can exploit, which wins me the game but is less fun. What you’re discussing sounds like intuition with checking, which is pretty close to how humans with a moderate degree of skill behave. I haven’t known enough Chess or Go masters to have any claim on how they think. But most of us do…

The issue is that humans and computers don't evaluate board positions in the same way. A computer will analyze every possible move, and then every possible response to each of those moves, etc. Human grandmasters will typically only analyze a handful of candidate moves, and a few possible replies to those moves. This means human search is much narrower and shallower. If you want a computer that plays like a human, yo…

Grandparent was suggesting the hybrid approach where you select a handful of good candidate positions and then explore them (DFS) as far as possible. Which is pretty much how humans work.
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