Dann Corbit wrote:Did AlphaZero have a book?
That's a good question, but to get an answer, we'd first have to agree on a definition for "opening book". That's not easy, looking at the
chessprogramming entry, I see no proper definition, it just says that they're used to replace the engines' search routines, at the beginning of the game. The problem with this definition, is that it doesn't deal with new ways of doing that search, like AlphaZero's. If I had to answer, constricted by this definition, I'd have to say "no", because AlphaZero wasn't using a book
per se. Such a short reply, would leave out of the debate, the fact that AlphaZero was using knowledge, previously acquired when training. SF also had indirect access to that knowledge, as it can be considered part of the hundreds of millions of games, behind most of its code (Stockfish Testing Framework). And yet, "indirect access" isn't what AlphaZero was allowed; by design, this program can't be truly run, without something that's even better than an opening book.