Dear Google AlphaZero chess team.

Discussion of anything and everything relating to chess playing software and machines.

Moderators: hgm, Rebel, chrisw

syzygy
Posts: 5566
Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:56 pm

Re: Dear Google AlphaZero chess team.

Post by syzygy »

Milos wrote:
hgm wrote:But AlphaZero was not using 6-men Syzygy, right? So it was seriously handicapped.
A0 is not capable of using 6-men Syzygy otherwise they would state it in the paper.
It is rather ridiculous to assume that one is handicapped because it cannot use something it is not capable of using.
I fully agree that Stockfish was not handicapped by its inability to use the four TPUs :-)
Milos
Posts: 4190
Joined: Wed Nov 25, 2009 1:47 am

Re: Dear Google AlphaZero chess team.

Post by Milos »

syzygy wrote:
Milos wrote:
hgm wrote:But AlphaZero was not using 6-men Syzygy, right? So it was seriously handicapped.
A0 is not capable of using 6-men Syzygy otherwise they would state it in the paper.
It is rather ridiculous to assume that one is handicapped because it cannot use something it is not capable of using.
I fully agree that Stockfish was not handicapped by its inability to use the four TPUs :-)
Such typical Ignorantio Elenchi.
No one ever claimed SF is handicapped for not using 4 TPUs. SF was handicapped for using only 64 threads instead of 1024 real cores for example ;).
syzygy
Posts: 5566
Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:56 pm

Re: Dear Google AlphaZero chess team.

Post by syzygy »

Milos wrote:
syzygy wrote:
Milos wrote:
hgm wrote:But AlphaZero was not using 6-men Syzygy, right? So it was seriously handicapped.
A0 is not capable of using 6-men Syzygy otherwise they would state it in the paper.
It is rather ridiculous to assume that one is handicapped because it cannot use something it is not capable of using.
I fully agree that Stockfish was not handicapped by its inability to use the four TPUs :-)
Such typical Ignorantio Elenchi.
Why? I simply agree with what you wrote and applied it to a specific case. I did not mean to say or imply anything beyond the single sentence I wrote.
No one ever claimed SF is handicapped for not using 4 TPUs. SF was handicapped for using only 64 threads instead of 1024 real cores for example ;).
Many did claim that SF played against AlphaZero with a hardware disadvantage because of AlphaZero's TPUs.