7 piece tablebases... when?

Arpad Rusz · Post by **Arpad Rusz** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:16 pm

An interesting project by Kirill Kryukov:
http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discuss ... f=6&t=5815

bob · Post by **bob** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 1:42 am

Arpad Rusz wrote:An interesting project by Kirill Kryukov:
http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discuss ... f=6&t=5815

It is one thing to do 7 piece files, it is another thing to store them, and yet another thing to use them in a live search. I am not sure technology is "there" today, both from a size and a speed perspective. And I am not sure they are ever going to be really useful, other than for specific endgame studies.

Arpad Rusz · Post by **Arpad Rusz** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:47 am

I know that for engine-engine play even the 6 men tablebases are considered almost useless. But for endgame analysis - not only studies, real games too - they are of big help. Try to analyse some six men positions without tablebases. The engines are usually clueless...
The technology also was not "there" when Nalimov started his work.

bob · Post by **bob** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 3:06 am

Arpad Rusz wrote:I know that for engine-engine play even the 6 men tablebases are considered almost useless. But for endgame analysis - not only studies, real games too - they are of big help. Try to analyse some six men positions without tablebases. The engines are usually clueless...
The technology also was not "there" when Nalimov started his work.

Actually the technology was "there" as Eugene started with 3-4-5's, and only ventured to 6's after disk space reached reasonable levels.

Uri Blass · Post by **Uri Blass** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 4:22 am

Arpad Rusz wrote:I know that for engine-engine play even the 6 men tablebases are considered almost useless. But for endgame analysis - not only studies, real games too - they are of big help. Try to analyse some six men positions without tablebases. The engines are usually clueless...
The technology also was not "there" when Nalimov started his work.

engines usually know what to do in 6 piece tablebases(otherwise 6 piece tablebases could be useful for engine-engine games and only using them at the root could give a significant advantage to engines).

There are positions when they do not know what to do but in big majority of the cases
long mates or draws that are not easy draws without tablebases do not happen in games.

Terry McCracken · Post by **Terry McCracken** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 5:24 am

bob wrote:
Arpad Rusz wrote:An interesting project by Kirill Kryukov:
http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discuss ... f=6&t=5815
It is one thing to do 7 piece files, it is another thing to store them, and yet another thing to use them in a live search. I am not sure technology is "there" today, both from a size and a speed perspective. And I am not sure they are ever going to be really useful, other than for specific endgame studies.

Well I think the technology is there but at the very high end and very expensive. It's not there in normal range of desktops, yet.

bob · Post by **bob** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 6:09 am

Terry McCracken wrote:
bob wrote:
Arpad Rusz wrote:An interesting project by Kirill Kryukov:
http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discuss ... f=6&t=5815
It is one thing to do 7 piece files, it is another thing to store them, and yet another thing to use them in a live search. I am not sure technology is "there" today, both from a size and a speed perspective. And I am not sure they are ever going to be really useful, other than for specific endgame studies.
Well I think the technology is there but at the very high end and very expensive. It's not there in normal range of desktops, yet.

7 piece files will require roughly 2^36 bytes, probably a bit more. For just one. For both sides, double that. That's on up there with today's technology, not to mention the problem of "how do you get 'em"??

Kirill Kryukov · Post by **Kirill Kryukov** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 6:51 am

bob wrote:
Arpad Rusz wrote:An interesting project by Kirill Kryukov:
http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discuss ... f=6&t=5815
It is one thing to do 7 piece files, it is another thing to store them, and yet another thing to use them in a live search. I am not sure technology is "there" today, both from a size and a speed perspective. And I am not sure they are ever going to be really useful, other than for specific endgame studies.

Thanks to Arpad for bringing it up here.

I think it's clear now that many people find 6-piece tablebases useful. Some for playing, some for composing, many more for analyzing. Many choose to have only part of the 6-piece set, so the size of the whole set is not too important. So, if we could already have KRPPKRP, or KPPPKPP now, how many of us would refuse? Certainly you'd find space on your hard drive for those table, if they were available.

Personally I believe the technology is already here for producing and sharing the whole 7-piece set. The key is to not try building all tables by yourself (traditional approach), but involve the community. So developing the efficient infrastructure for this project is as important as the generator itself.

If the key specs for the generator and the infrastructure are designed by the community, and if sufficient motivation is provided for developers to comply to those specs, the end result will be practically a paradise on earth - a complete 7-piece solution available to anyone at any time. How much of this will come true is up to the community, which means all of us.

Note. The infrastructure should provide support for three tasks: 1. Distributed generation of the tables. 2. Distribution of the completed tables. 3. Remote probing. So those who can't store the local copy of the tables will still have access to the whole 7-piece solution, just at a much slower speed.

Note 2. When building a DTZ (or DTZ50) table, the sub-endgame tables can be in WDL (or WDL50). This means that when the whole 4-vs-3 set is solved in WDL, you can suddenly build KPPPKPP in DTZ without building any other DTZ first. This property of DTZ will significantly accelerate our path to the useful tables.

Peter Skinner · Post by **Peter Skinner** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 6:51 pm

You also have to remember, the engine itself has to be programmer to use the 6 man and 7 man tbs.

If they aren't, then they only find the 3-4-5 man bases and use those. Just because you have downloaded them, doesn't mean your engine _uses_ them.

Crafty can be compiled to use the 6 man bases. Which others use them?

Where does one even download the 6 man bases anymore?

Terry McCracken · Post by **Terry McCracken** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 7:35 pm

bob wrote:
Terry McCracken wrote:
bob wrote:
Arpad Rusz wrote:An interesting project by Kirill Kryukov:
http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discuss ... f=6&t=5815
It is one thing to do 7 piece files, it is another thing to store them, and yet another thing to use them in a live search. I am not sure technology is "there" today, both from a size and a speed perspective. And I am not sure they are ever going to be really useful, other than for specific endgame studies.
Well I think the technology is there but at the very high end and very expensive. It's not there in normal range of desktops, yet.
7 piece files will require roughly 2^36 bytes, probably a bit more. For just one. For both sides, double that. That's on up there with today's technology, not to mention the problem of "how do you get 'em"??

Yes, they aren't practical anyway. You said they may be useful for endgame studies, I agree that's about it for the time being.

7 piece tablebases... when?

7 piece tablebases... when?

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