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arXiv:1711.08337cs.NE

Genetic Algorithms for Evolving Computer Chess Programs

Eli David, H. Jaap van den Herik, Moshe Koppel, Nathan S. Netanyahu

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Abstract

This paper demonstrates the use of genetic algorithms for evolving: 1) a grandmaster-level evaluation function, and 2) a search mechanism for a chess program, the parameter values of which are initialized randomly. The evaluation function of the program is evolved by learning from databases of (human) grandmaster games. At first, the organisms are evolved to mimic the behavior of human grandmasters, and then these organisms are further improved upon by means of coevolution. The search mechanism is evolved by learning from tactical test suites. Our results show that the evolved program outperforms a two-time world computer chess champion and is at par with the other leading computer chess programs.

arXiv comments
Winner of Gold Award in 11th Annual "Humies" Awards for Human-Competitive Results. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1711.06840, arXiv:1711.06841, arXiv:1711.06839
Journal reference
IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 779-789, September 2014
DOI
doi:10.1109/TEVC.2013.2285111
Subjects
cs.NENeural and Evolutionary Computing cs.LGMachine Learning stat.MLMachine Learning (Statistics)

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Discussed in comments1 thread

    • It can and it does work w/ such objective functions. Lots of people have used evolutionary algorithms to evolve chess playing neural networks¹ & they have been successful w/ very sparse reward signals where the the final trajectory is scored w/ 0 or 1 according to a win…

      measurablefuncView on HNParent context

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