Author: Mogens Larsen
Date: 00:19:22 05/09/00
Go up one level in this thread
On May 08, 2000 at 22:18:37, Adrien Regimbald wrote: Even though I'm not an author, not of computer programs that is, I would like to make a few comments. >Hello, > >I think that restricting computer engines in a tournament with humans is >rediculous. That may be true, but if you (as in programmers) insist on using resources that the players dislike, it's only a question of time before computer chess programs will be left playing among themselves. If that is what you want, then go right ahead. >- Some human players is that they are an "external resource". This is >nitpicking over details - a program could easily include such information within >the binary itself. No, it's a very sensible detail. I would like to repeat my analogy with a human player. What if I came to the tournament organizers and said: I'm not that good concerning opening play, my middlegame tactics are very good but my endgame technique is very poor, is it okay if I bring an opening book and a copy of basic endgame studies? What do you think their answer would be? >- Some human players complain about not having an opening book or endgame >tablebases to use themselves. There may be some reasonable argument here .. >computer programmers will argue that the humans had a chance to learn the >openings / endings through books and have memorized the openings / endgame >techniques .. the humans will argue that they don't have perfect recall of this >information > >It seems to me that it is only reasonable to allow the computers access to >opening books / endgame tablebases as needed. Perhaps human players will be up >in arms about it, but it is an extremely unfair handicap for a computer to be >playing against (for example) a GM who has spent their life memorizing the >latest and greatest variations in all of their openings. The remedy is quite easy, although time consuming, in my opinion. You let your engine/program play thousands of games on ICC or FICS and use the learning function, thereby enabling experience concerning opening and endgame play. You can't just complain about GM knowledge and then copy that and more, without making an effort to try and reach that level of knowledge yourself with your program. >To show how rediculous the perfect recall argument is - if you take this far >enough, human players aren't given diagrams when they play of where the pieces >are best, and humans can't always remember this, so computer shouldn't be able >to have these internal tables of piece/square bonuses for positional evaluation. > If we continue this far enough, a computer's eval would be completely >disallowed, as humans aren't even given piece values when they sit down to play. Nobody said that there shouldn't be differences between a human being and a computer, so I fail to see the validity of the point. A computer can calculate the move any way it wants to, as long as it doesn't "just" look it up in databases. >I mean, really, come on - it's quite rediculous. If you took 2 GM strength >players, and you somehow had the ability to take away all the variations that >one GM had memorized, and all of the familiar endgame positions, who do you >think would win? That's exactly what is being done to the computers being >forced to make concessions concerning opening books / endgame tablebases. No, there's quite a significant difference between two GM vs. GM and GM vs. computer, so careful thought is needed to make the game as interesting as possible. Don't mix apples and oranges. >As an author of an engine myself, I get quite incensed when people say my >program is "cheating" by using an opening book. I have nothing against an opening book and I wouldn't consider it cheating. However, I would like to see if it's possible to create a chess program that can make sensible opening moves by pure calculation. Sincerely, Mogens Chr. Larsen http://home1.stofanet.dk/Moq/ "If virtue can't be mine alone, at least my faults can be my own."
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.