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Subject: Re: Opening Books / Tablebases

Author: blass uri

Date: 01:16:18 05/09/00

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On May 09, 2000 at 03:19:22, Mogens Larsen wrote:

>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.

I disagree.
You will find always strong humans to play computer if they get enough money.

You can also give more rights to humans instead of restricting computer engines.
>
>>- 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?

I think that if the situation will be that it is clear that humans have no
chance without books then books can be allowed in games against computer.

It is not the case and the Israeli league proved that even 2177 player has
chances to draw against computer(he drew 3 computers and did not lose games
against computer program in the israeli league)
>
>>- 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.

There is no reason to do it.
I think that you are almost the only human in the world who are interested in
teaching programs in the same way that humans learn.

Other people are only interested in teaching programs to play better moves.

Humans also learn from the experience of others and not only from the experience
of themselves so giving the program to learn only from the games that it played
is not similiar to what GM's do.

Uri



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