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Subject: Re: Opening Books / Tablebases

Author: KarinsDad

Date: 12:05:58 05/09/00

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On May 09, 2000 at 04:16:18, blass uri wrote:

>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.


Why? A human does not want to look up answers in a book during OTB. A human does
not want more options when playing chess. Why not just restrict the computers
and make the rules simple?


>>>- 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)


It only illustrated that one lower rated player is better against computers than
against his fellow human players. Maybe he plays them a lot. This says nothing
about computer programs next year, 5 years from now, or 15 years from now.


>>>- 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.


Not so. In fact, teaching programs to think like humans may be the next
evolutionary step in computer chess programming. Why would you of all people
want to put down that idea?


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


To some degree. But I have observed that you are not open minded at all when it
comes to computer chess. Anything that restricts a programmer or program is bad
from your point of view (correct me if I am wrong, but that is my impression).

Your entire goal seems to be to acquire "semi-perfect" games. You do realize of
course that perfect games are currently an unattainable goal. Why would anyone
want to play a computer and lose at the point that computers play nearly perfect
games every time? Programmers are effectively coding themselves out of a job. If
they want this "hobby" to continue, they may be forced to come up with
alternatives, maybe to the rules, maybe to how they code, who knows?


>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.


Nobody said that a learning program could not review databases of games, just
like a GM.

Rather, the idea is for a computer to acquire the knowledge via calculation as
opposed to table lookup. In this manner, a computer could still "make a
mistake". As it is (with regard to egtbs), as long as an egtb was generated
correctly, there is effectively no chance of mistake by the computer (unless it
has a bug). Additionally, the time lag once within a tablebase is virtually
non-existant.

So, if you use egtbs, why should there not be a rule such as "Once the program
has made an egtb move, it has to make the rest of it's moves within a second (or
a milli-second for that matter)."?

Chess rules are made up by various federations and associations. What makes one
rule any better than any other? And, there are already rules which apply to
humans, but not to computers. Why not have rules that apply to computers and not
to humans?

Quid Pro Quo.


>Uri


KarinsDad :)



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