Author: Colin Frayn
Date: 02:19:38 06/12/00
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On June 11, 2000 at 10:20:33, aloysius wrote: >Should opening books be used in Computer Tournaments? I am against that. Why >not just let the engines fight it out from the first move. I used to be against it too, but I spent so much time trying to get ColChess to play sensible openings without a book I realised that I was wasting my time. >But that is different against humans, because opening theory are meant for us >(humans!) Well my program (ColChess) has created its entire opening book by learning from games plus a lot of addition from myself. I never just took crafty's book and cut-and-pasted it or anything. Does that mean that it has learnt all those moves in a totally fair, human way? If so then how do you distinguish? If I had just copied all those moves into my opening book then it would still play the same chess and there would be exactly no difference. Also, at the end of the day, only GMs know why some opening strategies are goo, and some of those aren't definite. Most opening theory is built up as people try one thing - it gets refuted and then they try something else until it works. I know that when I play chess myself I have absolutely no idea why some moves are better than others. If I thought about it I would only ever open with 1. e4 and never play anything else as that seems to be the best moves. I know some GMs did do that (Fischer for example, IIRC) but in general they don't and more importantly they also win with other moves. Making a computer play without an opening book is like taking a chess GM and telling them to play a strange variant on chess without ever having seen it before. Sure they will be good at analysing and they will know roughly how they should place pieces to do well, But they won't have the benefit of experience and will therefore make mistakes, leading to a boring game. Anyway, just my thoughts. Cheers, Col
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