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Subject: Re: chess computer ratings

Author: José Carlos

Date: 09:26:44 09/23/01

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On September 23, 2001 at 11:51:02, Mike S. wrote:

>On September 23, 2001 at 11:13:14, José Carlos wrote:
>
>>(...) Besides, I belive the "scale" (if we can
>>use this term) is smaler in human world than in comp-comp world, meaning that a
>>small difference between two versions of a program (or two different programs,
>>of course) can appear over and over in games, translating into more and more
>>rating points.
>
>This would be the case only if it's not just a small, but also a decisive
>difference, furthermore many programs have position learning.

  I disagree. Humans are irregular. They can be happy and attack wildly or be
sad and lose badly against a weaker opponent, etc. Computers are regular. They
always do the same mistakes and the same good moves. Position learning is not
enough to prevent this behaviour. You'd need a many Gigs positions file to hide
a weak point of a program.
  Additionally, the "human world" contains many thousands of players, while the
comp-comp world is much smaller. I believe that the bigger the pool is, the
smaller the scale.
  Just my opinion, anyway.

  José C.

>But there's another aspect of this type of speed/strength estimation: The faster
>program can't be +60 elo (or whatever the value is) stronger at every move in a
>game. Actually, many moves will be the same on 400 MHz and on 800 MHz, if this
>is the only difference of the conditions. In some positions, moves will be
>different but not necessarily stronger (i.e., if there is a number of moves
>within a narrow margin of evaluations). Btw. I've heard experiments have been
>made, showing that approx. 16% of moves are different if the search is one ply
>deeper.
>
>So I think there is a very small number of moves, maybe only one or two per
>game, where the higher speed is decisive for the result. Humans are certainly
>more flexible in time consumption, and probably can adapt better to that than
>programs. Furthermore, the higher speed affects only parts of a programs
>performance. Opening book, egtbs, and parts of what can be described as
>knowledge (in human terms) of the program, is the same at all cpu speeds and
>time settings.
>
>Regards,
>M.Scheidl



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