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Subject: Re: Another Way to Make Comparisons of Engines More Accurate

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 18:01:06 08/28/98

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On August 28, 1998 at 12:55:57, Robert Henry Durrett wrote:

>Why not obtain, and create a library of, the opening books of all of the current
>chess engines [maybe others not so current too - maybe] and test all engines
>with all of the books?
>
>This may be too big a project, so may not be practical for that reason alone.
>
>The thought behind this suggestion is that such a testing program would point
>out any dependences on books as well as to make comparisons of the "engines
>without their books" more informative relative to the true inherent strengths
>and weaknesses of the engines. It might also point out highly specific needs for
>improvements in some of the engines.

I don't understand why people keep coming back to this.  When someone builds a
system for playing chess, the opening book is part of the system.  The author of
the system decides what lines to play and puts them in the book, and decides
what not to play and takes them out of the book.

If you remove or replace the book, you give the system a kick in the head.  You
test the system in positions that it is designed to avoid, and you don't let it
attempt to achieve positions it wants to achive.

I don't see what purpose it serves to test crippled systems.  Perhaps you can
say that you are trying to see how they would do at straight analysis, but
comparing computer vs computer results is a step in the wrong direction here as
well, in my opinion.

bruce



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