Author: Vasik Rajlich
Date: 02:33:56 02/12/04
Go up one level in this thread
On February 11, 2004 at 19:29:19, Bob Durrett wrote: > >Tournaments are expensive and time-consuming and yet ratings and titles cannot >be obtained without participation in rated tournaments [and/or matches]. This >causes training for tournaments to be a rational undertaking. Why throw good >money and valuable time away by going to a tournament unprepared? Better, would >be to prepare extensively for each tournament. That is logical. > >Ideally, one would do several things in preparation for the next tournament. >One of those things would be to play practice games against opponents who are >typical of those to be one's opponents in the coming tournament. > >Generally, one's opponents in tournaments are HUMAN! > >Clearly, the best way to train for competition against human opponents would be >to play against equivalent human training partners. Unfortunately, this is not >an option for most of us, especially those who do not live in large metropolitan >areas. > >The above leads to the obvious conclusion that computers should be used to >emulate human opposition. I guess everybody knew this was the conclusion as >soon as the title of this bulletin was seen. Everybody also knows that such >chess computers do not exist. Yet. > >There is more, however. > >Human tournaments are not all the same strength and those seeking help with >training are not all the same. The tournament preparation suitable for a GM is >not the same as that for an IM and that for an IM is not the same as that for >someone below the master level. The fact is that there is a wide range of >strengths of the people who participate in tournaments. > >If it were possible to obtain a chess-playing program which could be set to some >playing strength and also set to emulate human play, then the use of such >programs would be used extensively world-wide by serious chessplayers for >tournament preparation. I would be one of those. > >What is everybody waiting for? No one said it would be easy, but look at how >popular [and maybe rich] a chess programmer could become if he/she were to >produce the needed software [for a home PC]!!! : ) [Hint, hint, hint] > >Bob D. Actually, the opposite is often the case, which is why professional chess players use Fritz more than any other program. Of the top programs, Fritz is the simplest, least speculative, etc. A human doesn't want the computer's speculative assessment, he just wants the beans counted. In fact, it may not be a bad idea to provide a version of an engine which just does a material count at the leaves, nothing else. (Maybe some really extreme king safety and passed pawn stuff.) This engine could use MTD (f) and just cruise through the plies, everything is cut off and only two zero-window searches are needed at each iteration. It would tell a human if in any given position a tactical blow exists. (In fact you could even do just one search / iteration, if we specify which side is the one trying to win material.) Vas
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