Author: Matthew Hull
Date: 06:03:17 05/07/04
Go up one level in this thread
On May 07, 2004 at 08:02:23, Tord Romstad wrote: >On May 07, 2004 at 07:09:54, Sune Fischer wrote: > >>On May 07, 2004 at 06:32:12, Tord Romstad wrote: >> >>>On May 07, 2004 at 04:10:01, Sune Fischer wrote: >>> >>>>Ie. if Movei could score 40% against Crafty I wouldn't be surprised. Gothmog has >>>>scored 50% in some tests I believe, >>> >>>You are probably referring to some of the match results I have reported >>>myself. The last couple of times I have played matches against Crafty, >>>the scores have been almost exactly 50%. But it should be pointed out >>>that the match conditions are not very fair to Crafty, for two reasons: >>> >>>1. I play my matches on a single-CPU machine, with pondering disabled. As >>> is well known, Crafty is seriously crippled without pondering, because >>> its time management doesn't work well. >> >>Perhaps it is just Gothmog that is crippled with ponder on? :) >>I imagine that you, like me, hasn't spent a lot of time testing with ponder on >>because we don't have dual machines to test on. >> >>In any case if an engine is performing like the author designed it then it's >>fair game. >> >>Anyway, what is different in Crafty's TM with ponder on? > >I don't know the details; we should probably ask Bob. I just recall >numerous occasions in the past when somebody reported a bad match result >for Crafty and Bob explained that the match result didn't mean anything, >because Crafty was not designed to work without pondering. > >For this reason I don't test against Crafty very often. > >>>2. My Crafty executable is compiled using GCC on a Linux machine. The >>> Windows version of Crafty is probably compiled using the Intel or >>> Microsoft compiler (unlike Gothmog, which uses GCC on all platforms), >>> which reportedly produce much faster code. >> >>Ok, but using a better compiler is not really a strength of the engine. I think >>using the same compiler makes a good basis for comparison since Gothmog would >>probably get the same kind of boost with a better compiler. > >No. Gothmog probably wouldn't even compile with another compiler. I don't >really know the C programming language. I program in a mix of ANSI C, >Unix-specific functions, and some GNU-specific extensions, and I have no >idea which of the many functions I use are portable. In theory it would >of course be possible to port my engine to work with the Intel or Microsoft >compiler, but it would probably require some non-trivial work. > >Bob has already done this work. When comparing Gothmog and Crafty as >Windows engines (which is what the majority of people care about), it is >perfectly fair that Crafty benefits from a better compiler. > >>>I also think it is possible that Gothmog performs better against Crafty >>>than against other engines of similar strength, for reasons of playing >>>style. Crafty's lack of king safety eval makes it rather vulnerable to >>>Gothmog's very aggressive play. >> >>I can't figure out how strong Gothmog is. > >Neither can I. It appears to be in the same league as Frenzee and Movei, >but on the other hand it also scores around 50% against Yace Paderborn. It >seems to be hundreds of rating points weaker than Amateur, The Baron and >Butcher. > >Of course, this doesn't add up at all. > >>Sometimes it appears almost to be at the Ruffian level, other times it has >>problems with more mediocre engines. > >Yes, exactly. Confusing, isn't it? > >>Perhaps it really does have something to do with style, or simply too few games >>played and it really is somewhere inbetween. > >Gothmog is a very unbalanced engine. It is quite good in some respects, and >horribly bad in others. The search and eval is fundamentally (and >intentionally!) unsound, in an attempt to make the engine play an interesting >game. This works very well in some cases, but sometimes has catastrophic >consequences. > >I think it is relatively easy to tune any reasonably strong engine to score >almost 100% against Gothmog. Ask Anthony if you want to know how. :-) Why don't you let Gothmog go on ICC for awhile? Do you not have a machine to dedicate for that purpose? That is the way to collect and analyse games against a wide variety of opponents. And of course, we get to watch. Gothmog does play interesting chess. Share the fun. > >Tord
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