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Subject: Engine testing: Who do you play?

Author: Dan Honeycutt

Date: 16:54:28 08/27/04


Does anyone have an opinion if it is better for an engine to play itself or
other engines when trying to determine if a change is an improvement?

I had two versions of my engine, old and new, identical except for one
difference (new did checks in 1st ply of qsearch, but my question is general).
I played old and new in a tourney against themselves and 3 other engines, 1
stronger, 1 weaker and 1 about equal.  After a week and a half and nearly 1000
games I found new was better than old against all three of the other engines,
but lost head-to-head against old.  This can't be; error margin I figure.  So I
burned another week and a half of computer time and got the same result.  Does
this make sense?  With results like this, how does one know if a change is any
good?

Any advice/opinions appreciated.
Dan H.



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