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Subject: Re: The importance of opening books -- a simple experiment

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 01:50:13 02/18/05

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On February 18, 2005 at 04:25:37, Sune Fischer wrote:

>
>>>These so called "killer books" are always used by very strong engines on top
>>>hardware.
>>>The killer books seem to work best against weaker engines on weaker hardware.
>>>Now isn't that odd? :)
>>
>>Killer books are in most of the cases for rich people who can pay for book
>>makers so it is not a surprise that they work against engines with weaker
>>hardware that do not have time to prepare.
>
>That could be the reason, but the point is that it won't show a lot because
>these engines are so strong already that they would have won even with a bad
>book.
>
>It would be far more interesting to give Beowulf a 700 Elo book and then go
>wipeout Shredder & co in the big tournaments. :)
>
>>I also do not beliebe in 700 elo but I certainly believe that they can improve
>>the performance by 100-200 elo in a tournament when part of the opponents.
>>
>>If you have statistics of  a lot of games that you get 70% against some program
>>with line A and 50% against the same program with line B then choosing line A is
>>important.
>>
>>If you have similar statistics for many programs then it may give you
>>significant increase in performance in tournaments.
>
>I tend to think the effect is mostly psychological.
>
>I can see how comming out of book with a +0.6 score against an equal opponent
>must feel like half a victory, and it's not hard for me to imagine that some
>would call that totally winning :)

I am not talking about score but about statistics

It is possible to test engine A against engine B in many openings.

If opening X leads to 50% and opening Y leads to 70% then opening X is better
against engine B(it does not mean that it is better generally against
everything).
>
>>Even with no special preperation against specific opponent you may have
>>statistics that your program  score 60% with 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.f3 and only 50%
>>against the same opponents with 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 so of course opening
>>preperation can help significantly in tournament.
>
>I believe such is thing is possible, but increasing your score from 50% to 60%
>is still not much more than 50-100 Elo.
>
>-S.

I agree so I do not think general preperation can give you more than 50-100 elo
preperation against specific opponents can give you another 50-100 elo so the
general improvement in tournaments can be 100-200 elo.

Uri



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