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

Author: Peter Berger

Date: 08:36:03 02/23/05

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On February 23, 2005 at 06:52:07, Vasik Rajlich wrote:

>2) Surely there is some difference in level, but how much? I have yet to see
>even one statistic that suggests such a difference for any two equally-matched
>engines. There are plenty of experiments that could show this, so it's at least
>suspicious that it hasn't happened yet.

That's an interesting idea. Yes, I have not seen such a thing either. I know the
effect is true and can easily be more than 100 ELO when it is about engines of
different level. I don't see a very good reason why this should not work with
engines of similar level, but I have no data to support it.

>>
>>>
>>>IMHO - an amateur engine shouldn't bother with book until let's say four years
>>>go by. At that point, some professional chess player should be hired who will
>>>start from an automatically generated book and spend some month or so making
>>>some adjustments, preferably in the range of moves 5-15. In addition to this, it
>>>may make sense to keep running the engine and "pre-computing" some results,
>>>which can be spot-checked as appropriate. This last step will especially help at
>>>fast time controls.
>>>
>>>Vas
>>>
>>
>>I don't think this approach is optimal , but it will lead to a very reasonable
>>book.
>
>So what is the optimal approach? (Aside from full-time professional chess player
>spending 60 hours a week on the book? :))
>
>Vas

Please allow me to be vague and add some IMHO at random points ;). If there is
something like an automated book as a starting point, it should be extremely
limitted, so that there is no risk for it to contain blunders. Ideally there
should be no line in the book the author isn't aware of. As you pointed out
yourself, there is a lot of stuff that has to be added manually anyway, e.g.
replies to uncommon openings that can be used to fool the computer ( e.g. all
kinds of unusual gambits). Although they are unlikely to come up in a tournament
they are important. The core of the repertoire should be worked out more
thoroughly than that and profit from existing human analysis, after having been
blunderchecked carefully with program. A few novelties and surprises can't hurt
either.

I don't think a full-time professional chess player is needed to do that job and
actually I am not even sure if he is the most qualified to do it, unless he gets
payed enough to take it very seriously :) . Judging from published comments of
human masters many don't really understand strength and weaknesses of
computerplayers or only in a very superficial way, although most use them
regularly of course. I am convinced that people like you or Larry Kaufman would
be better than professional chess players.

Whether this is the optimal way I can only guess - it's what I would probably
do.

Peter



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