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Subject: Re: Hiarcs 10 in ECMGCP

Author: Tord Romstad

Date: 06:34:33 12/15/05

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On December 15, 2005 at 06:58:55, Robert Allgeuer wrote:

>Hi Tord,
>What is ECMGCP? Is it a tactical or a positional test-suite?

It's purely tactical.  It's a set of combinations taken from a book
called "Encyclopaedia of Chess Middlegames", hence the letters "ECM".
Gian-Carlo Pascutto has analysed the positions and removed the most
obvious incorrect solutions, hence the letters "GCP".

ECMGCP is more or less the standard "quick and dirty" tactical test
suite for computer programs today.  It is used in basically the same
way the WAC test suite was used a few years ago.  WAC is too easy
on today's hardware; most of the ECMGCP positions are slightly harder.

>Can you please post the positions.

Dieter posted the link.

>PS.: So this also means that new Glaurung has a very high score in ECMGCP as
>well ...

Previous versions scored well, too.  This is a bit strange, and it actually
worries me a bit.  Glaurung is usually very good at finding the flashy,
sacrifical tactics which are usually found in books and magazines (the type
you will find in the ECMGCP suite).  It is horribly bad at spotting the more
mundane tactics which decide typical computer vs computer games.  There
seems to be some sort of serious imbalance in my search, and I suspect that
it hurts the playing strength considerably.  I don't understand the reason
for the problem.  Glaurung does not use any extensions except the standard
ones (minus the recapture extension, which never worked for me), and only
checks are extended by a full ply.

Tord






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