Author: José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba
Date: 16:25:37 06/03/99
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On June 03, 1999 at 18:23:28, Stephen Ham wrote: >Dear Readers, > >Please forgive my message since I know next to nothing about computer >hardware/software. Due to my ignorance, I'm more than a little intimidated to >even be posting this. However, I just glanced at some of the tournament games >archived at Shep's Computer Chess Site. Shep made note when different chess >programs left their opening books. The CM 5500 and CM 5555 programs left their >opening books after just a few moves, many moves before Hiarcs, Junior, Fritz, >MCP, and others left theirs. Regardless, the CM programs scored exceptionally >well in these tournaments. This suggests that the CM programs, all things being >equal, must therefore be much stronger programs than the others since they had >to "rediscover" chess opening theory already loaded into the other programs. As >such, CM's alloted "thinking" time was consumed finding these opening moves. The >other programs didn't expend any clock time until they left their opening books, >thus giving these programs a huge time advantage for the remainder of the game. >Therefore, the CM programs were handicapped with a smaller opening book and less >time available once their adversary's opening lines were completed, yet the CM >programs scored highly. Am I missing something here or is it not logical to >assume that the CM programs are superior performing programs than Junior, >Hiarcs, Fritz, MCP, etc? Finally, since program opening books confer an >advantage/handicap depending upon their completeness/accuracy, would not the >best test of software strength be to either have programs compete without their >opening books or from the same middlegame position? Please let me know your >thoughts and whether such a tournament has been done. Shep, does this sound like >something you'd be willing to try? I think that the opening book is an integral part of a chess playing program. The book can be a weakness, too. I do not think that a small, but correct, book is a big disadvantage. It is worse to have a big book full of mistakes. José.
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