Author: James Robertson
Date: 18:06:19 06/03/99
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On June 03, 1999 at 19:25:37, José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba wrote: >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. Actually, my understanding is the CM has a wide, shallow book full of bad, offbeat moves, but fun to play against if you are a human. James
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