Author: Ed Schröder
Date: 02:27:09 11/28/99
Go up one level in this thread
>Posted by Robert Hyatt on November 27, 1999 at 22:28:32: > >In Reply to: Re: New SSDF list posted by Fernando Villegas on November 27, >1999 at 19:46:52: > >On November 27, 1999 at 19:46:52, Fernando Villegas wrote: > >>On November 27, 1999 at 17:33:13, Robert Hyatt wrote: >> >>>On November 27, 1999 at 12:18:07, Fernando Villegas wrote: >>> >>>>I do not understand your point, Bob. This is not a match between two >computers, >>>>but many. How a program could do well just tuning against Tiger? Maybe that >>>>could mean to un-tune against any other of the concurrence. Maybe some >opening >>>>preparations, but... >>>>Fernando >>> >>> >>>This is easy. A year ago, due to some unusual new eval features I added, I >>>ended up with a version that had very little trouble with Fritz 5 at any >time >>>control. It won so many games that Lonnie accused me of using a Cray to >play >>>against him. If I sent _that_ version to the SSDF for testing, it would >have >>>done very well against fritz, because fritz would be totally unprepared. >But >>>once they saw what was happening, some adjusting on their end (king >safety and >>>passed pawns in particular) and this advantage would have eyvaporated. >>> >>>Almost always the _last released_ program goes to the top of the SSDF. >In this >>>case, it is an _unreleased_ version, which means _nobody_ had a chance to >look >>>at the book, and the depth, at the evals, and find out what it is doing.... >>> >>>Sort of an "element of surprise"... >> >> >>Please let me clear this issue a little more. >>a) SSDF testing is not made by the programmers so they couldn't tune his >>programs according to every new opponent. > >I didn't say (or imply) that they did. I am simply saying that Tiger has >had ample opportunity to play against other programs in private... and that >once it becomes public, other programs will have ample opportunity to play >against it. And as usually happens, things will then change in surprising >ways... > >It has _nothing_ to do with the SSDF... just that the program has not been >'seen' by anyone else. You will be surprised what you can learn about a >program after watching its analysis for a while... So far, that hasn't >happened. But it will... > > > > > >>b)Being so, if, let us say, anyway F6 is delivered to the swedish people >after >>being tuned against Tiger 12, my question is, what would happen to F6 against >>other programs? Why tunning against program X neccesarily means the >likelihood >>to get more points in a pool constituted by many opponents different to X? > >It happens all the time. At one point Ed had 8 machines running auto232 >matches >against his 'competition'. If one program beats you consistently, you can >find >out what it is seeing that you are not, and fix that without breaking yourself >vs other opponents... I hardly test on 40/120 level these days. The last time I did was exactly one year ago (november '98) to see how well Tiger (version 11.5 at that time) would do against the then current top programs for an impression only. And that was on relative slow PII-266 machines not comparable with the hardware SSDF is using. The scenario you describe above does not exist, see also Christophe's comments about this, no tuning against other chess programs. Ed >>c) That is the core of my question and the only way I found to understand >your >>point is to suppose that Tiger 12 brings not only some specific features that >>could be anulated so and so, but general, universal improvements so if you >tune >>againts them, you improve your own program "in general" > >That is possible as well. Several years ago I added "outside passed pawn" >code to Crafty. At that time, hardly any commercial programs did anything >with this and as a result, crafty won many a endgame due to this. It wasn't >long before it worked less frequently. Ditto for the trapped bishop on a7.t >A few 'fixed it'. A few fixed it before I started evaluating it myself. But >not everybody... a couple of programs _still_ fall for it. > >Another good example is king safety. I don't know of any program (so far) >that >is very good handling king safety. Once someone does a program that is >really a >strong attacker, everyone will either fix it finally, or get rolled into small >balls over and over. (Older versions of Genius suffered badly from this, >although I don't know about the newest one). > > > > > > >>d) In this way, tunning againts Tiger 12 would means tunning against any >other >>program. > >And quite possible tuning to do _worse_ against human players. Which is not >something I am ready to do yet, myself. But for those driven by SSDF >rankings, >anything goes.. > > > >>e) If that is not the case, I still believe that in a tournament where you >face >>many different opponents, just to prepare againts one of them could means a >>worst general result, at least you can do the same thing before every >game, but >>we already know you cannot do. >>Sorry is this seems a little bit confused. It is :-) >>Fernando
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