Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: SSDF Rating Irregularities

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 07:28:54 12/13/99

Go up one level in this thread


On December 13, 1999 at 00:44:53, Eelco de Groot wrote:

>
>On December 12, 1999 at 10:19:26, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On December 12, 1999 at 02:26:26, Ed Schröder wrote:
>>
>>>>Posted by Robert Hyatt on December 11, 1999 at 21:08:12:
>>>>
>>>>Comp vs Comp will say nothing about how comp vs human goes.  IE for an example,
>>>>Tiger 12 looks _very_ strong vs computers, but so-so against humans.  I have
>>>>not yet studied its games very carefully, although I now have a couple of dozen
>>>>games vs Crafty on ICC and FICS.  It seems to be perfectly tuned to beat
>>>>computers... it seems very materialistic and ready to accept any gambit offered,
>>>>and they try to make the opponent justify it accurately.
>>>
>>>>How it is going to do once it is out 'en masse' will be very interesting to
>>>>watch.
>>>
>>>Same here.
>>>
>>>
>>>>But it clearly isn't doing _nearly_ as well vs humans (even with anti-human on)
>>>>as it is doing against other programs...
>>>
>>>Do you have some game examples that supports your strong judgement?
>>>
>>>Ed
>>>
>>>
>>>>Which is completely not surprising.  I said several years ago that to attempt to
>>>>write a program to blast to the top of the SSDF is a _totally_ different thing
>>>>from trying to write a program to blast to the top of the FIDE rating list.
>>>>
>>>>The games are too different...
>>
>>
>>Somebody else already posted a really bad result vs a humaon on FICS (winning
>>1/3, losing 2/3, against a player that isn't a "master" of anything but anti-
>>computer chess.  I have watched "other" players (not often as I don't watch
>>very often, except when crafty/scrappy is idle) also cause problems...  This
>>is the most striking example of comp-vs-comp strength being _far_ different than
>>comp-vs-human strength that I recall in recent years...
>>
>>But as I mentioned before, remember that "I am 10 years behind the commercial
>>programs".  I don't see any reason to point out the weaknesses of someone that
>>is 10 years ahead of me, wouldn't you agree?  But, in fact, the problems are
>>very obvious, so my analysis isn't needed anyway...
>>
>>Fixing the problems is going to adversely affect its currently great
>>anti-computer style of play, however...
>
>If Chess Tiger displays a great anti-computer style of play I think that is
>completely by accident, Robert. Christophe has stated on more than one occasion
>that he doesn't use games against computers at all for all the important parts
>of his testing. Maybe there are still holes in its positional play as you say
>but what program is without them? As Tiger is only tested on the severs now to
>see if it can run for a prolonged period of time unattended, - I understand
>sometimes the same machine is used for debugging too while still logged in? -, I
>don't think we can form a clear picture of its play against strong human
>opposition yet.
>
>Regards, Eelco



I'm not psychic so I have no idea about how it was designed.  I only know that
it is playing on ICC and FICS (not by the same person that started this thread,
I assume, since he said he isn't running on ICC.  Yet both use the
'chesspartner' handle and claim to be tiger 12e or something similar).  You can
certainly watch it play.

Yes, _all_ programs have holes.  Some are more tactical.  Others appear to be
more strategic.  It just appears (to me) that it is doing much better against
computers than against humans.  And I am not paying attention to the games it is
losing on time.  There are certain "warning signs" that you become familiar with
after living on ICC a few years.  A program can do something and get away with
it, but you _know_ that against the strong IM/GM players there, doing that
"something" is going to ask for trouble.

Best thing is to simply wait.  If we wait for a year, and then look at how
many tigers, vs how many rebels, vs how many fritzs, vs etc (ignoring the
special case of crafty/gnuchess with automatic interfaces) there are on the
servers, you can probably conclude which program plays best against the strong
humans... there will simply be more of that particular program registered on
the server.  IE log on, do =computer, then finger them one by one to see which
program they run.  You might be surprised.  :)  (and again, ignore crafty users
since the auto-interface attracts many of them).




This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.