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Subject: Re: Dragging drawn games out pointlessly

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 20:05:41 12/21/99

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On December 21, 1999 at 18:56:01, Amir Ban wrote:

>On December 21, 1999 at 17:48:49, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On December 21, 1999 at 15:38:45, James T. Walker wrote:
>>
>>>On December 21, 1999 at 14:54:47, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On December 21, 1999 at 14:18:05, Mike S. wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>This game is really horrible. I support what you say. Maybe programmers could
>>>>>define a condition like "If no advancement (evaluation increase) is made for ten
>>>>>moves, so accept a draw offer". The problem can also occur when a position is
>>>>>theoretically won by the side which has a material advantage (which the computer
>>>>>has and won't ever accept a draw therefore), but the computer can't find a
>>>>>method to win.
>>>>>
>>>>>Btw., has anybody ever got a draw offer from a program? I haven't. I would like
>>>>>to see this also.
>>>>>
>>>>>Regards,
>>>>>M.Scheidl
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>If you watch crafty play on ICC you will see it happen all the time.  If you
>>>>play it on your own machine it will also offer draws....
>>>>
>>>>and accept them when it is reasonable to do so.
>>>
>>>I assume you are talking about "The Crafty" and not Crafty Clones.  My
>>>experience with Crafty is that it continues to play for a "Swindle" when the
>>>tablebases tell it the game is a draw.  Crafty has other annoying habits like
>>>resigning at "Mate in 1" when it has been seeing mate for about 15 moves via the
>>>tablebases.
>>>Jim Walker
>>
>>What is annoying to you is just sound chess.  It has been in _plenty_ of
>>drawn krp vs kr endings where the kr side made a mistake and lost.  No reason
>>to offer a draw until the opponent draws the game.  It has been in several
>>mate-in-N positions where the opponent couldn't mate (one was knn vs kp where
>>it had the kp). Why resign?  Make your opponent win.  Remember Kasparov vs Deep
>>Blue round 2?
>
>You are clouding a simple issue. The question is why crafty should refuse to
>draw when holding a KR against a KRP, or, even more atrociously, KN vs. KNP.
>
>Amir


If you play crafty (a human) and offer a draw if you have krp vs kr, it will
accept _every_ time.  If you are using a computer, and are on ICC's computer
list, it will _never_ accept a draw.  Because too many unscrupulous operators
offer a draw every move, sometimes 5 times per move, in an effort to catch it
in a programming error where it will accept.  In one case, this happened about
3 months ago which caused me to permanently disable accepting draws vs
computers.  Crafty had failed high vs Lonnie on ICC (running Fritz).  The
score was +4.  But it had to move after the fail high with no PV.  After it
moved (a standard game) it did a short search (for the opponent) to get a move
to ponder.  During this search, the 'draw' offer came in, and the search said
"I am way behind (it was searching for a move for Fritz, remember) so I will
happily accept".  Vincent pointed this out to me.  I fixed the problem, but
decided that "no more accepting draws" would be my policy from that point
forward against computers.  Against humans it behaves entirely differently,
and most appreciate it.



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