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Subject: Re: Is it true that Junior6a mediocre on tactical & positional test suit

Author: blass uri

Date: 20:26:08 03/16/00

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On March 16, 2000 at 20:25:02, G. R. Morton wrote:

>On March 16, 2000 at 17:20:19, blass uri wrote:
>
>>On March 16, 2000 at 16:54:08, José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba wrote:
>>
>>>On March 16, 2000 at 15:59:24, G. R. Morton wrote:
>>>
>>>>On March 16, 2000 at 14:59:48, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On March 16, 2000 at 13:49:28, G. R. Morton wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>If really true, can someone try to explain how can this can be with its highest
>>>>>>rating against computers? Enrique Irazoqui at
>>>>>>http://www.computerschach.de/tourn/cad00.htm calinmed that Junior6 showed
>>>>>>superior positional understanding in actual play. Can someone enlighten?
>>>>>
>>>>>Test suites are just one measure of a program's ability to play.
>>>>>
>>>>>Little Goliath is a killer in test suites, but does not play as well as the very
>>>>>best chess engines (but it's no slouch either).  Rebel can be tuned to play
>>>>>strongly or to solve chess test suites strongly, and the settings are very
>>>>>different.
>>>>
>>>>You are suggesting that a program can be very good at both tactical & positional
>>>>test suites but mediocre at play (& vice-versa) but not saying how this can be.
>>>
>>>	Playing chess and solving testsuites are different tasks, and different
>>>approaches give best results for each of them.
>>>
>>>>But if this is true it is very puzzling since every move of a computer game can
>>>>be thought of the  software s solution to a tactical or positional test.
>>>
>>>	Not quite. Most positions seen in a game do not have a key move that solves it.
>>>
>>>>There
>>>>should be a very strong correlation one would think.
>>>
>>>	There is no correlation between playing strenght and performance at testsuites.
>>>
>>>>As a comparison, people
>>>>who score very high on I.Q. and SAT tests are nor just good on such tests
>>>>which is, of course, why these tests are given.  Their strong correlation with
>>>>high performance or success in many other activities are well noted (see  The
>>>>Bell Curve  book for instance).
>>>
>>>	I think this comparison is not valid. Human beings are very different from
>>>chess engines.
>>>
>>>>Did not Larry Kauffman once claim that his test
>>>>suites could be used to fairly accurately the software s rating?  Anyway the
>>>>interesting question of  how  remins.
>>>
>>>	There are some known trick to improve performance at testsuites which do not
>>>increase playing strenght. Reducing the pawn value is one of them, I think.
>>>José.
>>
>>Reducing the piece value in general is one of them but reducing the pawn value
>>is not one of them.
>>
>>One of the changes in Junior6 relative to Junior5 is reducing the pawn value and
>>Junior6 has problems in finding right sacrifices of a piece for pawns because of
>>this reason.
>>
>>Uri
>
>Thanks, I think you &  Mr Ruvalcaba have made some perceptive points.  I
>especially find interesting your theory (posted in reply to me elsewhere)that
>these tests are not really very good because we really don’t have all that good
>an understanding of chess, especially, I would think, for devising good
>positional test suites.  Would you say, then, that the top rated Junior 6a is
>probably the best positional player (as Enrique might claim) but the positional
>tests, say, on which Rebel 10B outperformed Junior6 were not adequate to
>indicate this?

It is possible.
It is also possible that there are better positional programs releative to
Junior that are weaker in tactics relative to Junior.

I do not know


Uri



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