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Subject: Re: Crafty not that strong (2)

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 13:42:38 04/24/00

Go up one level in this thread


On April 24, 2000 at 16:33:18, blass uri wrote:

>On April 24, 2000 at 16:04:52, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On April 24, 2000 at 14:42:36, A.L.Mourik wrote:
>>
>>>Hello to everyone,
>>>
>>>Two days ago I played a Nunn 2 match between Fritz 6 and Crafty 17.10.
>>>This whether to check if Crafty as supposed by e.g Jouni Uski was really as good
>>>as been told .
>>>
>>>The result in a Nunn 2 match that I held was disappointing because it ended in a
>>>clear 29,5 - 10,5 victory for Fritz6.
>>>Timelevel 5min +3 sec. PII 400 each 8 MB HT, pondering off.
>>>The only reason that I played a Nunn 2 Match between these two engines, was to
>>>TEST which program under equal circumstances, as in this case in the Fritz6 gui,
>>>scored the best. This as an indication of the ?chesspower? of that engine.
>>>Imho these are the best circumstances with one computer to tell which program
>>>produces the best chess.
>>>
>>>You can?t argue on the fact that the circumstances for the given engines were
>>>not the same.
>>>As far as I can see it, your only real point is the presumption, that Crafty
>>>does a better time saving in the pondering on mode, than Fritz6.
>>>So I agree that with testing on two different computers and with both programs
>>>pondering on, this presumed negative effect for Crafty would be neutralised.
>>>On the other hand I wonder what Morsch or other respectable programmers opinion
>>>on these presumption is.
>>>
>>>I would like to end this discussion with quoting Cock de Gorter who has written
>>>in his article on Kasparovchess.com
>>>
>>>"Crafty is extremely strong in tactics, but it makes positional errors and
>>>misplays some endgames. It doesn?t understand piece mobility. Despite its high
>>>rating on the Internet, Crafty is a weak program compared with the best
>>>commercial chess programs."
>>>
>>>I agree on that but still I must say that I am very glad to have Crafty for
>>>free.
>>
>>
>>That only shows that de Gorter doesn't know his elbow from a potato chip.
>>Crafty is actually significantly _worse_ at tactics than commercial programs.
>>Check out the tactical scores on _any_ test suite you care to try.
>
>Crafty may be worse in tactics but test suites cannot tell which program is
>better in tactics because they usually position when the right move seem bad and
>you can only discover after search that it is good when many tactical mistakes
>do not give the opponent a move that seems bad and turn out to be good.
>
>I think that a better test should be based on games when the target is to
>discover more tactical mistakes.
>
>Uri


Win at chess, and ECM weren't constructed to be obscure.  They are simply
positions chosen to highlight a particular tactical idea or theme.  I agree that
the anti-null-move positions and such nonsense are useless...  but plain
tactical tests do give insight into what the engine can see within a given time
limit.

Mine has never done very well here, other than it sometimes looks good due to
super-fast hardware...



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