Author: Ulrich Tuerke
Date: 09:09:03 04/25/00
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On April 25, 2000 at 11:52:52, Peter Skinner wrote: >What is Crafty's strength with tablebases, and without? >Or any program for that matter? >Are tablebases really that needed for these engines that use them to perform >well? > >Only reason I ask is, I watch several games in a series between Little Goliath, >and Crafty 17.10, and Little Goliath played the endgame better than Crafty did >with tablebases? > >Why would this be? > >How much weaker would Crafty be let's say without them? > >Many engines play endgames perfectly without tablebases, and usually do a bit >better than ones that use them. They may not move instantly, but they certainly >get the job done.... There is no engine playing endgames PERFECTLY without table bases (with the exception of some very simple endings like KPK ... which can be solved by algorithms). Nevertheless some of the top progs seem to have very reasonable heuristics implemented. Coming to your question, in my experience use of table bases will certainly lead to an increase in playing strength. I have observed so many games where my program could escape into a draw by table base look-ups; these would have gone lost without table bases. AFAIK, the goliath author had some difficulty to implement table bases; thus he omitted. I rather arbitrarily guess that my prog could win order of 40 to 50 ELO points by using them ? Uli
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