Author: Adrien Regimbald
Date: 01:14:27 05/17/00
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Hello, >THis shows you know nothing about how a program plays chess. The program >_always_ is trying to win. Even when down in material. It is never just >"trying to hold on". I know nothing about how a program plays chess? I find that statement particularily amusing as I have made my own program from scratch. I may not know all of the latest and greatest pruning methods, but I certainly know the basics. I admit I was making a mistake in thinking of how Fritz is playing in terms of a human disposition. You are also making the same mistake - the program is not trying to win, it simply picks what it deems is the best move from a given position. Resorting to personal attacks is inappropriate. I am not going to continue debating the issue of Article 10 with you. I didn't state that "a player would get a draw in that position, end of story". I said that it is likely that they would get one. You however seem to take an absolute stance saying it would never happen. Without taking a poll of a number of international arbiters, the truth can't be settled, as this is a decision that is made individually by the arbiter. We have lost track of the point of the argument in the first place, and rather than debating the main issue, are nit-picking over side points. The main issues (as I see them) are: 1. Was the draw offer an appropriate gesture? 2. What are the overlying consequences of this confrontation? Addressing 1: - Tiviakov was playing to win, and thus a draw offer should not have been made. - I don't personally think that the operator was trying to somehow upset Tiviakov. I think operators should simply be more careful of the idiosyncracies of chess players. - I also don't think that the operator technically should be offering draws on his own. This being said, I think the operator should also consider the impact of winning a drawn/lost game on time .. there is a very delicate balance here to be tread - and the onus is on the computer operator to find where the line is - as it is the GMs who have what the programmers want. You yourself have said on numerous occasions that you have resigned won games for Crafty to ensure that you get more of them. Why is it that you follow this policy yourself, but think it is completely rediculous for Fritz to resign in a LOST game? From the point of view of learning things from the game (which is what I would hope the motive for having computers in human tournaments is) - if you have reached a won position, you have the data you need - your program really doesn't care whether it wins the game or not. If you have reached a lost position - you really have nothing at all as a computer operator to resign - you already have the game up to that point which will show you how your program got in trouble - and if I understand correctly the programs aren't eligible for prize money - so point totals should be irrelevant to the programmer. Resigning such games seems like a good policy to me: a) everyone in the know will recognize the true strength of the program if it achieved a winning position and b) the GMs will hold less animosity towards playing a silicon based opponent. Concerning 2: - this incident (even if everyone were to agree that Fritz' operator was in the right) has likely already widened the rift between GMs and computers. - whether rules are set or not, I think that in the interests of appeasing GMs, computer operators should follow a set of guidelines when such occasions arise. I'm not going to say what these guidelines should be, but GMs should be told what they are, and the operators should follow them strictly. Then at least the GMs have idea of what will occur in such situations - for example (if such a guideline was part of the set), the GM would know that in a dead drawn position if the GM gets below 5 minutes in a sudden death time control that he can count on the operator offering a draw (I'm not saying this should be a policy, this is just an example). I hope that we can all work together on finding a reasonable middle ground on this issue. Please don't get me wrong - as an author myself, I would love it if when my program matures enough that I would want to test it against humans that there will be humans still willing to play a computer in an OTB setting (other than strong players who would do it as a personal favour to me). How about we avoid bickering over small details of everyone's opinions, and instead work in concert towards this goal! Regards, Adrien.
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