Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: ponder_on ponder_off comparision

Author: Mogens Larsen

Date: 12:39:41 07/17/00

Go up one level in this thread


On July 17, 2000 at 14:48:37, Ralf Elvsén wrote:

>If a program plays poorly with ponder = ON there is no excuse
>since this must be considered the default mode.

No, that's not entirely true. That would depend on each program according to its
present state of development. Furthermore, default mode depends on the
configuration under which you're testing. Ponder on should be considered the
optimal or strongest setting.

>What Bob has been
>trying to say is that he hasn't invested much time in ponder = OFF
>and so results from this way of matching computers
>aren't interesting (at least not to him). The question is not
>who understands pondering best. Often we don't
>know how much time an author has spent on tuning ponder = OFF,
>unless he states so clearly of course.

Exactly, we don't know how much have been spent on either. So there's no reason
to assume that Bob has spent more time on ponder on or less time on ponder off
than anybody else. Claiming otherwise is a stab in the dark.

>Bob says it's not the
>way to play Crafty. One can't just dismiss him...

Off course you can, but the results would be of no importance to Bob.
Considering that most people haven't got a dual or quad machine for ponder on
testing, it's important to acknowledge that the comparative strength between
programs appears to be almost unchanged by using ponder off.

Best wishes...
Mogens



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.