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Subject: Re: Fritz Has A New Weapon

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 07:40:36 08/30/00

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On August 30, 2000 at 09:45:45, Wayne Lowrance wrote:

>On August 30, 2000 at 04:47:49, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On August 30, 2000 at 04:34:08, Ricardo Gibert wrote:
>>
>>>On August 30, 2000 at 02:42:49, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 30, 2000 at 00:31:24, Ricardo Gibert wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On August 29, 2000 at 23:19:59, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On August 29, 2000 at 19:18:17, Alexander Kure wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On August 29, 2000 at 13:58:52, Graham Laight wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Firstly, apologies to everyone for dashing off after the last game in the WMCCC.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>It enabled me to get an extra day's holiday with my girlfriend, though, which
>>>>>>>>was well worthwhile!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Well deserved, Graham!
>>>>>>>Thanks again for your work.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>[...]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>This game clearly showed that Fritz plays in a different league than Crafty! In
>>>>>>>fact I think this was one of the best games of the WMCCC.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Greetings
>>>>>>>Alex
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>My take on this game is a bit different.  I do _not_ want my program to make
>>>>>>such a sacrifice and then see the eval steadily go _down_ over the next few
>>>>>>moves.  It means one of two things for it to win such a game:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>1.  The eval is bogus.  It is saying "this is bad" when in reality "this is
>>>>>>good".  I don't want that sort of evaluation.
>>>>>
>>>>>But this is unavoidable. Otherwise computer programs would only need to do a 1
>>>>>ply search.
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>2.  The program was lucky.  A little luck doesn't hurt.  But it doesn't win
>>>>>>tournaments very often.
>>>>>
>>>>>Again, unavoidable. Have crafty play against itself and you will still have
>>>>>decisive games. The games are won due to luck, since they have the same eval.
>>>>>The question is, "did Fritz make a good gamble?"
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Either the eval was wrong, or it was lucky.  Neither one leave me feeling like
>>>>>>"fritz is in a different league than Crafty..."
>>>>>
>>>>>Of course, but that is pretty much how _all_ games are decided isn't it?
>>>>
>>>>No
>>>>
>>>>There are games when one side get advantage and slowly increase the advantage
>>>>without having a worse position.
>>>
>>>The only truly correct evals are a: win, draw or loss. The other stuff in
>>>between are _practical_ assessments that do not correspond to the true
>>>evaluation of the position, but they are precisely what all programs rely on in
>>>all games. Yes?
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I suspect white has better moves that might have justified the pessimistic eval
>>>>>>Fritz had...  The right program might have made that sacrifice look as ugly as
>>>>>>this game made it look brilliant...
>>>>>
>>>>>Better moves may exist, but you have to _find_ them.
>>>>
>>>>Crafty could find Nxe6.
>>>
>>>If Nxe6 is an improvement for crafty, it had to find it during the game and not
>>>after. Why it didn't is irrelevant to the result. The result still stands.
>>
>>The result stands but the impression that fritz is a different league than
>>crafty does not stand.
>>
>>Uri
>
>I have both programs. It stands, has been that way for a long time ! Fritz found
>a move that Crafty could not find an answer for, all of the other stuff is
>excuse making !
>Wayne


I'm not trying to make _any_ excuses.  Crafty lost.  That happens.  The issue
(to me, now) is simply "did it _have_ to lose that game, was the sac sound,
if not, why didn't it find the right response?"

I always analyze losses to see what went wrong, otherwise there would be no
way to make it play better.  There are two ideas here:  (1) if it should have
found Nxe6 but didn't, then that changes things a lot.  IE it shouldn't have
lost but did due to operator error, my error, or a programming problem.  (2) if
it couldn't find Nxe6 on the hardware it had, period, then the discussion is
now not about Crafty, but about Fritz, since it played a bad move but the
opponent didn't punish it correctly.  In that case, Fritz needs some tuning as
it won't always get away with playing such a sac.  There is no sense in a
program impaling itself on its own sword...



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