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Subject: Re: Rebel vs Ferret on ICS

Author: Vincent Lejeune

Date: 15:46:11 12/09/97

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On December 09, 1997 at 18:37:37, Don Dailey wrote:

>On December 09, 1997 at 14:55:27, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>
>>You've got to take computer vs computer games on ICC with a grain of
>>salt, since the manual operators can do things to try to influence the
>>games.  Sometimes the things they are improvements, but other times they
>>make the program play an unsound opening it wouldn't ordinarily play, or
>>play an overly aggressive move it would otherwise avoid, or they tweak
>>the program's tweakable parameters so it is playing in some odd fashion.
>>
>>And sometimes, when a program is in time pressure, they will simply turn
>>the program off and start playing the game themselves.
>>
>>In my opinion this is not so much unethical as it is unscientific.  It's
>>not really a computer program that you are playing, it is an account,
>>and part of the account is the operator, who has his own distinct
>>attitudes about what his role is, and there is no way to hold him
>>accountable to anything other than his own sense of what is and isn't
>>fair.
>>
>>The operator in this game told me he forced move 54 (I believe it was
>>this move, from looking at the PGN with my eyeball, all of my computers
>>are busy now), because "I wanted to see the mate", or words to this
>>effect.  This disappointed me.
>>
>>Sometimes other things happen.  You get people who don't update their
>>notes, so they are saying they are using one thing while using another,
>>or their hardware is wrong, or they are an inexperienced operator and
>>waste a lot of time, etc.  Other operators will change programs in the
>>middle of a game, and may not remember what program they used three
>>games ago, so it is very hard to know exactly what beat you.
>>
>>Ferret is capable of beating any other micro program, and who knows what
>>else.  The reverse of course is also true.
>>
>>That is the second KNN vs KP my program has had in the last month or so.
>>
>>bruce
>
>I never seriously considered playing my program Cilkchess on the
>internet
>for these very reasons.  It's probably a good thing if all you really
>want is to get in some games in and find weaknesses, but I get very
>uncomfortable with ambiguious results.

It's sad, it would be very interesting to see a match Ferret-Cilk ?



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