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Subject: Re: WCCC vs auto232

Author: Ed Schröder

Date: 02:13:14 09/14/00

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On September 14, 2000 at 02:57:09, Dann Corbit wrote:

>On September 14, 2000 at 02:17:58, Ed Schröder wrote:
>[snip]
>>IMO every game played in WCCC events is worth at least 10 autoplayer
>>games. Authors are present to solve any problem that might occur, no
>>book randomness, no learning involved, book preparation should ensure
>>that the author's program should play those lines the program likes
>>best.


>Barring some errant codes sent by Winboard [as is alledged for some
>autoplayers], I disagree completely.

Then have a look at the last 3-5 WCCC's. If you look at the rankings
they don't match with for instance the SSDF list. Especially Shredder
comes to mind.

Ed


>The books used are those created by the
>authors.  The learning that goes on is the exact same learning that would go on
>in normal play.  If your program does not learn and the other does, then their
>program's edge is one that they have earned.  Special books cooked for a
>tournament show the ability of the book preparation people and not the ability
>of the engines.  After a while, killer likes will be debugged by learners and
>won't get played anymore by the opposition.
>
>>The WCCC is playing games under the most optimal conditions for chess
>>programs.
>>
>>Autoplayer tournaments are a whole different world.
>>
>>Both are valuable but IMO are not comparable.
>
>Unless bugs are present in the automatic tournament managers, the data is just
>as good as any hand run tournaments.  Actually, since the errors introduced by
>innacuracies of non-automatic move entry will cause the experiment to be hard to
>reproduce, if anything such modes of play are inferior, from an experimental
>standpoint.  If this element of randomness is needed to prevent similar losing
>lines from being played repeatedly, then (again) it is a program flaw.
>
>I have seen no convincing arguments that autoplayer games are inferior except
>that invalid command sequences are possibly generated by some autoplayers.  I
>know of no complaints against Winboard in this regard.
>
>Furthermore, for Winboard programs (which is what I am testing) they are nearly
>always going to be played using a Winboard interface.  If played on the net
>using an automatic mode (as most seem to do) the results will much more closely
>mirror what will be achieved in practice.



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