Author: José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba
Date: 06:03:52 11/10/00
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On November 09, 2000 at 12:47:42, Christophe Theron wrote: > > >The difference is that the SSDF plays LONG tournaments which are more reliable >than the short WMCCC for example. > Sorry but I do not see any proper tournament in SSDF, only long mathces (20 or 40 games). There are several weak points in SSDF testing, a major one is that there is no recipe or formula to give opponents to the new entries (as in a tournament, be it short or long). I do not insist on the these weak points because I do not mean to be discouraging or overly critic to SSDF, I only want to point that your "reliability" argument in favor of SSDF is not fully convincing. > >So there is a difference, but it does not favor the short tournaments in my >opinion. > Again, I respect your opinion, and I think you will have far more "followers" than me. > >Then you should value more the SSDF games than the tournament games. > OK, more problems with SSDF: -several (most?) games are not public. If a tester is too lazy to send a pgn score, she/he may be too lazy to even play the games. -operator mistakes have been found, and most likely there are more mistakes. -It is too easy for a tester to cheat (for example, playing 22 games and then removing two losses for its favorite program, reporting a 20-game match). I believe almost all the testers are honest. -SSDF rating list gives very wide margins of error, which actually prevent anybody from knowing certainly which is "best". -As I have said before, the selection of opponents is quite arbitrary. Harald Faber has said that he can make any top program number one by correctly choosing the opponents, and I believe him. > >The author will not be with you in your home and help YOUR copy of the program >to play better. > Very true! I might be influenced by the simple fact that I do not have a computer, and obviously I also do not have any chess program either. > >Generally, you know, the author is not provided in the program's >package. > And I personally would not like to get one (unless Katja Riemann or Claudia Schiffer write a chess engine, even if it plays weak chess). > >If you want the best program you can run on YOUR computer, the SSDF tells you >much better than tournament games. > I have pointed several problems with SSDF testing, but I do not want to insist on them (I am not against SSDF or against private testing at all). I only hope that by now it is clear where I am standing, what the differences between your position and mine are, and that the readers from this thread are at least amused.
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