Author: Bob Durrett
Date: 06:04:37 11/13/00
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On November 12, 2000 at 21:30:07, Howard Exner wrote: <snip> >These attacking engines are lots of fun and may prove advantageous over human >opposition. If programmers spend alot of time on exploring such possibilities >they might feel it a waste just to toss the engine out just because it does not >perform as well versus other computers. <snip> This makes me wonder whether or not a program can contain two distinct blocks of code, one block playing chess the usual way and the other block being "an attacking engine" as suggested above. The idea is NOT to have both blocks of code working at the same time, each stealing computer resources from the other. Instead, this idea is to have some low-overhead evaluation function operating continuously [or just every now and then] whose purpose is to determine which of the two blocks is most likely to produce the best results. In positions where it seems likely that an attack would be appropriate, the "attacking engine" block of code would be turned on, but in positions where it seems unlikely that an attack would be appropriate the other block of code would be turned on. The block of code not in use may not need to be in RAM but, instead, would be copied from the hard disk when needed and erased from RAM when not. The real issue, it seems to me, is whether or not it is possible to create and use code which would perform a "low overhead evaluation function" without slowing down the program significantly. The envisioned benefit of this approach is that the programmer could "have his cake and eat it too," i.e. play strong both against humans and against computers.
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