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Subject: Opponent modeling in opening book

Author: David Eppstein

Date: 09:22:21 12/06/00


Has anyone else been following Jeff Sonas' match predictions on Kasparov Chess?
e.g. http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?p_docID=13336

As far as I can tell, he is doing something like the following: for each opening
position reached sufficiently often by both players, compute the players'
performance ratings based on their previous games in that position.  The
difference in performance ratings gives you an estimate of how likely each
player would be to win, in case they happen to reach that position.

Then, do your standard minimax (or alpha-beta) search, from the starting
position, using these performance rating differences as your evaluation
function.  The result is a predicted opening choice and a predicted match result
(with the assumption of course that players will tend to steer for lines where
they perform well and their opponents perform poorly).

I think it's an interesting way of using computers for doing chess analysis, but
it also seems like maybe a good way for someone who has lots of opponent data
(Bob?) to choose book lines by using the knowledge of who the opponent is.  Has
something like this been tried?  If so, how well does it work?



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