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Subject: Re: CM8000 - VIsual Thinking window

Author: William Penn

Date: 19:37:45 12/06/00

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On December 06, 2000 at 14:48:26, John Merlino wrote:

>On December 06, 2000 at 00:53:25, William Penn wrote:
>
>>On December 05, 2000 at 16:35:12, John Merlino wrote:
>>
>>>On December 05, 2000 at 14:30:41, William Penn wrote:
>>>
>>>>On December 05, 2000 at 13:55:23, James T. Walker wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On December 05, 2000 at 13:01:27, William Penn wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On December 05, 2000 at 10:37:10, James T. Walker wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On December 04, 2000 at 23:40:17, John Merlino wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>On December 04, 2000 at 23:08:18, William Penn wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>On December 04, 2000 at 17:20:28, James T. Walker wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>On December 04, 2000 at 13:50:50, John Merlino wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>On December 04, 2000 at 02:39:32, William Penn wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>[snip]
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>What is a "PV"?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>PV stands for Principal Variation (I hope that's right). It is what the engine
>>>>>>>>believes is the best line of play. (please somebody correct me if that is a
>>>>>>>>hopelessly naive explanation).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>jm
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>That's correct John.  And the PV is constantly changing.  So if you are looking
>>>>>>>at the visual thinking board and the PV changes the board changes to show the
>>>>>>>new PV.  If you extend the "thinking lines" box vertically you may see many PVs.
>>>>>>> The latest is of course the one at the bottom and that is what the visual
>>>>>>>thinking board will show as the current position at the end of that PV.
>>>>>>>Jim
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Yes, that's also the way it worked with CM6000.  But it does not work that way
>>>>>>with CM8000, at least not with my typical CM8000 installation running W98se.
>>>>>>The position shown in the Visual Thinking window does not correspond to any of
>>>>>>the lines (lists of moves) in the Thinking Lines window. It changes frequently,
>>>>>>and it is apparently displaying various intermediate positions of the current
>>>>>>search in progress -- at one ply greater than the last line displayed in the
>>>>>>Thinking Lines window.  But that isn't clear, because I don't "recognize" the
>>>>>>positions, so don't actually know what they represent.
>>>>>>WP
>>>>>
>>>>>Hello William,
>>>>>Are you sure you have the "Thinking Lines" extended to the right side far enough
>>>>>to see the entire variation?  I'm sitting here right now looking at my other
>>>>>computer in the starting position and here is the PV:
>>>>>e4 e5 Nf3 Nf6 d4 Nxe4 Nxe5 d5 Nd2 Nd7 Bb5 c6
>>>>>The position shown on the visual thinking board is exactly what you get at the
>>>>>end of the variation.  It is at depth 12 and the score is 0.21 at 13,336,141
>>>>>positions.  This took 3:57 on my Athlon 900 Mhz.  This was with Chessmaster
>>>>>playing the black pieces and just sitting there waiting for me to move.  As far
>>>>>as I can see it's working perfectly.  I'm using windows 98 with a downloaded
>>>>>update from the Microsoft site.
>>>>>Regards,
>>>>>Jim
>>>>
>>>>Hi Jim,
>>>>Yes, my Thinking Lines window is fully expanded and shows the complete line of
>>>>moves at the right. The Visual Thinking window obviously doesn't work right for
>>>>me with my typical CM8000 installation, and I have no idea why. I'm familiar
>>>>with it from CM6000, so I know how it's supposed to work. Presumably it is
>>>>supposed to work the same in CM8000 as in CM6000.
>>>>
>>>>I'm running an OEM version of W98se, and Internet Explorer 5.5 (which includes
>>>>some windows updates too) with all of the latest updates available online from
>>>>Microsoft. If it were Windows 2000 or Windows ME, that might explain it because
>>>>apparently they aren't supported, but supposedly CM8000 supports W98se.
>>>>WP
>>>
>>>What boxes do you have checked in the "Thinking Lines" window? What
>>>personalities, if any, are in the current game?
>>>
>>>jm
>>
>>Mostly I use my CM8666 Deep personality as previously described, versus a human.
>>I check the white or black box in the Thinking Lines window, whichever the
>>personality is using. I never check the Chessmaster box.
>>WP
>
>Then that's where you're going wrong. The Visual Thinking dialog is attached to
>the Chessmaster personality ONLY (via what is called the "Mentor" engine)! It
>only matches what would be in the output of the Thinking Lines window if you
>checked the Chessmaster box.
>
>Therefore, when you open the Visual Thinking dialog (or check the Chessmaster
>box in the Thinking Lines window), you start ANOTHER engine that loads the
>Chessmaster personality and starts evaluating the current position. The only
>time this additional engine is not started is if Chessmaster is one of the
>personalities in the game.
>
>jm

JM,
I guess that would explain it, although I haven't had a chance to test it yet.
If that's the case, then the CM8000 Visual Thinking window does not work in any
useful way for me, because I almost always use a defined personality. (In
contrast, the CM6000 Visual Thinking window works fine with defined
personalities.) Alas, that's another significant negative point against CM8000,
which has been accumulating a lot of them!? I had good hopes for CM8000, but am
now tending to turn negative about it.
WP



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