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Subject: Re: CM8000 - VIsual Thinking window

Author: William Penn

Date: 21:24:05 12/07/00

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On December 07, 2000 at 15:45:28, John Merlino wrote:

>On December 06, 2000 at 22:37:45, William Penn wrote:
>
>>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
>
>I have good news for you! The development team is going to add three buttons to
>the Visual Thinking window (similar to the three checkboxes in the Thinking
>Lines window), which allow you to choose which of the three possible engines'
>data you want to view. Obviously, you can only view one at a time, so the
>controls would be radio buttons rather than checkboxes.
>
>Would that do the trick?
>
>jm

Yes, that would be good!
WP




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