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Subject: Re: Ways to beat some computers

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 14:49:42 01/20/01

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On January 20, 2001 at 16:32:12, Pete Galati wrote:

>On January 20, 2001 at 10:40:00, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On January 20, 2001 at 06:12:49, Mark Longridge wrote:
>>
>>>On January 20, 2001 at 04:12:36, Sune Larsson wrote:
>>>
>>>>On January 20, 2001 at 02:54:13, Pete Galati wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On January 20, 2001 at 02:38:57, Mark Longridge wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Some of the programs, crafty and gandalf come to mind, let their clocks run down
>>>>>>pretty low (say as low as 30 seconds) near where the game would normally be
>>>>>>close to over. But if the other player is just shuffling wood back and forth and
>>>>>>is playing with an inc, that player can build up a huge time advantage. Crafty
>>>>>>tries too hard to avoid the 50 move rule, and all of a sudden it's got 25
>>>>>>seconds left and a lost position.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I bet a lot of GM's and some programs do this on purpose. I don't see why crafty
>>>>>>shouldn't go for the 50 move rule instead of a silly pawn push, especially when
>>>>>>it's time is so low. Now the silly draws are becoming silly losses.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>If the score is -.60 and it's close to the 50 move rule, I figure the computer
>>>>>>may as well take the draw... especially when down to it's last 30 seconds.
>>>>>
>>>>>Well, if you ARE beating Crafty this way, essentially you're not so much beating
>>>>>it in a game of Chess anyhow.
>>>>
>>>>  Right, if you use a chessprogram this way, there are imo reasons to
>>>>  question your own drives and motives for doing so. As I see it, it has
>>>>  anyway very little to do with developing your own chess. Playing these
>>>>  programs are interesting for me but repeating winning setups are not
>>>>  what I call creativity. For example I had 2 nice wins vs CM8, as black
>>>>  in a closed KI with following king's attack. Now, this work is done and
>>>>  personally I will avoid these lines vs CM in the future. Remember with
>>>>  much more satisfaction a Kn vs B ending - a pawn up - which was possible
>>>>  to transform into a win vs CM. Constantly closing positions and slowly
>>>>  building king's attacks is a well known anti computer strategy. But since
>>>>  these things are known, and hopefully worked upon by the authors, I personally
>>>>  find it boring to repeat them once more.
>>>>  One final thing about CM8: Due to following reasons I find it easier to
>>>>  play than various other top programs:
>>>>
>>>>  1) Very limited and small opening book.
>>>>  2) Dubious time management (known and will be fixed)
>>>>  3) Just 1 Mb hash tables as default and no way to easily
>>>>     adjust it without creating a new personality. Really
>>>>     quite unbelieavable, cause it was possible in CM6.
>>>>  4) No tablebases for the endgame.
>>>>
>>>>  Still, if you get your pieces out in a wrong way you can get busted
>>>>  heavily as a cruel reminder of your own stupidity...;)
>>>>
>>>>  Sune Larsson
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>I shuffle pieces sometimes, but it's pretty much an effort to toy with the
>>>>>program for a while and see how it reacts when I try to distract it, but I'm not
>>>>>under the impression that I'm beating the program, more like throwing pesty
>>>>>distractions at it, but I'm not good enough to make my distractions work.
>>>>>
>>>>>Are you actually winning games this way against Crafty, or is this just a theory
>>>>>of yours?
>>>>>
>>>>>Pete
>>>
>>>
>>>I am not beating up crafty, I'm only observing crafty's games against other
>>>computers with very fast hardware. Perhaps the only solution is to match
>>>hardware with hardware. But that pawn push close to move 50 was too much. I
>>>thought it could draw without trying to trade pieces or move pawns. It was to
>>>it's advantage not to do either. But it seems with an inc, crafty could have
>>>allocated more time to long games, e.g. games with over 100 moves. Instead it's
>>>time just got lower and lower, and eventually it just ran out of time to think
>>>(at least that is what it seemed to me). It was a 4 15 game. But I have seen
>>>other humans play like this vs. crafty clones with some success. The position
>>>stays in balance, and a relatively easy draw is achieved.
>>>
>>>I am not personally playing crafty and beating it this way, and I'm not
>>>suggesting this as a way for a human to beat computers. I'm only suggesting a
>>>possible way of making the program (e.g. crafty) avoid a possible time
>>>management problem.
>>
>>I don't follow "time management problem" in the context of a 4 15 game.  There
>>is _no_ problem there as it can _always_ use 15 seconds for a move no matter
>>how long the game lasts.
>>
>>5 years ago humans were trying "shuffle mode" to beat Crafty.  I don't believe
>>this is possible today, and would welcome the opportunity to have someone move
>>a piece back and forth attempting to run crafty out of time.  99% of the time,
>>what happens is this:
>>
>>human starts moving impossibly quickly.
>>
>>crafty gets behind on the clock.
>>
>>it speeds up.
>>
>>it gets more behind
>>
>>it speeds up and now is moving instantly too.
>>
>>Near the 50 move boundary it suddenly varies and the human, who has
>>been moving his bishop back and forth moves before he notices crafty
>>did something different.
>>
>>he loses
>>
>>repeat above until the human decides that he can't _ever_ run it out of
>>time, whether it is a 5 0 or 5 15 time control.
>
>I'd like to see a pgn AND log file of a game where he says he beat Crafty this
>way.  Also a rundown on the hardware being used.
>
>Pete


If it is happening, it is likely under win95 or win98, which seem to have
poor process scheduling algorithms.  NT or unix work flawlessly...



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