Author: Keith Ian Price
Date: 23:22:01 03/15/98
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On March 15, 1998 at 06:37:35, Dirk Frickenschmidt wrote: >On March 15, 1998 at 02:53:17, Keith Ian Price wrote: > >Hi Keith, > >as a user I understand and completely share your view about autoplaying! > >And just like you I find it a real improvement if an autoplayer changes >colours after each game, like the Fritz5 autoplayer, which should be a >standard feature for all of them. > >But I also understand the problems for the programmers in the age of >outbooking by a combination of heavy book learning features combined >with auto-testing. > >This combination allows you to play a long series of games against an >opponent already rated in the SSDF *before* you release the program. >Then you take out all losing (and perhaps drawing) games and melt the >winning games into the book up to move x. Now the effect will be that if >the two programs play against each other the book learning will lead the >new program very fast to exactly those pre-played winning lines. The new >program will simply repeat its long before generated auto-played wins >(or draws). > >In effect the percentage of wins (and draws) will become much higher >than the program's real playing strength ever could be. >It's no cheat insofar as it repeats real wins gained by autoplaying >before, but it's a *heavy* cheat considering the fact that it omits most >or many of the real losses that would have happened without this kind of >tuning. Of course it is cheating. But this could be eliminated with a universal autoplayer standard. If it were agreed upon by all subscribing to the autoplayer standard that that is not allowed, then code could be written in to allow a program to challenge a second defeat with the exact same score as a previously stored defeat if autoplayer was true for both, and the autoplayer code would score a forfeit for the offending program. For the less obvious cases, where a program comes out of book in a bad position, and there are repeated autoplay games using that same opening but with random moves thrown in which don't affect the score, but prevent duplicates, then the program notifies the autoplayer with all scores and pvs and once again all games are forfeited by the offending program. If this couldn't be done completely automatically, it should still be feasible with the co-operation of the SSDF, as adjudicators, if the program lodged a protest on screen. It would quickly point out the hanky-panky, and the testers would probably not want to test the offending program anymore. With the incentive gone, the practice would stop. >Under these circumstances it is hard for a programmer not to see his >program being outboked by later programs, *if* he allows autoplaying by >providing an autoplayer or allowing one to be used with his Dos-program. > >I am convinced that this problem has to be solved before the autoplayers >can get their normal function back: to provide real results for users, >testers and programmers without any twisting around with them in this - >from my view - completely unacceptable way. It can only be solved with an open autoplayer standard, as proprietary code leaves room for accusations whether founded in truth or not. >Until now I see no way how this misuse could be prevented. But I hope >either a a programmer agreement (unlikely) or some new technical ideas >by someone like Bob Hyatt or other programmers could show us a solution. I would think Bob could come up with a really cool autoplayer specification, with this kind of anti-booking security, and perhaps supply the basic code in C or C++ for inclusion in programs. This way he could also slip in automatic chess server access, which I know that he would like, and perhaps TCP/IP for network use. What do you think, Bob? Any time in your 38-hour days for this? At least it would eliminate your hassles with autoplayer and Crafty... >Missing autoplay features really mean a mess and something like having >to stay in the computer chess stoneage for users. > >Not acceptable for long. > >So please programmers gather and find a solution! One hundred percent agreement from me on this! >Kind regards from Dirk and back to you, kp
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