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Subject: Re: Ferret - by Ray Keene of BGN

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 09:36:50 05/11/01

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On May 11, 2001 at 10:47:49, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>It really doesn't show anything.  Ferret at that time was running on a
>single cpu pentium pro 200 I believe.  At least that is what I was using
>at that time and Bruce and I were using identical hardware.
>
>It was a reasonable anti-computer game.   Whether he could do that with today's
>ferret and today's hardware is a totally different question.

That game was played on a Pentium 133 that had two copies of the program running
simultaneously.  I was at work, and for such an important game I didn't want to
have someone burst into my office and demand I do something intensive on my
computer, so I asked my wife to start it for me at home, and she got two copies
going at once by mistake.  I did not announce this at the time, because I didn't
want to be accused of whining about the losses.  He won against the best I could
do that day, and I accepted that.

Those two games (Shirov won both) have become signature games for my program for
some reason.  I still hear about them despite their being played approximately
five years ago.

But that *was* old hardware, and the version I was running was approximately
*800* distinct versions ago.

I was honored that my program was able to play some 30 0 versus Shirov, and he
did a great job bashing in the program.  Shirov is *in my own limited
experience* the strongest anti-computer GM, and he could have probably totalled
the program on any hardware.

I will say that I spoke with Shirov after he played some 5 0 against Ferret on
my 533 mhz Alpha in approximately 1998.  He told me that he thought it seemed as
if it was seeing as much in 5 0 as it did in those 30 0 games.  It's very
interesting that 500/133 or 500/66, whichever you wish to use, is approximately
6, so he is pretty close to right.  Of course now it would be seeing the same
stuff in a 2 0 or a 3 0.

I'm surprised that Keene couldn't find something more modern.  If he's looking
for bad games against humans, there was the game against Vaganian at the 1999
WCCC post-tournament exhibition, where my program moved its QB 4 times in a row,
in order to get it from c1 to d2.  If he wants to see a bad game against a
computer, he can pick the one against Hiarcs from the same event.  If he wants
to see a good game he can examine the one versus Fritz at that event.

bruce



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