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Subject: Re: [DIEP] How DIEP is sailing

Author: Bas Hamstra

Date: 04:19:16 05/30/01

Go up one level in this thread


Vincent, stop bashing Jan. I don't like it.

Also some advice: if you want to post a complete book here, at least try to
divide it in chapters. Even better would have been to delete 99% of it. I am not
saying that your post contains no info. Just that it is impossible to read it
all without dying of old age.

Toedeledokie! :-)

Bas.


On May 29, 2001 at 13:02:43, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:

>From diep mailing list here a message. Some of you might be interested.
>-------------
>Hello dear Friends,
>
>Diep sailed regrettably a bit as expected last weeks.
>Very high scores with white. In I-CSVN diep scored 5 out of 5
>with white, in the blitz last weekend DIEP scored 2.5 out of 3
>with white. Regrettably only 2.5 out of 5 with black.
>
>To start with the last weekends rapid (level 45 minutes all game 10 seconds
>incremental):
>  round 1 : ShrikeX  vs. diep    0-1
>
>Diep played najdorf. Poisened pawn to be exact. Thanks to Marc L
>Bernstein and Erwin l'Ami i had the courage now to let diep play
>this opening! Shrike allowed diep to capture on b2. Then Shrike
>nullmoved a bit after which i was of course a pawn up. Diep mishandled
>exchanging to the endgame a bit and had some problems to win a rook
>endgame with 2 pawns up. After reaching the rook endgame my score
>dropped and dropped. Diep gave away a pawn quite quickly and i think
>the rook endgame was drawable with white, but lucky for DIEP it got
>some help from Shrike. Nice to debug why diep went into the rook
>endgame and/or why it didn't win it!
>
>   round 2 : diep - Amateur   1-0
>
>With some transpositions of move we got into ben-oni. Diep has a
>near to 100% score there against any engine if the level is not too
>fast. This was the most chanceless game of the whole tournament
>despite that it took 51 moves to win!
>What happens is always the same. Diep goes for the majority. Score
>drops a bit and at that point the opponentmakes mistakes after mistake
>after which diep gets the e4 pawn to e5. A passer gets on the board
>and the passer nearly promotes. When black is stopping the passer then
>DIEP collects the rest of the board and has a material advantage which
>easily wins the game!
>
>    round 3 :  Ferret - diep    1-0
>
>Diep played Najdorf and got itself a splendid position despite that
>the number of variations in my tournament book is not so big.
>However bad luck struck for diep this time. Something went wrong
>with king safety and diep walked its king into the center. Now despite
>that Ferret kept on playing nullmoves and my score went high. So
>i assume somewhere there a penalty must have had a plus instead of
>a minus. Perhaps i'll figure it out tonight. Anyway. Playing with a rook
>less lost quick for DIEP though. Complete crush after playing with that
>rook less. Great debug info though!
>
>    round 4 : Diep - Postmodernist  1-0
>
>Last so many tournaments i get games where even from lost positions
>i manage to win for just one positional pattern which is in diep and
>not the opponent. This game was such a game. The game started bad for me
>with a dutch opening setup (diep white).
>First of all i made an operator mistake. Andrew Williams allowed me
>to take back. Still need to thank him for that, because with xboard
>which he was running taking back is nearly impossible without adjourning
>the game a few times in between.
>This game initially appeared to get a big disappointment for me. Diep
>was quick out of book, long before it had castled or anything like it.
>There must be more as a few things wrong with the king safety of diep,
>as again it didn't castle but played h4 in a dutch setup. Black had
>its queen on e7 so castling short would allow Qxh4 losing a pawn for DIEP.
>Secondly long castling was impossible because DIEP had managed to get
>a stupid doubled pawn on c3,c4 versus PostModernist backward d6 pawn.
>I bet that was the reason why diep allowed itself to get strategically
>lost. Just for some pressure on d6. Just one weakness doesn't lose
>the game, but strategical disadvantage does!
>
>So diep was bigtime lost there, one positive thing was however that
>DIEP had the bishop pair which if the position would get opened would
>get real strong.
>For some unknown reasons to me PM opened the position in such a way
>that diep could sacrafice an exchange to get its bishops active and
>take black king into a pin. Amazingly this WON the game for me after
>probably from both sides some shuffle moves.
>
>    round 5 : gambitmaster - diep  1/2-1/2
>
>Apologies i forgot which program gambitmaster is, but i can't remember!
>All which is in my email box is this game. It's a game to forget. The
>game had big similarities with zillions of games from the years
>1996 - 1997 which i played. Diep completely outplayed its opponent
>in a quiet nimzo indian setup from white. White got itself a passer,
>as well as diep. The white passer was weak, diep's passers weren't.
>This game was dominated by shallow searches of DIEP. Probably too many
>passed pawn extensions triggered stupid lines which weren't relevant.
>Searching 8 ply is really too little. Several times diep saw an incredible
>draw shot for its opponent.
>
>  1.  d4       (0:01)    Nf6      (0:08)
>  2.  c4       (0:01)    e6       (0:07)
>  3.  Nc3      (0:01)    Bb4      (0:06)
>  4.  Nf3      (0:01)    b6       (1:01)
>  5.  Bg5      (0:00)    Bb7      (1:05)
>  6.  e3       (0:00)    h6       (2:51)
>  7.  Bh4      (0:00)    c5       (3:48)
>  8.  Bd3      (0:00)    cxd4     (4:09)
>  9.  exd4     (0:01)    O-O      (4:11)
> 10.  O-O      (1:13)    Be7      (0:08)
> 11.  Qe2      (1:52)    Nc6      (0:51)
> 12.  Rfd1     (3:04)    Re8      (3:17)
> 13.  Nb5      (0:56)    d6       (2:38)
> 14.  c5       (1:59)    bxc5     (0:54)
> 15.  dxc5     (0:51)    d5       (0:04)
> 16.  Rdc1     (1:09)    Nb4      (1:08)
> 17.  Nbd4     (0:01)    Nxd3     (1:30)
> 18.  Qxd3     (0:01)    a5       (1:30)
> 19.  Ne5      (0:01)    Qc7      (0:50)
> 20.  c6       (0:01)    Ba6      (0:58)
> 21.  Qe3      (1:31)    Ng4      (0:10)
>
>Despite a small search depth directly after playing Ng4 i directly
>had a fail low from +1.xx to draw score if white would play
>Nxh6 here.
>
>Amazingly white missed this chance, probably because it thought white
>was better here, as gambitmaster had a +0.34 score. Not a very
>impressive evaluation therefore. Black is simplistically won here,
>so if you get a draw chance, grab it!
>
>Anyway, as you can see i had lost quite some time in the game
>kibitzing and also had had some phone calls in the meantime.
>
>Hand operating really is stupid in these events. I was kind of forced
>to do it, but it really isn't what i'm going to do next time!
>
>All my games i several times missed either the opponent moving or diep
>moving. Despite that i have great sounds, they are not yet working in my
>GUI :)
>
>Also in the evening i couldn't turn on sound because i'm just 4 feet away
>from the bedroom of my neighbours. Only a stone wall is between me
>and my neighbours bedroom!
>
>Anyway, i got 8 ply search depths here. Diep completely blew its won
>position because of that. We got into an endgame where diep wasn't very
>good, but enough to draw i assumed. I was kind of right. Gambitmaster
>completely blew it, but was lucky to discover that 3 versus 2 in a rook
>endgame is hard to lose with the 2 pawns. So from a bad endgame diep had
>won a full pawn somehow but wasn't able to win the rook endgame as expected.
>
>I've had games like that in 1996 and 1997 already. Hard to blame DIEP
>doing something wrong. It just got lousy search depths. I can at most
>work a bit harder to limit all the stupid extensions a bit at blitz
>levels.
>
>I find any shot, but getting 8 ply simply isn't enough! I already figured
>that out in 1997 in the world championship very bitterly, and only
>can write that again here as being the major problem in this game.
>
>The same problem also dominated the next game:
>
>       round 6 : diep vs. pharaon   1/2-1/2
>
>Diep played white in gruenfeld. Note i so far only had won this in testgames,
>though gruenfeld simply doesn't get played by commercial programs as it
>usually loses for them. I'm pretty amazed that Franck Zibi allows Pharaon
>to play this opening. Probably BECAUSE i haven't auto232 played a game or
>10000 yet, he had a bit of luck here. Diep played a quiet gruenfeld line
>where black remained in book long after i was out of book. Here diep made
>2 strategical mistakes after which black was completely won.
>
>then i think from both sides a small search depth dominated the game.
>Black simply did NOT want to open the position with c7-c5 which would
>have easily won for it, also exchanging queens would have won for black.
>
>Neither of the both things happened. Whole game i was expecting black to
>break the position, get into the position and win easily. Usually in
>computerchess if it doesn't happen at move 30 then it happens at move 50.
>
>When time got less for both sides, then Zchess allowed diep to setup
>a great center, after which the wing play for zchess no longer won.
>
>For some reason DIEP exchanged queens which still is a mystery for me,
>and when thinking in the time of the opponent i got big fail lows. The
>reason for this was obvious. Where passive programs like shredder have
>the habit to allow the opponent to make mistakes, the activity play of
>diep FORCES the opponent to make strong moves.
>
>This led me into a lost endgame, which diep drew by superb tactics and
>endgame evaluation.
>
>    round 7 : Patzer - diep   1-0
>
>Now patzer i can describe as a program written by a very nice person,
>but the program is about the most antipositional which exists on earth.
>Patzer is one of those programs that LIKES to close positions and likes
>to put everything on the wrong color and play on the opposite wing as
>where its king is.
>
>If patzer castles short then it attacks at the queen side, if it castles
>long it attacks at the king side. You can blindfolded write that down,
>whether it's good or not, it simply is doing it.
>
>Also a passer in patzer at 7th rank is worth +3.0 pawns, with very few
>exceptions.
>
>Now that's about all knowledge that's in patzer.
>
>Apart from this very bad evaluation it is tactical very strong and searching
>in a very correct way. Roland definitely has made a program which searches
>very correctly.
>
>Amazingly the children moves from programs like Patzer also get diep into
>confusion always. Usually diep blunders with patzer in a positional unsound
>way.
>
>That happened here also. In a completely closed position of course the chance
>to win for patzer is bigger as in an open position. All (half) open positions
>i ever had against patzer, there diep won very easily from patzer.
>
>I don't need to mention that i probably was completely outsearched every
>move, but that doesn't matter. The whole thing here was that diep got itself
>a better endgame, BUT CLOSED. Diep managed to get a good bishop versus patzer
>a very bad one.
>
>How i then lose such an endgame is a complete mystery to me. Diep allowed
>patzer to get too much play on the queen side for sure, but there were some
>factors in the position which i also thought would easily win for me!
>
>diep was up +1.7 at times, patzer was up +1.3 to +2.0 at the same time.
>
>So that's more or less 3 pawns difference in scoring.
>
>Now i completely agreed with diep every time, but there was one small factor
>of luck which patzer had, which is always happening in computerchess. And
>that is that all knights were exchanged.
>
>Only a good vs bad bishop was on the board and 2 rooks each. Also both
>had a passer and obviously diep overevaluated its own passer and patzer
>also its own.
>
>Then some stupid pawn level which i was expecting all the time, after
>a move or 15 finally was seen by patzer and i lost the game!
>
>A big blow in my face, though i need to admit that knowledge in closed
>positions simply works different as in open positions, so getting always
>a closed position with a very antipositional program is a very smart
>thing to do. It again won against diep here!
>
>I'm pretty sure at a bit slower level DIEP would have WON this
>game chanceless as it would not have given patzer its passer!
>
>Because diep could have EASILY prevented patzer from getting its passer!
>
>The passer of patzer was completely hung in my evaluation probably, but
>by tactical means could be defendend. Big luck for patzer there, because
>i've had plenty of games against patzer where diep COULD easily win the
>+3.0 passer and win chanceless.
>
>Patzer is the kind of program that is always dangerous because it gives
>such a HUGE scores for one factor, just like tiger does in some cases.
>
>From both sides very unimpressive play however. Dominated by weak moves
>of patzer, answerred by weak moves of diep.
>
>Thereby patzer had the luck to get quickly into an endgame against DIEP.
>In a middlegame it would have been CHANCELESS again, with induction to
>knowledge and because of having a bunch of pawns on the wrong color...
>
>Nevertheless i have great debug info again from this game to improve
>diep's endgame.
>
>      round 8 : crafty - diep   0-1
>
>For some easy reason i had again black here. The higher your ranking,
>the bigger the chance you have more white as black. In this case crafty
>was higher placed as diep, so i had black.
>
>Now this is very bad because getting 5 games black and only 3 games white
>with an engine that wins every non-dead lost white game is not a good thing!
>
>This is why all tournaments have an odd number of rounds, to prevent such
>big differences in white & black. TWO games more with black.
>
>Note that the pairing every round took 40 minutes or so. The dudes
>paired by hand. Big losers on ICC. Note that at the homepage it said:
>"pairings made by program".
>
>Anyway easier is to get a better ranking next time because that means
>5 white games instead of 3 white games. I feel we're not getting less
>or more rounds next time with this cct tournament...
>
>This pairing was extra bad, because if there was a program which deserved
>a bit more points this tournament then it was crafty!
>
>But to get to the game. Same line as against ferret up to 12th move
>of black. I was pretty amazed
>actually. Any automatic generated book would have played in poisened pawn
>the Qd2 move allowing me to get a REAL poisened pawn by taking on b2.
>
>However crafty played Nb3. I DEFINITELY like to know why, because a
>posting of Bob:
>  Posted by Robert Hyatt (Profile) on May 28, 2001 at 00:46:07:
>
>  "
>  [snip]
>
>  >
>  >It shouldn't be the case that someone signs a contract with
>  >ChessBase and   then
>  >sighs with relief because they know they're going to gain
>  >an extra couple of
>  >points at the next tournament, because they can use
>  >opening book technology
>  >shared by all of the Chessbase products.
>  >
>  >bruce
>
>  I won't disagree.  But it is already happening.  If I ever play
>  in what I consider an important event, it will be one of my
>  goals to take some sort of evasive action, book-wise.
>  Or take my main goal:  to make hand-tuned books
>  obsolete.  I believe that is possible over time.
>  I'm going to try to do it."
>
>Oh well obviously crafty isn't playing with a non-hand tuned thing here,
>because any automatic generated book will see that after
>  e4 c5 nf3 d6 d4 cd nd4 nf6 nc3 a6 bg5 e6 f4 qb6
>  a) 8.Nb3 has a bad score for white
>  b) 8.Qd2 is played way more times and has a better score for
>     white.
>
>But main factor is that Qd2 is at least 10 times more played as Nb3,
>which will render any thought of playing Nb3 useless!
>
>Anyway my surprise became even BIGGER, when the exact same line as
>against ferret came onto the board. Only at move 13 a different move
>was selected, probably even better as the book move played by ferret.
>
>If that's non-hand tuned then i'll eat my hat!
>
>Anyway, DIEP frightened its programmer here by quickly castling, but after
>a few nullmoves of crafty, things were very clear in favour for diep then.
>
>I need to note that in past diep was very bad with opposite castling, but
>that this has improved dramatically last year when i fixed a bunch of
>old king safety patterns after a disastreous game Diep-Patzer in DCCC2000.
>
>So the endresult was 5 out of 8 score.
>  2.5 out of 3 with white
>  2.5 out of 5 with black
>
>In short i couldn't complain too much about book except for against Pharaon.
>Of course there were some reasons too to complain about the opening against
>PostModernist, but those complaints are basically showing the strategical
>lack of DIEP (and engines in general).
>
>               GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
>
>It's very obvious nowadays that engines have become stronger and stronger
>because of better testing and simply more time that has been put into the
>engines as one could do in the past. I do not find it surprising that some
>so called 'amateurs' score very well against commercial engines nowadays.
>
>To examine the advantages which commercial engines had in the past
>versus nowadays:
>
>  1) SEARCH DEPTH ADVANTAGE
>
>Commercial engines were faster a few years ago because they were
>optimal programmed in assembly, so they searched deeper or were
>tactical stronger usual as amateurs. A good example is the dominating
>genius engine which got even at a slow Pentium 200 already 200000
>nodes a second. Until a ply or 10 tactics completely dominate in the
>middlegame.
>
>Nowadays everyone gets that depth, except some badly programmed programs,
>and the programs that use expensive knowledge that scans. It's not that
>the smaller nodes a second (65k nodes a second for diep at a p3-800 dual)
>is giving such a bad search depth, it's also the huge diversity
>of scores which takes care that ordering moves is much tougher, as well
>as the fact that i cannot do a cheap quiescencesearch, combined with
>the fact that current diep version is doing all kind of silly extensions,
>in order to solve testsets quicker.
>
>I bet no other program except for Quest and Schach were faster as Genius.
>
>Nowadays however at tournament level *everyone* gets decent depths. Even
>8 ply DIEP in the year 2001 is not comparable with 8 ply DIEP 1997.
>
>With 8 ply searches with the current diep i completely destroy anything
>from 1997/1998. Very seldom Jan Louwman plays programs like nimzo98 just
>for fun with DIEP and it's a complete walk over then.
>
>
>  2) SUPERB TESTING
>
>Now this is still the big difference between most commercial engines
>and amateurs. Though some claim they play zillion of games on chess servers,
>my question is always: "And what did you do with it then?"
>
>Now that most commercial engines join the chess servers this is of course
>changing, but definitely a few years ago playing online was fun, but
>from DIEP perspective it was not so much worth.
>
>This might be different for others though. But for DIEP it's very important
>that i get loads of games WITH the log files of diep and WITH the scores
>of the opponent.
>
>This is also why i learn so much in tournaments, as i can ask for the
>score of the opponent.
>
>With a huge evaluation function as DIEP a very easy way to always win
>from opponents is to basically have the same score and if there are a
>few patterns that boost DIEP's score, then i win with induction of course!
>
>So if i lose a game because DIEP had the wrong score for whatever reason
>except a small search depth, then i nowadays work on that. At ICC nor FICS
>i get games emailed with scores of DIEP + opponent. At auto232 i DO GET
>games from Jan Louwman with scores of both sides!
>
>Of course playing at home under my own interface against a winboard
>opponent is no big difference there, because i can collect from both
>sides the scores then too.
>
>But most people simply DO NOT REALIZE how many games commercial engines
>tested before they play a bit decent chess. We talk about thousands of
>games for each beta version at slow levels like 40 in 2.
>
>Diep has a huge evaluation function and loads of code to
>guide the search. Especially in the first i change weekly things, so
>testing is very crucial thing for me. I need to mention that despite
>hard work of Jan Louwman, i still didn't test diep with the current
>openings book at the auto232 player!!
>
>This might really amaze you, but last weeks i have tried all kind of
>different opening books.
>
>From Marc L Bernstein books, to books of Cock de Gorter,
>as well as automatic generated books.
>
>So when taking commercial standards, DIEP was laughable tested,
>as i didn't play any game with the book i played the tournaments
>I-CSVN or CCT3 with.
>
>With commercial testing i mean: testing an engine using the same
>settings as where you play a tournament with!
>
>In this respect especially Shredder and DeepFritz and Tiger
>still have a major advantage towards the rest of the world.
>
>
> 3) Superb Opening book
>
>A few years ago the openings book issue was also there, though less
>important as it is nowadays. Nowadays this is probably the only advantage
>which some commercial programs have compared to most of the world.
>
>Shredder at random book completely gets annihilated by DIEP for example,
>just like it lost at CCT3.
>
>However for tournaments these guys have a special very well tested and
>well prepared book at home which definitely favours them, because what
>the book makers already realize for years: you need a position where
>an engine plays strategically well!
>
>Even a bad engine can win with a strategic advantage nowadays if it
>realizes it!
>
>The most simplistic case for DIEP are ben oni lines where DIEP has white
>and clearly realizes its pawn majority. It will always push it forward
>to create a passer on d5. So also programs that are very happy with
>passers and search very deep might do very well in that opening with
>white :)
>
>A very bad case is if i play KID with DIEP with black. That's
>completely suicidal against a good book, because diep will get
>attacked on the queen side and react on it by defending on the queenside!
>
>This is a completely wrong strategy in KID!
>
>Nowadays all engines, and not only because of search depths, have become
>much stronger in endgame, middlegame and everywhere. Even Gambit
>Tiger 2.0 has nowadays some sense of bad/good bishops seemingly.
>
>Also most engines do not play g2-g4 when being castled short just like
>that!
>
>Such laughable moves really are fixed in the EVALUATION of the engines
>nowadays.
>
>Now we all should know that chess is a weakest chain game. If SOMETHING
>of you is very bad, then you lose becuase of that.
>
>Definitely opening is from most programs the weakest chain nowadays
>where it wasn't in the past.
>
>The real reason for this is because the programmers themselves hardly
>have any chess rating themselves, or in my case hardly invested time
>in making their own book.
>
>The tournament book which DIEP has for example is around 6000 moves.
>Behind that i use several books, either from De Gorter, automatic
>generated, or from Bernstein.
>
>Yet entering those 6000 bookmoves cost me at most a week of work,
>where making my engine has cost me 7 years now.
>
>Most persons will wonder why, well there WAS a good reason to do so.
>
>Every week new theory gets discovered, usually refuting the lines
>from a week before, so updating your book is weekly work!
>
>However, if engine gets improved you keep that improvement forever!
>
>Further doing everything myself:
>  - interface
>  - engine
>  - book
>  - homepage
>  - daily answerring loads of email
>
>That's a bit much work of course!
>
>Now compare my book work to that of a normal 2200 chessplayer, who
>weekly checks out the latest theory, buys every few months a new openings
>book, and is doing anything to keep up with theory!
>
>After losing a SINGLE game such a player goes checkout what went
>wrong in OPENING. At least half of the analysis after the game are
>dedicated to the opening usually!
>
>KNSB (dutch chess federation) rating list 1 april 2001:
>
>2400 7814059  Kaan                J.E.F.            M 1245* 14-
>
>Now compare that with a 1245 rated 'born loser' Jan Kaan who
>played in I-CSVN with Yace with his own home made book. Of
>course that book doesn't make a chance, not to mention that
>it lost strategically in every line for Yace!
>
>Because that is the bitter reality. Now you don't need too much rating
>yourself to make a good book, as making a book is completely different
>from playing chess in a tournament.
>
>However, some strategical insight is at least needed to make a book.
>I know some 1200 rated KNSB players who play correspondence chess and
>manage to get good openings positions there, but of course Jan Kaan
>is completely chanceless against guys who DEFINITELY know strategics
>a bit like Pesce who made a book for Yace and Pharaon.
>
>  105872  Pesce, Carlos                         ARG  2045    0  19.04.61
>
>I'm really amazed that programmer of Yace allowed Jan1245 to delete
>at home the very good Pesce book and replace it by a Jan Kaan
>"automatic generated beginners book".
>
>Because strategically Jan Kaan is of course infinitely and with
>induction to forever worse than Pesce, who is at a chess level that
>he might outbook any IM and some GMs also.
>
>'Kaan automatic generated beginner books' of course
>also have no chance of course against for example:
>
>Cock de Gorter (KNSB rating):
>  2400 6164532  Gorter              C.H.      de      M 1950  3-
>
>Now this 1950 tournament rating is extra good
>considering that Cock is somewhat older and he's more busy
>with correspondence chess anyway.
>
>Jeroen Noomen (KNSB rating):
>  2400 6495632  Noomen              J.                M 2165  4*
>
>Jeroen is always won after opening in his games (Jeroen plays
>masterclass league in netherlands, so every round he faces
>either an IM/GM, or someone with a rating he'll never reach; Jeroen
>is one of the lowest rated masterclass players which play this
>year masterclass league).
>
>Jeroen gives however regurarly pieces away himself.
>
>From Alexander Kure i can give rating info from first hand,
>but he isn't on any FIDE list. We have
>played quite some blitz over the times and in all games he was won
>out of the opening, but somewhere blundered away a piece every game.
>
>So i won them all but one.
>
>Alexander Kure doesn't play actively tournament chess anymore but
>i would estimate him at at least 2100 if he would start playing now.
>
>Alex is analytically definitely also in IM/GM league, especially
>considering that his profession is programming, this makes him very
>dangerous against automatic generated opening books as he knows
>exactly how they get generated!
>
>Vincent Diepeveen (KNSB rating):
>  2400 6614817  Diepeveen           V.                M 2285  27*
>Vincent Diepeveen (FIDE rating):
> 1003054  Diepeveen, Vincent                    NED  2281   14  16.10.73
>
>I am usually lost after opening, and i hardly give away a piece,
>and i usually nail my opponent by exchanging into a safe to win
>technical endgame. If i have more as 15 minutes before the first
>time control (40 moves usual) and my opponent 5 minutes or less
>for a bunch of moves, then my record is a 100% score (that
>includes GMs & IMs). Note that all my team members call me 'diep'
>usually, just like my whole family is called in slang already
>for 250+ years here in this town.
>
>But quite a contradicting style between me and the book makers.
>
>Not amazingly with a style that's technical and positional better
>as any program, and tactical quite a bit less, but good compared
>to most of my opponents, my rating is going up and up, though with
>small steps of a few points each list, because i play very little
>rated games internationally.
>
>However the real weak chain in my own play is the same weak chain
>as that of most engines: book.
>
>Yet in contradiction to most engines i nearly
>ALWAYS PLAY THE SAME OPENING.
>
>So the bookjob for me is quite simple compared to the book job which
>most would have for their engine if they would maintain it.
>
>Jeroen for years played certain slav lines with Rebel and of course
>Tiger plays at tournaments mainly these well checked lines, whereas most
>engines play every round a different line.
>
>Also Alexander Kure (maker of fritz & nimzo & all chessbase books
>that join in tournaments) has the same record here.
>
>In a world championship you can already be prepared that the same
>prepared openings line gets always played by Kure. No exceptions and
>i cannot blame him there. Outbooking it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE, unless
>one did some real good work at home.
>
>So far only Noomen qualified for that. In past also Necchi did.
>
>I clearly saw how Noomen's book improved, as well as the big
>quantity of lines that Kure uses to kill automatic generated books,
>and also adding to that very modern lines for the quality at world
>champs.
>
>Necchi still has to proof that his level also has increased, but
>i don't doubt he'll manage to proof his point.
>
>Just generating a book from GM games in an automatic way is only going
>to be a sure zero against Kure and nowadays also Noomen. THEY ARE PREPARED
>FOR ENGINES HAVING AN AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED BOOK!
>
>Necchi already showed an outbooking mentality at SSDF years ago...
>
>That's a matter of a few thousands of games at a number of auto232 players.
>
>Now a few very inexperienced computerchess fans perhaps
>already wonder: "do the book makers have such bad ratings, how can
>1950 to 2200 rated persons make books for 2600 beating programs?"
>
>Well here is the bare truth: programs are strategical rated 1500 points
>at most. Meaning they either do something or they do not do something
>which is needed to do.
>
>So strategically all these guys are hell better as any engine.
>
>Secondly if Jeroen Noomen would play me in a match then i probably
>win it. My rating is higher, so i have a higher chance to win, but
>analytically he is in the same league. Add to that that he understands
>quite something from opening! So he might lose because i nail him
>somewhere in the endgame, where i definitely know more, or i might
>trick him in the middlegame with some tactics, but nowhere in the opening
>he'll be in danger that he doesn't understand something which i do.
>
>Same is true for most IM/GMs. I have no problems to follow games of 2600+
>rated persons. Same applies to all these guys. Of course, 2600+ will
>always win from me in a match. Especially opening where they prepare
>daily. But take for example Vaganian. He plays a lost openingsline with
>black!
>
>Yet by means of superb tactics he has a 100% score against me!!
>
>Analytically he is in no way better in opening or middlegame as i am!
>
>Because of his age and professional play for half a century
>he'll know hell more of endgame as i ever will.
>
>But that doesn't mean i cannot follow his games. I can in fact follow
>his games very well. Idem for the above book makers!
>
>So strategically every player mentionned here, with exception of Jan Kaan,
>will blindfolded beat a program strategically. Of course they all lose
>tactically, but opening is not about tactics only. It's basically
>setting up the game in a STRATEGIC sound way.
>
>Here amateurs only slowly catch up with commercial programs. But we
>must not forget that some commercial programs of the past who failed
>to keep up with book, positional insight, that those have completely
>fallen away.
>
>Good examples are of course Genius, Kallisto, Wchess,
>Virtual Chess and the list can go on.
>
>Though all these programs still could do well in blitz, they positionally
>and strategically are no longer in the same league as the modern
>chess programs.
>
>So there is a kind of natural decline there. For sure the programs
>with good books survived and others joined a company who offered
>good books, but my expectation is that this big book advantage is
>also going to get less when some 'amateurs' prepare well.
>
>Some in fact already do.
>
>
>            GUESSING THE FUTURE
>
>Where the book of Noomen and Kure have kicked many butts the last 2 years,
>usually getting near to 100% scores against bad prepared amateurs,
>others have kept up with it.
>
>Splendid jobs have been performed by for example Dan Wulff who makes
>book for Gandalf and Josef Zwinger who makes book of Insomniac (though
>its book lines are basically favouring white), and
>still the lines played by Cock de Gorter (The King, Tao, and also DIEP
>sometimes i test with his book) still can't be called suicidal as they
>all are strategically sound. Pesce definitely made impression last CCT3
>tournament!
>
>Sometimes old lines also work well if they're strategic sound you know!
>
>The more new openings theory gets invented, the more lines there are
>of course which can be called strategic sound. So in the future,
>just like in the past, after this chain has been made a bit stronger,
>in engine-engine matches the strongest engine will again win.
>
>What we already see is that some 'amateurs' are taking out commercial
>engines by surprise. In the future the world champion will be the
>engine that can beat amateurs the best!
>
>Best Regards,
>Vincent



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