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Subject: Re: Rigging of Opening Books (Larry Kaufman)

Author: David Blackman

Date: 01:14:45 05/31/01

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On May 29, 2001 at 16:44:03, Alan Grotier wrote:

>
>I agree with you. I think your idea is a good one but judging by the number
>replies I think we are alone.
>Perhaps you idea is too radical for this august group!
>
>Alain

(I haven't read most of the postings in the thread, apologies if this has been
said already.) The biggest problem with disabling openning books for a
tournament is that for some of the commercial programs there is no way to do it.
You tell them to not use the opening book, but they still do, or at least use
part of it.

A better way might be to choose a special starting position that has not occured
in a recorded chess game before and start all games from there. Play at least a
double round robin so each program gets a chance to play both sides against
every opponent. The opening moves should be silly enough that no-one will have
prepared in advance, but still result in an roughly equal and fairly quiet
position.

A tournament like that would be interesting, but i still would prefer to see
"normal" chess with no restrictions on opening books for the major events.
Preparing good openings is part of the game. Preparing openings that are not
necessarily good but cause trouble for your opponent is also part of the game.
For many GM games, it is the most important part of the game.

I say this as someone who has written a chess program that currently has no
opening book :-)



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