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Subject: Re: Which is better? consistency or brilliance?

Author: Ricardo Gibert

Date: 11:23:25 07/10/01

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On July 10, 2001 at 13:45:33, Rich Van Gaasbeck wrote:

>Say you were considering two chess engine designs.  With one design you think it
>would consistently find a good move, but not necessarily the best.  Another
>design might give the best move most of the time, but occasionally give a bad
>move.
>
>Obviously one could make up positions in which either approach is better.  In
>real world games, though, which would lead to a better rating?
>
>In my chess readings I've come across sayings like:
>
>"Chess games are not won, but lost".
>
>"The person who won was the guy who made the second to last mistake".
>
>These point to consistency being more important than finding "great" moves, but
>blundering move often.  Is this true?


Yes. Playing a game of chess is somewhat akin to tightrope walking. You can
recover from the small mistakes (if you lose your balance, you can regain it to
continue the analogy), but one serious mistake and you're dead (splat!).





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