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Subject: Re: Strength Implications of an Opening Book

Author: Adam Oellermann

Date: 06:47:56 08/02/01

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On August 02, 2001 at 08:15:37, Marc van Hal wrote:

>On August 02, 2001 at 07:03:06, Adam Oellermann wrote:
>
>>Hi everyone,
>>
>>I have reached that point in the lifecycle of Blikskottel where I am thinking
>>about building an opening book. I am writing Blikskottel in order to win a bet,
>>and one of the terms is that *no* code is to be taken from other chess engines.
>>Therefore I need to write all the opening book stuff from scratch.
>>
>>My question is this: what kind of strength benefit can I expect from
>>automatically building an opening book out of a database of GM-level games?
>>Blikskottel currently rates around 1850-1900 on FICS, but is often forced to
>>play very awkward positions resulting from inferior opening play.
>>
>>Many thanks
>>Adam
>>
>>PS: I know that a better plan would be to build a "hand-tuned" opening book, but
>>there are a few problems:
>>- under the terms of the bet I would have to do it *myself*
>>- I am a rather weak player (maybe 1500)
>>- I don't really have the time or inclination anyway
>
>Something which can help is if you want a small openings book use Kasparov's
>games most of the time computers do agree with these moves.
>But i also have a database with 35.000 games which is prety good for an
>openingsbook
>containes games from 2600 rated and above and analyses

I have a similar database, as well as larger databases from 2450+ players etc.
I'm trying to find out what experience other programmers have in terms of the
strength improvement of no opening book vs. automatic-generated opening book.

This will give me an idea as to whether it's worth the effort now, or if I
should concentrate on other areas and come back to opening books when the engine
is stronger.

Thanks
Adam



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