Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 12:43:00 10/26/01
Go up one level in this thread
On October 25, 2001 at 14:12:37, Uri Blass wrote: >On October 25, 2001 at 12:02:29, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On October 25, 2001 at 06:37:00, Mike Hood wrote: >> >>>There have been a lot of posts (over the years) about how to make engines >>>weaker. This is an interesting question that I'd like to revive. I mean, it's >>>not just about getting to the top of the SSDF list. Very few people who buy a >>>current chess program at its full unleashed power stand a chance of even drawing >>>against it. It's a matter of playing enjoyable (and instructive) chess in your >>>spare time. >>> >>>I'm disappointed with most of the handicap levels in chess programs. Everything >>>from "Drunken Assassin" to "Paranoid Scaredycat" delivers poor chess, making >>>stupid blunders that anyone with an ELO rating over 1000 can take advantage of. >>>The only successful handicapping that I've seen is limiting the ply depth of the >>>search. Limiting the ply search of an engine to 4 (or maybe 6) ply leads to the >>>engine playing solid but beatable chess. Maybe I'm just speaking from my own >>>limited perspective as a 1550 player, but I have the impression that the >>>blunders made by a plydepth-limited engine are very "human". >> >>I don't think this works. I ran some tests on one of the chess servers once >>with a very limited search depth and still saw ratings of over 2200 at times. >> >>Bruce ran a version of Ferret on ICC with a time limit of milliseconds per >>move and it too was in the 2200 range if I recall correctly. > >I think that one of the problem is that the games of ICC are usually blitz and I >guess that the poster talks about 2 hours/40 moves and not about blitz. > >I agree that the style is not similiar to humans because humans do tactical >mistakes that 4 plies is not going to do even at 2 hours/40 moves. > > >>The problem is that against weaker players, even shallow searches see through >>their simple tactics, and you _still_ have the full positional evaluation of >>the program, with weak squares, pawn structure, king safety, etc. to guide the >>program. >> >>If you reduce the search depth, you only reduce tactics. You won't find a >>1200 player that understands much about pawn majorities, weak pawns, king >>safety, etc. > >The poster is 1550 player and not 1200 player. > >Uri I wasn't really speaking about _his_ rating. Just a "low" rating. IE I suspect that Crafty at 2 plies would be non-trivial to beat for very weak players. I've seen it play (and beat) 2000 players with a rook missing, on a P6/200... I think it is hard to get the rating _very_ low. It isn't hard to weaken it quite a bit, with a couple of simple commands. But to do it both accurately, _and_ allow very low ratings seems pretty hard...
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