Author: Don Dailey
Date: 08:17:56 06/20/98
Go up one level in this thread
>>Hi Roberto, >> >>I think your idea has much merit. I've always advocated picking lines >>that suit the programs style. Playing the program against itself >>might give some clues about how good the choice is. >> >>I would like to suggest another approach, one that I rarely use but >>I think also has merit. We all tend to constantly adjust the >>book and much has been posted on this subject from Bob and others >>including myself. But maybe we should consider the possiblility >>of adjusting the program to the book instead (or in addition to) >>adjusting the book to the program? There have been times when >>Cilkchess comes right out of book and quickly makes a positional >>error or weak move. I have sometimes fixed the cause of the >>error since I know there is a problem. I usually then also >>fix the book just to be on the safe side. In principle we >>have two "knobs to turn" not just one. >> >>If it's a more general case of the program just not understanding >>the opening ideas then I still think it might be an opportunity >>to improve your program instead of just ignoring the problem by >>tunning the book. >> >>I believe the hardest program to beat would be the one with a >>big wide opening book where the program plays each system >>reasonably well. Building one of these of course is no easy >>task! >> >>- Don > >Hi Don, > >Yes, this is something I never thought of doing. In my case it poses a curious >problem in that my program has a very different style of play to my own. Many of >the openings it uses are openings that I know comparatively little about, since >I never meet them in my own games (I always open 1.d4 with White, but my program >likes 1.e4 openings best). Since the program generally plays a bit better than I >do, and I don't always feel qualified to say what the best plan in an opening >is, so I have to rely on advice from publications and/or stronger players who do >use the openings in question, but then they do not always agree. > >I like your idea in principle: it should enable the program to handle more and >more openings correctly, but I think there might be cases when you make a change >to the program that succeeds in improving its play in a particular opening >variation, while maybe having an adverse affect on its play in another >situation, and, what is worse, with a really big opening book it would be >impractical to test the change in all the lines, or even in a large selection of >them. I think this problem would make it quite difficult to actually know how >well the program tuning was working. The advantage of altering a single opening >variation rather than a single evaluation term in the program is that you know >that nothing else can change as a result, so you can more easily test whether >the change has helped or hindered the program. > >Best wishes, > >Roberto Hi Roberto, I suspect that is why we all concentrate on the tuning the openings to the program instead. Indeed, the method I proposed is difficult to implement in practice, and it is not known how likely it will be to achieve the same results. If you see a problem, one simple change will fix it with the book tuning method, with my proposal it is not so easy. - Don
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