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Subject: Re: To build a book or not?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 14:44:36 07/16/02

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On July 16, 2002 at 17:38:02, Uri Blass wrote:

>On July 16, 2002 at 16:52:33, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On July 16, 2002 at 14:32:57, Russell Reagan wrote:
>>
>>>On July 16, 2002 at 11:07:10, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>However, with _no_ book you leave yourself open for preparation of traps.  I
>>>>saw Ken Thompson do this to NuChess years ago at an ACM event.  You don't want
>>>>to leave that kind of "hole" for a major event...
>>>
>>>Was it a trap set specifically for that engine? Or was it just a general trap
>>>that many engines fall for when left on their own?
>>>
>>>Russell
>>
>>
>>Sort of both.
>>
>>1.  Ken knew which opening Nuchess would play, as ken was white and they
>>had a pretty narrow book.  He simply added a line that made them go out of
>>book pretty early, with a classic trap where they gave up a piece to win
>>the rook at a1, and thought they were winning an exchange and losing a pawn.
>>In reality, they lost both pieces plus the pawn, and the game.
>
>It is not going to work against Movei even in bullet.
>
>Movei evaluates black knight at a1 as clearly less than a knight in normal
>squares and the difference in evaluation is slightly more than a pawn.

Look out on ICC.  Would you rather lose a pawn or be forced to place your
knight on A1/H1 for a while?  I would prefer to stick the knight on the
corner, because that can be corrected later.  Losing the pawn is losing the
pawn, period.  You can't make it come back later.

>
>It means that movei is going to see it as a bad deal[winning an exchange for
>losing more than 2 pawns(one of the pawns is material and more than a pawn is
>positional bonus)].
>
>When you know the opponent playing with small book is dangerous but when you do
>not know the opponent a big book becomes less improtant.
>
>If you do not do your program public in the months before the event then
>the opponents will have problems to prepare trap against a small book that they
>do not know and can be changed between the games.
>
>Uri



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