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Subject: Re: To build a book or not?

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 14:55:20 07/16/02

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On July 16, 2002 at 17:22:03, William H Rogers wrote:

>I agree that a 20 move deep opening book would be a lot greater than one that
>was on 10 moves deep. In fact, last year one game in a tourneyment was won by a
>program that did not ever leave its opening book. I personally think that that
>is totally rediculus as the book included opening, midgame, and end game all in
>one. I have maintained for over 10 years now that opening books should be
>limited only to the first 10 moves as they are considered the openings, after
>that you are in mid game, etc. How do you rate a program that might be only
>rated at 1200 elo when its opening book complete destroys the top 5 or so
>programs rated at over 2600 elo? The use of opening books should be limited in
>tourneyment games so that the true strength of the programs can be seen, not the
>extensiveness of the books. What is sold to the public on the other hand can
>have anything goes so long as the option to controll is there.
>I know that most of the programmers here believe that anything goes, but in my
>opinion we are trying to build and test the best "chess engine" not a
>combination of other junk that has been included.
>Of course if you already have an enourmous book with your program, then you will
>not agree with me but want to keep the winning combination.
>I am sorry if I get a little riled about this subject, but to me chess
>programming is just that "chess programming" not playing a game totally from
>book without ever using your engine.

I disagree.  If they can solve chess with the book alone, then that is what they
should do.  It would be a pretty big book, I think.

Also, I think that the quality lines should go as deeply as possible.  If this
extends to the tablebase files, then that is superior to stopping early.



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