Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: To build a book or not?

Author: Omid David

Date: 03:12:53 07/17/02

Go up one level in this thread


On July 16, 2002 at 16:20:30, Russell Reagan wrote:

>On July 16, 2002 at 15:14:17, Omid David wrote:
>
>>Each program has its own style and thus should play openings which fit its
>>style. Of course these openings should be tuned by the programmer, so a good
>>deal of chess knowledge is necessary on programmer's behalf.
>>
>>As an example, in tournaments I always play Sicilian against 1.e4 and adopt the
>>Scheveningen variation, so I need to have a vast knowledge of Scheveningen (and
>>Najdorf) while I can forget about Caro-Kann! Programs too should have their own
>>opening repertoire consisting of an extensive knowledge of all variations which
>>might occur in their chosen opening variations, while they can forgo other
>>variations.
>>
>>Omid.
>
>Thanks Omid. I have another question. Let's take an example. Let's say that my
>program has a Ruy Lopez line that goes to move 20, and then the book stops
>there. Would it be advantageous to let my program think from that position for,
>say, a week, and then add that move to my book? That way I have a week's worth
>of search instantly.

In a versatile opening like Ruy Lopez there are too many positions that can
arise after countinuing a variation. If you're sure which variation will arise,
then go ahead, let the engine search and record the result. But in practice
that's a total waste of time. You'd better work on tuning the variations than
letting the engine think on a particular position which in practice has a little
chance of appearingon the board.

Omid.


>
>The only thing that I forsee as a problem is the same problem that a beginner
>who memorizes book lines has. For example, let's say my program plays the last
>move in the book (the one that was searched on for a week), and it plays it, and
>my opponent responds, and then my program doesn't have access to the long
>variation that it had in the week long search, so now my program *might* (not
>sure about this) be just like the booked up beginner who doesn't know what to do
>when it leaves the book. For example, the program might need to search to 20
>plies to "see" the reasoning for it's previous move, and if it can only get to,
>say, 16 plies in the given time slot in a game situation, it might not follow
>that PV line. Do you see this as something that might be a problem?
>
>Thanks,
>Russell



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.