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Subject: Re: How to setup fair and reasonable enginematches?

Author: Joachim Rang

Date: 08:56:10 07/26/02

Go up one level in this thread


On July 26, 2002 at 06:15:06, Shaun Brewer wrote:

>On July 25, 2002 at 14:40:06, Joachim Rang wrote:
>
>>I'm going to make some automatches between amateur engines. As this is the first
>>time I try to make this, I'd be glad to get some advices.
>>
>>I will use a PIII-Notebook at 1.1 GHz with 256 MB RAM. I plan to make not a
>>tournament but one to one matches with much games (a few hundreds) to get
>>significant results.
>>
>>What are fair and reasonable testconditions?
>
>Try to reduce the number of background activities. On one machine I run Norton
>System Works which seems to ruin results. So I don't use this for matches.
>
>>
>>I will run the match on PIII 1.1 GHz and 256 MB RAM under WinXP. I think its
>>reasonable to give every engine 80 MB Hashtablesize. I still don't know which
>>GUI I shall use. I tested Arena and it worked, but with some problems. With
>>Winboard I don't know how to make automatches, maybe someone can help?
>>
>>First engine will be Yace 0.99.56, which I consider the strongest amateurengine
>>today.
>>Which engine can compete with Yace?
>>
>
>Crafty - I have so far found 17.10 to be stronger than 18.15
>
>Tests on Tbird Athlon 850 (120+2)
>
>Individual statistics:
>
>(1) wcrafty-17.10             : 500 (+166,=246,- 88), 57.8 %
>(2) Crafty-18.15              : 500 (+ 88,=246,-166), 42.2 %
>
>    Program                            Score     %    Av.Op.  Elo    +   -
>Draws
>
>  1 wcrafty-17.10                  : 289.0/500  57.8   2373   2427   27  19
>49.2 %
>  2 Crafty-18.15                   : 211.0/500  42.2   2427   2373   19  27
>49.2 %
>
>Tests on Tbird Athlon 850 (300+5)
>
>Individual statistics:
>
>(1) wcrafty-17.10             : 500 (+159,=231,-110), 54.9 %
>(2) Crafty-18.15              : 500 (+110,=231,-159), 45.1 %
>
>    Program                            Score     %    Av.Op.  Elo    +   -
>Draws
>
>  1 wcrafty-17.10                  : 274.5/500  54.9   2383   2417   29  20
>46.2 %
>  2 Crafty-18.15                   : 225.5/500  45.1   2417   2383   20  29
>46.2 %
>
>Tests on Tbird Athlon 850 (900+15)
>
>Still running something like +100 -40 =100
>
>Tests on PIII 1332mhz (1800+30)
>
>Still running (when machine not in use) too few games to be conclusive
>
>Individual statistics:
>
>(1) wcrafty-17.10             :  52 (+ 23,= 20,-  9), 63.5 %
>(2) Crafty-18.15              :  52 (+  9,= 20,- 23), 36.5 %
>
>
>>I think I will run the games with 10 minutes and 10 s per move for each engine.
>>Is this to short?
>
>No correct answer to this one.
>
>Some engines may be poor at blitz relative to their standard performance, the
>reverse or consistent.
>
>The longer the time control the better the quality of the games but a match to
>provide statistially relevent results could take months.
>
>>
>>Another question is, which opening books I shall use. Yace has an own book as
>>most of the other engines. But I don't know how good they are, SOS for example
>>comes only with a very little own book, which will be a handicap. Does someone
>>know a "neutral" but large book, which will run with the most engines?
>
>For your experiment I would use the book provided/recomended by the author
>initially. If you then test with a different book and this produces better
>results share your findings with the author.
>
>Have fun
>
>Shaun
>
>>
>>So far today, I'd appreciate any suggestions from you.


Interesting results for crafty. Maybe I choose to make the first match between
crafty 17.10 and Yace 0.99.56.

Which opening book you used for your matches (don't say from Hyatts FTP) and
which configuration file?




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