Author: Bob Durrett
Date: 14:00:19 10/31/02
Solving the general problem of emulating the chess play of "humanity" might be a prohibitively difficult task. Perhaps a lesser accomplishment would be "good enough." For example, one could select a dozen or more specific humans and then emulate them individually. If the group of humans selected for emulation were chosen wisely, maybe they would represent [or "cover"] the entire population reasonably well. The larger the group, the better they could represent the entire population of human chessplayers. Suppose someone with a 2800 rating were selected and called opponent #1. Then someone with a 2700 rating might be selected and called opponent #2. This could be continued until the rating was so low that there would be no need for more. #1 = 2800, #2 = 2700, #3 = 2600, #4 = 2500, etc. The next step might be to expand the list by having several individuals at each level but with different playing styles. There should be quite a few distinct emulated humans at the amateur levels, since that's where most of the people using the program would be. The intent maybe should be to emulate these people primarily in the middlegame and maybe endgame. The opening repertoires of the individuals might also be copied but that might not be such a good idea unless the repertoires were large. A typical amateur might not have a complete opening repertoire at all. In this case, one might be provided for him. To select a specific individual to be emulated, it would be necessary to have a fairly large collection of his/her games played at the desired performance level. Such a collection might be hard to find for amateurs. How could the chess play of a specific individual be emulated without such a collection of games? Maybe general well-known traits of chessplayers at the level being considered could be used to synthesize an emulation in that case. The emulations could then be used in a chess-playing program designed to serve as a training tool. People would train against the emulated individuals at their level in preparation for future contests with humans. Clearly, this would be inferior to a full-scale emulation of all of the chessplayers in the World. For example, if the number of individuals emulated were too small, one might "learn" the individual traits of the specific individual emulated. After that, playing against that specific emulated individual might become boring. Care would be required to assure that the games would have some variability. This could be done in the opening, especially. Maybe a random number generator would be used to randomly select the openings. This is surely done by most or all programs using an opening book anyway. Bob D.
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