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Subject: Re: 9 rounds will not always give you the "best" program

Author: Sune Fischer

Date: 16:09:17 01/21/03

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On January 21, 2003 at 18:17:15, James T. Walker wrote:

>On January 21, 2003 at 14:49:36, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>On January 21, 2003 at 07:33:46, James T. Walker wrote:
>>[snip]
>>>Playing Fritz 8 vs Chess Tiger 15 or something similiar is not equal to a coin
>>>toss.  You are purposely distorting the issue with false analogies to try to
>>>prove a not so valid point.  For instance a coin toss would be more like playing
>>>Fritz 8 vs Fritz 8.
>>
>>Everything is like a coin toss in a physical world.
>>
>>For instance, you turn on the light switch and the light comes on.  Or does it?
>>Perhaps the bulb is burned.  Perhaps the power grid is down.  Perhaps there is a
>>fault in the switch.
>>
>>There is a great deal of randomness in everything in the physical world.
>>Randomness is deliberately built into chess programs.  If they played in a
>>completely deterministic way, once you figured out a way to beat them, you would
>>win every time.
>>
>>For programs at the top, there is very little difference (according to
>>measurements).
>>
>>I am convinced that we will never know which of the top programs are strongest.
>>It should be easy enough to prove me wrong[*], but I doubt if anyone has the
>>time or the will to even attempt it.
>>
>>[*] In theory.  In practice, I think a quintillion hours of computer time will
>>be hard to come up with.
>
>Dann,Dann,Dann,
>Every thing in the world is not like a coin toss.  Please prove that simple
>statement and I will read the rest of your nonsense.
>Jim

The coin toss is an abstraction, a mathematical model used to encapture some
statistical properties. Many things, like those Dann mentioned, has same type of
probablity distribution, from a mathematical point of view they are identical
problems, solve one and you solve them all.

-S.



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