Author: andrew tanner
Date: 14:51:27 05/14/03
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On May 14, 2003 at 14:53:58, J. C. Boco wrote: >I've been musing about different computers, both dedicated and software for >PC's. I've recently had a new thought which I'm sure is old-stuff to all of you >veterans out there. > >I usually play with the level setting which states the average response time for >the computer to make one move. For example let's say the level is "3 minutes on >average for each move". > >But I could achieve the same time control by setting the computer up for 40 >moves in 2 hours, and let the computer budget its time. > >While I can see that the time control of 40/2hours may make the machine a little >stronger since it can search deeper (longer) in hairy positions, just how much >stronger will it get? > >My lay guess is the 40/2hours time control is not much stronger than the 1 move >every (on average) 3 minutes. Does anyone have any insight? Here is my non-programmer, winboard entusiast point-of-view. Against grandmasters I would prefer to set it at 3 minutes per move, thereby reducing the possibility that it would overlook a deep positional plan. Some engines have more efficient time management schemes, where greater amounts of time are spent on opening preperation I guess with the idea that once the engine wins a material advantage it will need only to make several moves before consulting the endgame tablebases which can't lose. The freeware engines in competitions don't seem to manage their time in the opening very well (understandably). They do a good job for the most part on time management overall, but have no way of knowing when an extremely critical position is reached out of the opening or any phase of the game for that matter. It is said that the great positional players have no trouble beating computers (probably for this reason). If there was a program that could accurately calculate the long-term consequences of it's own positional weaknesses then maybe we would have an unbeatable player.
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