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Subject: Re: Forget it

Author: Anson T J

Date: 22:08:47 08/11/03

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>Not only SSDF do that. Companies are selling incomplete CDs sets, users download
>only some TBs (I doubt many will download e.g.. kqqkb), etc. That is common
>practice.
>
>If program cannot properly handle such practice I'd call that program's fault,
>especially when ways to fix such a behavior are well-understood and discussed
>here (and in other forums) lot of times. Such program will lost half a point
>here and there, and in *my* opinion that's fair.
>
>If programmer still don't want to include proper fix, (s)he can modify the
>program, so (for example) it will not start with incomplete set, or will not use
>it, or will give large warning on startup, etc.
>
>BTW, those fixes will also lower product support costs...
>
>Thanks,
>Eugene

I believe the Chessbase Fritz GUI warns you if you have an incomplete set of
tablebases and requires confirmation before proceding with a tournament game. I
don't think its fair to penalise an engine because the tester set it up
incorrectly.

I can see why an incomplete set would cause problems but not how to solve it
easily. If a position yields a score of mate in 8 due to tablebases, but the
mate requires a transposition into a tablebase set that isn't present, the
program will be choosing between a mate in 8 and a score of say 9.00 if it
hasn't yet found the mate for itself.

From Dr. Hyatts posts, I gather Crafty handles incomplete TBs, but how?



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