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Subject: Re: Another Idea to Promote Variety & Consumer Happiness

Author: Geoff Lane

Date: 09:35:32 11/16/03

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On November 16, 2003 at 11:54:24, Bob Durrett wrote:

>
>It often happens that the second best middlegame move, and sometimes third,
>fourth, etc., are almost as good as the best move insofar as the engine can
>tell.
>
>A chess engine programmer could program the engines to offer more variety [in
>the middlegame] by providing a randomizing function in the engine.  This
>function would cause the engine to play second-best moves a certain percentage
>of the time.  This would be done only if the second best move were "almost" as
>good as the best move.
>
>To make consumers happy, the engine designer could provide a way for the human
>user to adjust the probabilities of playing alternate moves.
>
>Just an idea.  [ Does everybody like "new" ideas?  : ) ]

I don't think this is such a new idea, Bob. The dedicated chess computer Novag
Scorpio 68000 has a BEST MOVE/RANDOM button. When RANDOM is selected the
computer randomly chooses between two or more moves which are almost equal in
evaluation. This I believe is a 1991 machine and is probably not the first Novag
to have such a feature.

Geoff

>
>Bob D.



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