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Subject: Re: I doubt that List is a crafty clone

Author: Vincent Diepeveen

Date: 08:29:21 12/02/03

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On December 01, 2003 at 13:30:53, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On December 01, 2003 at 13:01:21, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>I sent a letter to David Levy
>
>
>I doubt it to, based on output.  However I have not been asked
>in any official query, as was done in the past with other programs.

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I was forwarded by the person who raised the protest (no that wasn't me) to the
ICGA a month or 2 ago:

----- Original Message -----
From: <censored>
To: "Robert M. Hyatt" <hyatt@cis.uab.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 12:05 AM
Subject: Potential Crafty clone

> Hello Robert,
>
> I have reason to believe a rather well-known program
> is actually a Crafty clone. It's rather new, the first
> versions already being extremely strong, the lastest being
> one of the top free engines.
>
> My suspicion started after observing that it had some holes
> in the evaluation which are also present in Crafty. It has
> a slightly higher speed than Crafty, uses the exact same
> extensions. The major difference seems to be that it uses
> (as far as I can determine) a crude form of tactical forward
> pruning, or at the least it searches a bit deeper but is
> positionally weaker.
>
> I have been able to determine of what source files the
> program consists (it's only available as an .exe):
>
> attacks.c
> board.c
> captures.c
> evasions.c
> hash.c
> init.c
> interface.c
> io.c
> programname.c
> make.c
> moves.c
> next.c            <-----
> pawns.c
> phase.c           <-----
> root.c            <-----
> score.c
> search.c
> speed.c
> timer.c
> uint64.c
> undo.c
> utility.c         <-----
>
> Most of these are rather generic so it's not suspicious
> that they are also in Crafty, with the exception of those
> indicated, as far as I know they are more or less unusual AND
> also present in crafty. There are some other things, like the
> seperation of make/unmake (here called undo), which as far as
> I know is also unusual.
>
> A previous version of the program consisted of:
>
> attacks.c        <======
> bench.c          <------
> captures.c
> chessboard.c
> hash.c           <======
> init.c           <======
> io.c
> programname.c
> make.c           <======
> moves.c
> next.c           <======
> pawnhash.c
> phase.c          <======
> ponder.c         <------
> recog.c
> score.c
> search.c         <======
> searchr.c        <------ !!!
> sort.c
> test.c           <------
> timer.c          <====== (time.c)
> undo.c           <====== (unmake.c)
> utility.c        <======
>
> There are a lot of additional hits with Crafty now, the most
> alarming being searchr.c. I indicated all sources which are
> also present in Crafty, there are a lot of them.
>
> Even more alarming is this:
>
> material_score
> pawn_structure_score
> passed_pawn_score
> king_safety_score
> interactive_score
> total_score
>
> His evaluation debugger has the exact same structure as the one
> in Crafty. Especially nice is the 'interactive score', I've never
> seen this anywhere but in Crafty either, and it's certainly something
> that is unlikely to be arrived at independently. Combining this
> with the rest of the hits makes me very very very suspicious of this
> program.
>
> What is your opinion? Am I paranoid or are we onto something here?
> Is there any way to track down more information?

> --





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