Author: Kurt Utzinger
Date: 12:27:48 12/15/03
Go up one level in this thread
On December 15, 2003 at 05:53:30, Rajen Gupta wrote:
>i have tested junior 8 myself and it is very strong at least as strong as
>shreder 7.04:
>
>it is completely meaningless to test any engine with ponder off: junior has a
>special time management feature which is very different from the others; it
>spends a disproportionately long time in complicated positions (probably in
>order to find the best line) while spending much less time in clear cut
>continuations; it depends very heavily on its opponents thinking time for this
>sort of time mangement to work well; hence any meaningful for any programme
>testing has to be on 2 computers or 2 cpu's with ponder on:
>
>playing on a single computer with ponder off is like a boxing match in which the
>boxers can only fight one-handed; or a running race where competitors have to
>hop on one leg instead of running on 2 legs!
>
>Kurts testing has unfortunately been done on a single computer and the results
>will be quite different
Your statement does not match with our experience. In all cases
[except low blitz level] Junior 8 is doing very well and this
with/without pondering or with/without tablebases. Junior 8
indeed belongs to the strongest engines available at the moment
and due to its fascinating playing style it is still a "must have
program" for us. And Junior 8 has played very well in our RK 2003
tournament http://www.utzingerkurt.com/rk_2003_english.htm with
ponder=off. After 70 games [120'/60] the program of Amir Ban
had only two points less than Shredder 7.04. This is nothing
and with some more luck, the winner could have been Junior 8.
It was not our intention that people take wrong conslusions
from our NBE 2003 tournament which was mererly a most interesting
experiment.
Kurt
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