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Subject: Re: a challenge to all competent computer chess programmers !

Author: Ulrich Tuerke

Date: 04:46:54 12/22/03

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On December 22, 2003 at 07:43:27, Uri Blass wrote:

>On December 22, 2003 at 07:24:59, Ulrich Tuerke wrote:
>
>>On December 22, 2003 at 07:08:09, Duncan Roberts wrote:
>>
>>>Different software engines have different strengths and weaknesses in different
>>>types of positions and I once saw mentioned the idea that one could raise the
>>>elo level of chess software by 150 points by having some software which would
>>>interface with the top 5 programs and would have all of the strengths and none
>>>of the weaknesses of each individual program. This would be achieved as the
>>>interface program would ask the individual program to only play the type of
>>>position it played best at.
>>>
>>>kasparov once mentioned that in certain positions junior plays at 150 elo points
>>>higher than the competition, on the other hand he said fritz is more 'certain'.
>>>
>>>An interface program should be a far tougher challenge for kasparov to crack. It
>>>would truly reflect the best of computer science against the best chess player.
>>>
>>>I do not know much about computer chess, but I assume that to implement this in
>>>at least a basic way should not take a great deal of time. (a week ?)
>>>
>>>Is this right? and if so (although it is easy to ask) why is nobody doing it.?
>>>
>>>There must be many good programmers on this site whose chess programs while good
>>>cannot realistically hope to reach the 'top 10'. Surely (assuming the top 5
>>>chess program authors co-operate with this) they would be making a much bigger
>>>contribution to computer chess by implementing an interface program.
>>>
>>
>>So, the interface program has to find out, which engine to invoke in a
>>particular position. I would guess that this is at least a highly non-trivial
>>task. -:)
>>
>>I am also quite doubtful whether it really makes sense to switch engines within
>>a game, this way violating continuity of game. E.G., engine A may thrive for a
>>position which engine B doesn't like at all.
>
>I think that there are cases when it make sense(I do not think that it is easy
>to do it in the most productive way but at least it is possible to do it in a
>productive way).
>
>If it is known that engine A has better knowledge in rook endgames then you can
>decide to start to use it after transition to rook endgames.
>
>I did not try to find out which engine is best for different types of endgame
>but I guess that other people did it.
>
>Another example:The choice which opening book and program to use may be
>dependent lon the first move of white and it is possible that program A perform
>the best against 1.c4 when proigram B is the best against 1.f4(it is possible to
>use statistic of previous games in order to find out).
>
>>
>>BTW, SMK's older project - development of a kind of triple-brain - had gone a
>>bit into a similar direction. Stephan had 2 different engines, analyzing
>>simultaneously, and a 3rd program controlling them and making a decision which
>>result to accept. AFAIK, this project had terminated.
>
>The main problem with that project is the fact that it made the program slower
>because 2 engines had to analyze on the same time.

The engine had run on separate threads in a multi-processor environment.
I think that Stefan finally had realized that the win from hardware environments
like this is safer when using a parallelized version of the same engine instead.

Uli

>
>The idea that is suggested is to give all the time to one of the programs based
>on the position.
>
>Uri



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