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Subject: Re: Question for John Merlino?

Author: Mike Byrne

Date: 13:18:40 12/30/03

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On December 30, 2003 at 13:23:06, John Merlino wrote:

>On December 30, 2003 at 12:17:10, Mike Byrne wrote:
>
>>On December 30, 2003 at 11:31:06, Javier Ros Padilla wrote:
>>
>>>On December 30, 2003 at 08:08:48, Mike Byrne wrote:
>>>
>>>>On December 30, 2003 at 01:48:57, Javier Ros Padilla wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On December 29, 2003 at 23:25:44, Mike Byrne wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On December 29, 2003 at 19:22:35, David Dahlem wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On December 29, 2003 at 19:12:26, Javier Ros Padilla wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Is there any chess program able to adjust style and parameters of play analysing
>>>>>>>>the games of a player from a database?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>That is, is there any chess program able to imitate the style of a chess player?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Thanks
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Javier Ros
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>There are several programs with "personality" settings that can be adjusted,
>>>>>>>such as Chessmaster, Rebel, Deep Sjeng, and the modified Crafty 19.08 SE engine
>>>>>>>by Mike Byrne.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Regards
>>>>>>>Dave
>>>>>>
>>>>>>You can always build a book based on all the games of that player -- and you
>>>>>>make programs more aggressive,defensive, sacrificial, cautious, strive for open
>>>>>>or closed positions -- so in that context the answer might be yes if that is how
>>>>>>you categorize how that player --- but it's a stretch to say any program plays
>>>>>>like "xyz" player...
>>>>>
>>>>>Ok, I want to know if any program do this work automatic
>>>>>
>>>>>Javier Ros
>>>>
>>>>I am not exactly sure what you mean when you say "automatic" ...I have
>>>>personality settings -- in crafty ...type "krafty morphy" at the command prompt
>>>>or crafty.rc and it will more sacrifices, type "krafty petrosoan" it was play
>>>>defensively and strive to keep the position closed, etc -- is that what you mean
>>>>...
>>>
>>>When I say automatic work, I want to say that you only give to the program the
>>>database and the name of the player. The program adjust the parameters of the
>>>program spending hours or all night.
>>>I think that Chessmaster creators have such program to build the personalities
>>>
>>>Javier Ros
>>
>>I do not know of one, but let's ask John Merlino - he would know.
>>
>>John , how did Ubisoft develop the personality GM parameters used in
>>Chessmaster?  Was it automatic based on database analysis or just human
>>judgment?
>>
>>TIA
>
>A good portion of both. First was the creation of the opening book. We used the
>program's opening book editor to import a PGN file of all games of a particular
>GM. We had to do this once for all games as White, and then once again,
>appending all of the games that the GM played as Black. The difficult decision
>was exactly which parameters to use for the import. In particular, should we
>include moves that the GM played in games that he lost? Should we discard moves
>that he only played once? We eventually decided to include lost games AND moves
>that the GM only played once -- we felt that this would more accurately reflect
>the "style" of the GM.
>
>Secondly, and probably more important, was the creation of the personality
>settings. After all, by far the majority of the moves that the personality would
>play would be after the opening book ran out. We used several GMs and other
>chess experts (Seirawan, Evans, Schiller and Josh Waitzkin created his own
>settings) to help us create these personalities.
>
>So, while we did our best to make it seem like you were actually playing against
>that GM, the process certainly was not "automatic", and took a great deal of
>time and thought for each one.
>
>jm

Thanks for the in-depth answer - as one who has created modified personalities
for crafty - I can tell you that I spent no-where near the energy or time that
the folks at Ubisoft spent.  Making a book about 20 ply deep for apersonality
should be realtively easy today.  I agree with including the losing moves -- it
does make it more realistic,



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