Author: robert flesher
Date: 17:01:49 01/08/04
Go up one level in this thread
On January 08, 2004 at 18:34:40, Stephen Ham wrote: >On January 08, 2004 at 17:16:17, Bob Durrett wrote: > >>HIARCS X plays as “sinferno” at ICC on an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ @ 2.5GHz computer. >>It holds the "official" ICC Blitz Record at 3604 and has the fewest losses and >>better overall records versus strong titled players than any other computer on >>ICC. It has only lost five games to two titled players but has played a large >>number of GMs, IMs and FMs. It is currently the top engine at ICC using >>Standard time limits. >> >>Why is that? Why is it better than all the other chess engines no matter what >>the hardware? Is SSDF missing something here? Is there a disconnect here? >> >>Bob D. > >Hi Bob, > >That's a great question, to which I'd like to learn the answer too. I don't know >anything about the ICC; I've never been there. But a few nights ago I thought >that it might be fun to have a 5' match (10-games) against Shredder 7.04. > >Although I'm bored stiff by 5' computer games, I saw value in this one since I'd >completely overhauled Shredder's opening book to only play the lines that I play >in Correspondence Chess. Ordinarily, at slow time controls, Shredder virtually >ALWAYS wins. So I naturally feel smug about my opening book. ;-) Therefore I >thought it would be fun to finally see what my book and Shredder would do to >Hiarcs 9 at 5'. After all, Shredder 8 defeated the latest Fritz at Blitz in >Graz. > >To my shock and horror, Hiarcs 9 won convincingly (I don't recall the score but >it was probably +3). So I examined the games and saw that Hiarcs and it's goofy >opening book actually played superior tactics than Shredder. So I repeated the >experiment. This time the score was something like +2, favoring Hiarcs 9. Same >story on game quality. So I prepared Shredder's opening book for some of the >offbeat stuff that Hiarcs plays (Hiarcs repeats the same lines it has success >with a great deal), and the next result over another 10-game match was 5-5. > >Conclusion: Hiarcs' 5' tactical skills seem superior to Shredder's. Also, while >Hiarcs' opening book seems quirky (and often downright bad), Shredder seems to >need more time to refute the stuff that Hiarcs plays. In my latest long >time-control match and tournament, Shredder was dominant. > >If I get time, I'll try a long time-control match and switch opening books. I >have a theory that Hiarcs 9 would perform better if it weren't handicapped by >its opening book. Oddly enough, this quirky book just may be an asset at short >time controls in that it often removes the other engine from its book, saving >Hiarcs time on the clock. Clearly this isn't much of a factor at longer >time-controls where quality of moves played prevails. > >Well, that's my 2-cents worth. > >All the best, > >Stephen
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