Author: stuart taylor
Date: 18:14:23 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 Might it be possible that the next Hiarcs could be a breakthrough in computer chess level, from what you can guess (based on your understanding)? I'm talking about long timings too. Or is it that Shredder etc. is the REAL monster when given time? (and Hiarcs might just be optimized for blitz, but improves evaluation very slowly after more time, by which time Shredder catches up and overtakes)? S.Taylor
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.