Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Time Management: "Life Expectancy" of a Chess Game

Author: margolies,marc

Date: 16:29:56 01/15/04

Go up one level in this thread


It seems to me that if a time management functon is properly implemented, then
it should not be an extrapolation of time spent. Instead, a good time management
system must take the eval function of the position into consideration. EG, if a
game is clearly winning one need only avoid blunders so in a zeitnot, the search
depth of the program might be abridged until time control is reached.


On January 15, 2004 at 18:00:15, Bob Durrett wrote:

>
>Given that a game has already taken t seconds and n half-moves, it seems one
>could estimate the time or number of remaining moves [or total time or number of
>half-moves] which are expected.  One might be more specific by asking "what is
>the amount of ramaining time which has 50% probability of occurring" or "what is
>the number of remaining moves which has a 50% probability of occurring.
>
>This is similar to questions about a human's life expectancy.  In certain
>countries, life expectancy at birth is about 80 years for a female.  However, if
>it is already know that a specific female in that country has reached the age of
>46 years, then the apriori life expectancy for that individual [and for all
>other 46 year old females in that country] would be somewhere between 80 and
>100.
>
>The relevance of this to chess engines is in the area of time management.
>
>It has been said that a properly designed chess-playing program should never
>lose on the clock.
>
>I do not know [and cannot know] how commercial chess engines do their time
>management.  [In view of Dann Corbett's list, there are also too many amateur
>engines to know about too.]
>
>Intuitively, it would seem that a chess-playing program would do such
>calculations to determine the optimum amount of time to take in calculation of
>the next move.  [This time must take into account time used by anything external
>to the engine.]
>
>My question is:  Do most chess engines do their time management this way?  If
>not, how is what they do different from the above?
>
>Bob D.



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.