Author: James T. Walker
Date: 19:08:18 01/30/04
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On January 30, 2004 at 12:01:23, George Sobala wrote: >My conclusion is pretty much like yours - when two engines are even only >approximately of similar strength, the randomness of the play caused by the very >short time control is far greater than the true difference in strengths. You can >measure out to 1000000 games, and all you do is measure the randomness of blitz >play. > >Far better to play fewer but longer games. If you flip a coin 200 times and get heads 101 times and tails 99 times would you conclude that it was because you didn't flip the coin high enough into the air? In my opinion your conclusion about randomness caused by short time controls is the same thing. Two programs of approximately equal strength will naturally have very close results. I feel certain however if you run a million games you will have a very good answer as to which program is stronger between Fritz8/Shredder8. Programs today on modern hardware are looking ahead about 10 ply minimum with extensions in some cases another 20/30 ply at blitz time controls. I would not call this random play. Programs today play better chess at 5/0 than 99% of human chess players playing at 40/2 hours. By the way, in my blitz database, Shredder 8 is only 13 Elo ahead of Shredder 7.04 and 19 Elo ahead of Fritz 8. Jim
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