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Subject: Re: If You should pick just one test suite...

Author: Mike S.

Date: 12:14:16 05/23/04

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On May 23, 2004 at 14:59:47, Jouni Uski wrote:

>... which one? Let's say simply, that you must decide if new mystery engine X is
>good or bad without playing single game! Is it public test suite or have You
>your own? At least WAC and ECM are totally useless...

While I'm aware that the tactical speed is only a part of an engine's strength
profile, I trust my own Quicktest tactical testsuite for a

*quick first estimation, if an engine could be among the tops or not*
(not drawing much more conclusions from it though).

http://members.aon.at/computerschach/quick/quicke.htm

I think, from all elements an engine's strength consists of, the tactical
strength is the most significant still (for a rough estimation), because as I
see it the quality of the search is directly related to it.

In addition to this, a very interesting new engine would have to show me it's
performance in various similar positions like those in the QT., but which aren't
published as a collection (I'm constantly collecting such positions). So I would
be able to spot a "tricky" engine which has learned the QT. solutions, although
I would of course never expect that somebody does such dirty things! :-)

But if a software publisher would ask me to do a beta test and/or give an
estimation of a new engine, I would use various larger testsuites, comparing the
results with those of known strong engines. I think the NACCA collection is one
of the best to choose from:

http://homepage.mac.com/chessnotation/TSD.html

(A sidenote: Unfortunately this NACCA plan and website is discontinued? I read
nothing new lately. Anyway, I hope the TSD resource remains online. It's good!)

Regards,
M.Scheidl



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