Author: Sune Fischer
Date: 17:57:13 06/01/04
Go up one level in this thread
On June 01, 2004 at 20:15:08, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>>Perhaps an engine is not well tested in that mode? >> >>Good argument, but what if I reverse and say some engines might not be well >>tested with ponder on? > >There is no cure for stupidity. If someone tests their engine in sub-optimal >configurations, then they could expect problems. I don't see a solution for >stupidity. :) Not everybody has a dual system to test in optimal settings. That's not stupidity, that's necessity. If you want to talk about stupidity, then real stupidity is to test under conditions where no user is going to use it and then afterwards whine about it. >>You can't play a fair tournament that makes everybody happy. > >actually you can. Play "run what ya brung" and let the chips fall where they >may. If someone gets ripped by a learner program, they'll probably be learning >by next year. If someone gets ripped by a killer book, they'll probably fix it >to avoid getting ripped next year. > >"lowest common denominator" is not very interesting. Playing "who can come up with the lamest tricks so we avoid real chess programming" is not very interesting either. >>As for pondering in particular, the protocol specificly has easy and hard >>commands to turn pondering on and off. Thus any xboard compliant engine should >>know how to play it both ways, if some engines don't then it can simply be >>considered a weakness, IMO. > > >Nobody in their right mind considers ponder=off to be "full strength" however. >So weakening the engine by doing so is a "caveat emptor" situation. How do you propose to test pondering on a single cpu machine? > >>>IMHO an engine should be tested "as is". >> >>What if two engines have conflicting "as is" settings? >> > >Impossible. Play mine "as is" against yours "as is". There can be no conflict >there... Oh, so you get to play with ponder on and eat half my cpu and trash my cache? Forget boddy. >>Would playing an aggressive learner against a non-learner be an interesting >>experiment at all? >> > >No. But if the non-learner stays a non-learner, he can expect the same result >over and over until he chooses to fix it. He will fix it, it's just way down on the list, right next to "watch the grass grow". >You can either take direct action yourself to fix a problem, or you can manually >cripple the opponent to "equalize things". But the latter is not possible at >(say) the WCCC, or on the SSDF list. There, discretion is advised and learning >is recommended as a key survival tool. That's so few games learning isn't going to matter anyhow. -S.
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