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Subject: Re: Optimizing a Chess Program's Settings Painlessly

Author: Volker Böhm

Date: 04:16:41 07/09/04

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On July 08, 2004 at 11:44:32, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>
>
>One fatal flaw.  This will produce a set of values that will optimize your
>results against a test set.  But that's not the same thing as producing a set of
>values that will optimize your results in actual OTB games.
>
>This is a common mistake.

Have you got an idea how to automatically optimize settings for OTB games?

Currently I need about 2 days on two computers to test if one setting is better
than another (with acceptable low error rate). The following experiences makes
things hard:

1. You can only find settings that are at least 5% better (gets 5% more points)
by testing. Optimizations below 5% will need to much games to give a
statistically "proven" (I use "it is better with a probability of 95% or more")
result.
2. Even for a "5%" better you need about 200 test-games.
3. The result will differ with different time-control. I ignore this problem
currently.
4. The result will differ with different opponents. I user a set of opponents.

Thus optimization is really hard work for me!

Greetings Volker




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