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Subject: Re: Next comp vs humans, comp should not use book

Author: Richard Pijl

Date: 06:14:56 10/13/04

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On October 13, 2004 at 09:07:31, Reinhard Scharnagl wrote:

>On October 13, 2004 at 08:56:50, Richard Pijl wrote:
>
>>The Baron played a 2-game match of Fischer Random chess against Levon Aronian
>>this year. Obviously no opening book was used, and on request of the
>>organization the Baron also played without endgame database access. Both games
>>ended in a draw. The engine was at never in trouble. You can find the games at
>>http://www.chesstigers.de/alte_daten/chesstigers_alt/Tigers/cc/2004/e/default.htm
>>As a preparation the Baron played in a simultaneous event against our
>>club-champion. I removed the opening book access during that game. Due to the
>>unusual setup in the opening phase the human quickly lost track of the game and
>>resigned in 11 moves. Btw, this game was played _before_ I improved the piece
>>development evaluation in the Baron.
>
>Hi Richard,
>
>you are doing well! One of the intentions to my "fair" computerchess approach
>is that the programmers will be encouraged to improve their programs during the
>opening phase. Today programs only very rarely have the chance to show their
>abilities here, because of being overruled by the holy cow of opening library
>usage. Congratulation to your improved evaluation, its the right direction!

It's simply a must-have when writing an FRC capable engine. There are no opening
books (yet).
And of course, when the opponent of the engine manages to find a hole in your
book, you should be able to survive on your own!
Adding endgame knowledge that is also covered by tablebases in the evaluation
function is done for another reason. During quiescense search no access to the
tablebases is possible as it slows the engine down too much. But the decision to
take the road to trading down to an endgame is often based on the knowledge in
the evaluation function.

So I'm not at all against using methods like an opening book or endgame table
bases as they will help increasing the overall playing strength of the computer.
But an engine should suffer too much when it doesn't have access to them!

Richard.

>Regards, Reinhard.
>
>>NN - The Baron 1.3.1 beta 4
>>1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 Bf5 3.Bg2 e6 4.O-O Nf6 5.d3 Bc5 6.Nbd2 O-O 7. Re1? Bxf2 8.Kh1 Bxe1
>>9.Qxe1 Nc6 10.e4 Nb4 11.Qd1? dxe4 0-1



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