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Subject: Re: This test is not scientific!

Author: Dan Homan

Date: 11:58:19 01/26/99

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Hi Don,

I agree completely with your remarks; however, I don't think Bruce
intended to compare these results directly to Bob's 98% match statistic.
Bruce intended for Crafty to be re-tested with this same match critera.
(I assumed that Bruce meant a match at 60s when he suggested 60s test
times).

I think that there are many wrong ways to go about this - In fact, I am
not sure if there is a right way, but Bruce's suggestion has the benefit
of being pretty well defined (i.e. what would most programs on reasonable
hardware play after 1 minute of searching).  It also has the benefit of
being short, so we can run a set of tests overnight.

Do we learn anything specific about Bionic under these circumstances.  I
don't think so... after all, Bionic played under very different conditions.
But what we do learn is something about the agreement in move choice
between programs.  Already the match %'s range from 30% to 80% with the
very specific requirement that the move match after one minute of search.
Looser match requirements will certainly lead to higher precentages.  How
much higher is an interesting question....  I'll run the first game under
your parameters (20 minutes/move on my 400 MHz Celeron, counting any match
for any length of time after ply=2).

I don't think this is about Bionic anymore (after all the best test is
to have a look at the executable they posted) but about the general
prinicple of drawing conclusions about program similarity from this
kind of test.

 - Dan

P.S.



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