Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 09:59:09 02/15/05
Go up one level in this thread
On February 15, 2005 at 12:40:22, John Merlino wrote: >On February 15, 2005 at 12:36:10, John Merlino wrote: > >>>I hope that you realize 750 rating points means roughly 0% chance. >>> >>>What is the chance in YOUR opinion a program without book in 2005 has to win a >>>world champs event? >>> >>>If you say 0%, that means 700+ rating points. >>> >>>Vincent >> >>I'll try to answer all of your posts in this one response, so as to not have to >>bounce around this thread. >> >>The obvious flaw in your argument above is that you are all of a sudden talking >>about winning a championship, but *I* am talking about using ratings to >>determine the statistical likelihood of SCORING POINTS in a single game, which >>has been the point of this discussion, unless I am grossly mistaken. >> >>As somebody else alluded to in this thread, you can be less than 300 points >>behind the highest ranked person in a tournament. But if you are the >>lowest-ranked player in this tournament, and there are a lot of other >>participants, your statistical chances of winning the tournament are practically >>zero. >> >>So, I agree with you that a program going into the computer world championships >>without a book has close to a 0% chance of winning the tournament. But this >>would also be true if all programs were of theoretically equal strength, and not >>having a book only decresed the strength by 300 points. >> >>You also refer to a human playing some very large number of games (I think you >>said 5000?) against a program without a book, eventually allowing the human (or >>engine with learning) to beat the program close to 100% of the time. This is >>also WAY outside the boundaries of this discussion. But the clear refutation of >>that argument would be to say "Maybe so, but what happens in the first 10-20 >>games of that test?" I'd bet that your theoretical human, who, let's say, is 700 >>points weaker than the engine (just to pull that number out of the air), would >>lose almost all of those games. >> >>Finally, I'm not sure why you are all of a sudden talking about Chessmaster not >>entering a world championships. Admittedly, I did bring up my very brief tests >>with Chessmaster on ICC that took place well over two years ago, just to provide >>some evidence that a strong program without a book can still perform decently >>against other strong engines, even occasionally beating them. But as for the >>reason that Chessmaster does not enter the WC, you should ask Johan what it is, >>because it has always been his decision. >> >>I haven't been involved in Chessmaster in more than two years, so I can't >>comment on the current situation. I wouldn't even venture to guess as to what it >>might be -- but I'm sure you know his e-mail address, so why don't you just ask >>him, instead of bringing up something that has nothing to do with this topic? >> >>jm > >One more point. Even Arturo has been referring to this "well-tuned book" being >specifically prepared for a single opponent. And this is all well and good, and >of course preparation for your opponent is vital. However, could this one book >be used equally successfully against ALL opponents in a tournament. Clearly the >answer is no, and it might even be detrimental against other opponents. > >So, once again, I think we may be talking about different things. You and Arturo >(and others) are talking about a book that is designed to be played against >another specific engine, and Uri and I (and others) are talking about one >"generically strong book" that is intended to be used against all opponents. > >jm Uri doesn't know what he talks about anyway of course. He still thinks 1.h3 is a good book to test ones engine with. I never saw him take that back. This discussion goes way over his head. My point is very simple. You say: "close to 0%". The point being made is that a program at todays hardware (and not some imaginary hardware from the year 2100, nor a hardcoded tournament book in the executable like rebel had it) has a hard 0% chance to win the world champs. I specifically mean world champs as the strongest opponents show up there. Not just some amateurs. So i very clearly want the discussion here that it is a hard 0% and not 'close' to 0%. Close to 0% is also 10%. It is not 10%. It is not 5%. It is 0%. And not 0,001%. It just never has happened. And it never WILL happen. There is only 3 possible results in chess. You win a game, you draw a game, or you lose a game. So we cannot calculate with 0.00000001% if there never is going to be 0.0000001%. There have been last 9 years precisely 2 winners. Shredder or Junior. So chances 'near zero' is not a good definition at all. We want hard formulations. As you win a title or you don't win a title. It has 0% happened so far that an engine without book won that title. It has a 0% chance. A hard 0% chance. Vincent
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