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Subject: Re: God's Opening Book ( Opening Book as Hash)

Author: Darrel Briley

Date: 20:06:29 05/16/05

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On May 16, 2005 at 21:28:21, Komputer Korner wrote:

>Now that chess engines are rated equal to top GMs, why can't some chess
>programmer  write a script to enable a copy of his engine Ex:
>Fritz,Shredder,Crafty to analyze every position (where there is more than 1 move
>choice in the book) let us say for 2 minutes each starting at the beginning of
>the book. Then it would automatically put in the numerical annotation in the
>opening book. After a couple of months or so, X number of plies of opening moves
>would be completely annotated(depending on the size of the book. Or better yet,
>the openings could be split up and one computer each could be used on each
>opening and then at the end they could be combined. I am assuming that the books
>and combined master book would catch all transpositions like the ChessBase and
>Bookup opening books do. Then the programmer or company could sell or give away
>this annotated master book which the customer could change with new information.
> Or has this already been done. I know that there are lots of small books that
>have been done but what about God's opening book?



I've been thinking for some time along similar lines.  Why isn't the opening
book treating in a similar fashion to the hash tables (I.E. the final book
position annotated with the score, depth, result) and these annotations would
not be discarded from game to game, but would be maintained and built upon, in
this way it seems there could be continual improvement on the engine's book.  At
first only the final book position would/should be annotated, but in subsequent
usage, additional moves/positions could be added to the book; one ply at a time.
If such "book" parameters could be adjusted by the user so that an already seen
position would only be analyzed if it did not meet a certain depth/result, I
think it would be invaluable in improving a poor book, and could make an already
strong book better. I realize this would entail a book becoming larger, but with
today's storage soloutions this doesn't seem to be such a major consideration.
Taken one step further...

I'd like to build a PC that would be a dedicated chess computer, and ideally the
program's book handling would operate as already mentioned, but in addition to
this, idle time on the computer would be spent analyzing the book, and the games
the machine has played.  This could be focused by the user, or could operate
fairly autonomously, at the discretion of said user through selectable menus.

I'm not a programmer, so I'd appreciate any input/thoughts on the utility of
such an approach.  I realize that book learning already does some of this
already, but the ability to add moves/positions to the book isn't currently a
feature that I'm aware of in any program.  Also, the ability to have the
computer do analysis during idle hours, either automatically, or through a
user's guidance (but still largely automated, so as to alleviate some of the
tedious attention to detail required) would be a wonderful feature IMHO.

It's not hard to envision other aspects of such a system.  The engine would be
continually tailoring the book to maximize its own strengths, and to minimize
its weaknesses.  Also, if the program had the capability to recognize unique
opponents, and to keep a record of the opponent's openings and results, the book
learning would be so much more effective.  Any thoughts?



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