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

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 09:00:13 05/17/05

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On May 17, 2005 at 11:40:14, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:

>On May 16, 2005 at 23:06:29, Darrel Briley wrote:
>
>The main problem by letting computers invent their own openings is that todays
>programs without opening book still are utmost beginners.
>
>It is like a race car with bicycle tires. The idea behind this would be that
>less resistance to the ground allows a higher speed of driving, as the car has
>to do it itself, instead of let the slicks work for it.
>
>In theory it would be able to do 400 kilometers an hour still, but you slip at
>every corner, most importantly the first one, and your starting position is real
>bad as the start goes very slow thanks to lacking grip.
>
>A big effort has been done by Dann Corbitt a few years ago with his
>Crappy Analysis Project. If i may recall the idea was that a book reinforced
>with scores from chess engines at all nodes, would create a good book.
>
>If i remember well i was one of the few directly writing down here it was not
>going to work. Several commercial authors also were a bit negative surprised
>that it worked *that* bad. The project died a slow death. Silent, out of sight,
>as the resulting book didn't kick butt.

A killer book was never a goal of the CAP project.  You can read the FAQ:
ftp://cap.connx.com/pub/Chess%20Analysis%20Project%20FAQ.htm

The CAP project is still going strong (in fact, it has never stopped).  Convekta
uses (and now creates) the CAP data.
http://www.convekta.com/

>In short, there is big statistical evidence that every book, without human
>intervention is sucking more than a book with human intervention.

No argument there.

>That said i hope you realize one shouldn't confuse this with book learning. Book
>learning is very effective in that you can repeat your last win and can avoid
>losing/drawing in the same manner.
>
>But trusting the computer on his own from the first move, is a kind of suicidal
>thing to do.
>
>So to speak the computer is 1800 rated in opening, it's 2400 rated in
>middlegame, it's 2200 in endgame and it's tactical 4000 rated. Of course never
>making a tactical mistake soon lays the overall border to 2500-2600 when the
>weak chain called opening is removed by using a book.
>
>>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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