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Subject: Re: Is the SSDF taking a break from testing?

Author: Tord Romstad

Date: 11:58:32 07/15/05

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On July 15, 2005 at 14:39:53, Steve Glanzfeld wrote:

>On July 15, 2005 at 12:54:25, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>>And therefore, the games are vastly inferior in quality (as well as quantity).
>
>Vastly inferior? SSDF is testing 40/2h with 1200 MHz. CEGT is testing 40/40m
>with 2000 MHz. That is not much different in terms of CPU cycles per move.
>
>1200 MHz*180=216 billion cpu cycles per move
>2000 MHz* 60=120 billion cpu cycles per move

No.  You forget about pondering.  CEGT games are played on one computer,
without pondering.  This means that the actual difference is bigger than 2:1.

>So, the difference is smaller than 2:1 which means smaller than one ply.

One ply is a lot.

>And of course, within the same time CEGT can provide a larger quantity
>of games than SSDF.

Yes.  That is one of the many reasons why we are very lucky to have
both lists.  The two lists serve entirely different purposes, and one
of them cannot possibly replace the other.

The time controls, pondering and hardware are not the only differences.
There is also the matter of opening books.  The SSDF list is still the
only one which tests under strict tournament conditions.  Each engine
has the whole computer for itself, slow time controls, own book.  As
you point out, this has the obvious disadvantage that it takes a very
long time to obtain reliable ratings, and that it is never possible to
test most weak engines like mine.  Therefore the CEGT list is a very
valuable complement.

Tord



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