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Subject: Re: Clones and moral behavior

Author: Tord Romstad

Date: 14:47:10 08/24/05

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On August 24, 2005 at 16:55:04, Rolf Tueschen wrote:

>I dont know why you become so aggressive.

Hi Rolf,

I didn't mean to come across as aggressive, and apologise if I did.

>I saw a photograph from you in Mainz and I thought, why the guy is always
>so aggressive towards me since 1997, he looks so peaceful.

I like to think that I actually am rather peaceful, but I'll leave the
judgment to others.

>Something is wrong here. 14 certainly wasn't meaningful, it
>was thought to be just a high number.

My point is that it isn't a high number at all.  Pick any chess program you
want, and it will contain much more than 14 well known techniques which
have been used in chess programs for a decade or more.  By your definition,
basically everything except Symbolic would be labeled a clone.  Chess
programming has come quite far, and improving substantially on the
published algorithms isn't easy.

To some extent, chess programming is still a matter of finding new
and clever ideas, but mostly it is a matter of implementing and combining
the known techniques in an elegant, efficient and bug-free way.  This is
much more difficult than it sounds.

>But ok, you answered at least. - Now my question: what afterall did you
>invent yourself in computerchess programming?

I was a chess player in my youth, but I always found chess playing to
be a very taxing endeavor.  It just required too much concrete, deep,
exact calculations for my taste.  I eventually decided that it was exactly
the kind of task that was better suited for machines than for humans,
and started writing a program.

>And second question: why - after all these copies - is your program not among
>the winning ones at tournaments?

This is a somewhat strange question.  If you are talking about informal engine
vs
engine tournaments run by users, my program has of course won a lot of them.
If you are talking about OTB tournaments, I have only participated in one, and
I don't think I can count 0 wins in 1 tournament as a big failure.

I guess what you really meant to ask was why my program is not among the
strongest.  There are countless reasons for this; the two most important are
lack of programming skills and lack of ambition.

>Please answer without the usual hatred please.

I've tried, I hope you are not too disappointed.

Tord



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