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Subject: Re: Time for a New Interface for CC engines?

Author: David Mitchell

Date: 01:35:19 09/06/05

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On September 05, 2005 at 09:44:37, Zheng Zhixian wrote:

>
>It doesn't matter what you use ,UCI, xboard etc As long as the interface is done
>by an absolutely netural party, what tricks can the commercial engines do?
>That's why many of them will never let their engines run on a third party
>interface.

Here's an example of a dirty trick:

The interface will allow the engine to request the time it has left on it's
clock, at any time.

So, being very clever the program makes it's own move and then WHILE THE
OPPONENT is thinking of it's move, it makes HUNDREDS of requests for the
remaining clock time, every minute.

Each request causes the CPU to be diverted away from the thinking chess engine,
to service this request. Effectively "dumbing down" the opposing program,
considerably.

And unless you were monitoring the com link, you would NEVER know what the hell
was going on, why the other program was playing so poorly.

Chess programs are $$$, and the success of a program in tournaments and testing
can mean the difference between a big money maker, and a marginal one, other
factors being equal.

That's why the interface needs to be "defensively programmed" from the ground
up, to detect, and cause an immediate loss, for any such dirty tricks by a
program.

Dave



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