Author: Francis Monkman
Date: 04:05:56 05/18/99
Who says it's fair that programs should play from *perfect* openings books? And, for that matter, aren't you bored of seeing so many computer-computer games trot out, maybe 25 moves on each side -- and then with two pieces and a rook, and a few pawns, they finally get to take part in a 'thinking' manner? Also, computers have been much used in recent years (not least by the World Champion) to renew many branches of opening theory -- why should we be denied the 'excitement' of the possibility of this happening across the board? I suggested this to Jon Speelman the other day -- "Why don't you get an agreed percentage of 'completeness' of opening theory among GMs [surely none would put it at 100%?]" and then programmers could introduce the inverse (ie the 'uncompleteness') as a randomizing factor" -- not of course in the moves chosen, but in the number of occasions the computer might be left to figure out its own move, maybe taking it out of book (though quite often not, I'm sure), and maybe starting quite early on in the game. Given that a program will always choose the same first move at a given time limit (?), perhaps move two. And if the GMs were to agree (and it might just rekindle some of their enthusiasm for playing machines) on a figure around, say 80% (I realize this is the wildest of guesses!), then the machine might be required to do its own thinking one move in five, on average, throughout the opening -- and if it takes itself out of book -- well why not? (Even fairly horrendous moves, like Tal's famous 12 f4 [17th WC game, 1960 -- eg Fritz plays this move cheerfully, perhaps also dreaming of the cinema] which drew 'gasps' from the crowd, can be hard to refute over the board.) Or start after three moves, or five, or something. Anything! Please! Perfect books are making computer chess more boring than it need be, also human-unfriendly. Funny thing. I'm sure I dreamed of another way of implementing this, last night... Francis
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