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Subject: Re: Does anyone Beat their Program or am I just lousy against computers?

Author: Randall Shane

Date: 07:13:29 08/20/99

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When I first read the title of your post, I thought 'their program' signified a
program that the person wrote...anyway, I'll respond to both the actual question
and the question I thought it was...

(Actual)
Myself, I never have beaten Chessmaster 5000 without severe time asymmetry and a
few takebacks -- but I'm a ~1500 player, that's to be expected.

(Supposed)
Well, here's a perspective from a programmer just getting into chess
programming...

I'm writing a program myself.  It's got problems.  It doesn't have an opening
book yet, no endgame knowledge to speak of, a suspect position learning feature,
and an occasional bug in the search (I think) that causes it to occasionally
drop a piece.  It's got a hybrid bitboard/array representation that looked neat
when I thought it up, but is quickly proving to be slow.  I'm apparently
over-valuing square control and under-valuing development.

It usually gets to 7-8 plies in a 1 12 game, however, and despite its many
flaws, it usually (nine times out of ten) beats me.  And it's not a very good
program...although, admittedly, I'm not a very good player. :-)

Most programmers probably can't beat their programs terribly often.

(Summary)
Don't worry -- most people are lousy against computers, unless you artificially
handicap them -- less time, takebacks, etc.



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