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Subject: Re: Two Questions about Time management and matches on 1 or 2 computers

Author: Inmann Werner

Date: 15:45:05 08/29/99

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On August 29, 1999 at 15:22:41, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On August 29, 1999 at 13:40:00, pete wrote:
>
>>On August 29, 1999 at 13:25:05, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On August 29, 1999 at 13:18:23, pete wrote:
>>>
>>>>1. ( I only post this one here , but it wasn't my idea )
>>>>
>>>>If the time management suffers that much if either ponder=on or ponder=off why
>>>>not add code that checks if ponder is enabled or not at the start of the game
>>>>and adjust your time management ? I really like this idea .
>>>
>>>
>>>But the question is, adjust it to _what_?  Time management is non-trivial, and
>>>most of us do a _lot_ of testing/tuning/tweaking with it before we are happy,
>>>and some of us modify it on a regular basis as things show up.  Who wants to
>>>take time to play hundreds or thousands of games with pondering off, just to
>>>get the new time allocation code properly tuned? When we really don't play like
>>>this _ever_.

I agree...

>>>
>><snip>
>>
>>I understand that _you_ wouldn't . But is this also true for the programmers of
>>commercial progs who have to face the fact that many users ( even professional
>>testers ) will  test just like that and come to misleading conclusions ?
>>For example Chessbase even advertises with results of that kind of matches . If
>>I were a programmer for the Chessbase factory I sure would think about it.
>
>
>Ed doesn't either.  And I wouldn't be surprised if everyone else doesn't spend
>a lot of time on ponder=off games either.  It is simply 'unnatural' to run a
>program that way...

yes, for you, cause you let your program play on ICC. For me (in Europe) this
is much to expensive. So I let my computer play during night under Winboard or
Fritz Gui against other Engines to test it (games are better than positions).
For Comp-Human play it might be "unnatural", but give me a person playing
hundreds of matches against my program, or give me a set of computers, so I can
use autoplay....
For the profis and commercials it may be "unnatural", but for me (and maybe some
others?) it is better than nothing....

Werner

> and most of us would rather spend time tuning the program
>in the state it will play games, not in some crippled state that a user might
>use to play games.  IE do we also tune for (a) tiny transposition tables;  (b)
>no opening book;  (c) no databases (endgame); (d) modified user parameter
>settings; (e) any other random thing a user might try???
>
>IE I do my testing in the configuration that plays the best/strongest.  Not in
>configurations that someone might use "just because it is there..."



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