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

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 18:17:23 08/29/99

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On August 29, 1999 at 18:45:05, Inmann Werner wrote:

>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



maybe or maybe not.  If you do all your tuning with ponder=off, I'll bet your
time utilization with ponder=on will not be very good.  And unfortunately, you
will probably use ponder=on in the _important_ games, such as at the WMCCC and
WCCC.

I subscribe the the philosophy "dance with the one that brung ya..."  and I
spend all my time testing in the mode I am going to play important games in.

I have done it the other way in the past (particularly with Cray Blitz) and
without proper testing, we were _never_ satisfied with its time utilization
and ended up tweaking (and sometimes breaking) it during a tournament.  Not
with Crafty...




>
>> 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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