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Subject: Re: 4 games! and my comment to these "games"

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 20:40:33 09/01/99

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On September 01, 1999 at 17:32:41, KarinsDad wrote:

>On September 01, 1999 at 16:45:45, Thorsten Czub wrote:
>
>>On September 01, 1999 at 09:32:38, Harald Faber wrote:
>>
>>>>>AMD-K6-200, most out of 64MB RAM, 3min/move.
>>>>
>>>>????
>>>>
>>>>3 min/move ?? 40/120 or average 3 minutes ?
>>
>>>EXACTLY 3min/move EACH.
>>
>>What is the sense to give them 3 moves each exactly ???
>>CSTal plays weaker in this time-control than in 40/120.
>>so you weaken it.
>
>Yes, but the other programs had the EXACT same limitation. Obviously, if this
>configuration weakens CSTal (as it should), it will also weaken it's competitors
>(as it should). The test is still valid. It's just a different type of test AND
>people have to take it for what it is and not try to make any other assumptions
>about it. One cannot assume from a test like this that CSTal is weaker than
>these particular opponents if permanent brain is turn on and/or the program
>decides when how much time to spend on each move (which I believe is an
>assumption Harald has made) because it lost games where these features were
>turned off.

Time management has become relatively important.  I'm not sure how much penalty
there is to using a naive time management implementation than a sophisticated
one.  It would be interesting to hear the opinion of commercial developers on
this.  My guess would be 20+ elo.  It has been suggested that much work has gone
into CSTal's time management code, so I sympathize with Thorsten's point of view
here.

I think it's best to test with a time control of n moves in x minutes, on two
machines, with pondering on, where n should be significantly more than 1. :-)

>>
>>>>Also : played on ONE machine or played on 2 machines ??
>>>>permanent brain on/off ?
>>
>>>2 machines pb=off as they were played via e-mail.
>>
>>pah - than the games are nonsense ! you do not test the programs,
>>you test something different.
>
>The games are not nonsense (you like that word I guess). Neither are the tests.
>If you test G5 in your "prefered" configuration of permanent brains on and
>program decided time per move, it would still be a valid test of JUST THAT
>configuration (and no other configuration). It wouldn't tell you how well CSTal
>or any other program would probably due in standard game times.
>
>What is it with this notion that testing MUST be done under x y z conditions and
>cannot be done under p q r conditions? Results of any testing must take into
>account the conditions set up, but that does not mean that a non-standard test
>has no validity. Granted, if the two programs had different conditions, then
>your point would be valid. But, the conditions were the same for both opponents.
>
>What tests like these CAN show (if enough games are played) is that there could
>be configurations that are good for one program, but bad for another program.
>But, that does not mean that the games are nonsense.
>
>KarinsDad :)

It doesn't mean that the games are representative of the results one would get
when playing comp-comp under tournament conditions, either.  Of course, you know
that already.

Dave



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