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Subject: Re: NEVER saw Hiarcs7.32 lose on time like in your game??

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 19:34:04 10/13/99

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On October 13, 1999 at 21:47:24, Dave Gomboc wrote:

>On October 13, 1999 at 21:36:54, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On October 13, 1999 at 19:50:41, Dave Gomboc wrote:
>>
>>>On October 13, 1999 at 12:18:57, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On October 13, 1999 at 03:34:11, Shep wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On October 12, 1999 at 13:59:47, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>this case 7.5 minutes. In this case I saw instead that Hiarcs, with 1 or 2
>>>>>>>minutes left after move 52, used all its time, with the word TIME appearing on
>>>>>>>its clock. I had never seen this before either. In this 8th game it was lost
>>>>>>>anyway, but Hiarcs lost on time.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Enrique
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Regards,
>>>>>>>>Terry
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Very human-like, this time management! :)
>>>>>
>>>>>I have seen this often, especially in Hiarcs 6. At move 32, its eval drops from
>>>>>+0.1 to -1.5 and it suddenly uses like 30 minutes for that move, so that only 5
>>>>>minutes remain for the last 8 moves. In other words, Hiarcs is the only program
>>>>>that really gets into time trouble like a human.
>>>>>
>>>>>---
>>>>>Shep
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>This still sounds like a _serious_ "bug" to me.  -1.5 is not absolutely losing
>>>>by any measure.  But 5 minutes for 8 moves probably is losing against a good
>>>>opponent with way more time.
>>>>
>>>>A fine line exists between using just enough time to save yourself, and using
>>>>too much time and basically leaving the game resignable.
>>>
>>>A drop from 0.1 to -1.5 is an excellent time to start panicking.
>>>
>>>Dave
>>
>>
>>
>>Yes... but with caution.  -1.5 isn't necessarily losing.  Time == 0 is
>>absolutely losing.  You have to weigh those two opposing issues and come up
>>with something that doesn't turn a possible draw/loss into a definite loss...
>
>It's big enough that if you're not busted, you've misevaluated how bad your
>position is!
>
>Can someone post the position where the fail low occured at?  We can see if it's
>a middlegame or an early endgame or what.
>
>Dave


I couldn't begin to count the number of games I have seen where crafty was
-1.5, both against computers _and_ against GM players, and yet it won or
drew many of those. So at -1.5 it has a fair chance of not losing.  But
with the clock's flag down it has _no_ chance of drawing or winning.

now if that eval was a slip from .0 to -6.00, then I might spend 10x the
time, as that is probably lost (although again, I have seen crafty win and
draw from that far down).  But against a good player, -6 is likely lost.  And
burning a bunch of time to remedy it might be reasonable...

In crafty, I even burn extra time to try to correct positional drops in the
score (-.3 for example) as that is sometimes bad enough to lose, particularly
in endgames.



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