Author: Heiko Mikala
Date: 14:56:24 11/02/99
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Hello Enrique!
On November 02, 1999 at 05:37:10, Enrique Irazoqui wrote:
>On November 01, 1999 at 18:39:40, Heiko Mikala wrote:
>
>>Hi Enrique!
>
>Hi Heiko :)
>
>>On November 01, 1999 at 12:32:35, Enrique Irazoqui wrote:
>[...]
>So the best I could do, I think, was replaying a game with Wcrafty
>16.18, trying to follow the times used by Tiger. Not easy at all at blitz, but I
>think I managed and Wcrafty played the same moves.
Oh, you did that already! I thought you only tested positions, sorry.
>>I don't know, if there is a difference, but there happened one thing today that
>>made me wonder again: during the last months I have run a lot of blitz
>>tournaments on my computer, all g/5, all using Fritz as the interface. In my
>>rating list, generated by Fritz, which contains more than 2200 games by now,
>>Crafty (Fritz native engine) and Little Goliath 2000a are roughly equal in
>>strength. Today I had a look Frank Quisinkys homepage again, who, as you surely
>>know, runs large tournaments using Winboard. But in his latest rating list (on
>>the news ticker page), which also contains about 2000 games IIRC, Crafty
>>(Winboard engine) is about 100 points ahead of Little Goliath...
>
>It seems ("on my computer", singular) that you played in eng-eng form within
>Fritz. I don't trust this way of playing. If Frank used 2 computers, his
>results are more reliable.
Yes, in contrast to the g/60 tournament, which is played on two computers, the
blitz games have all been played on one computer (I'm planning to change that
too). That could make a difference indeed. But, remembering the recent
discussions with Frank involved, I think he also plays on one computer with
pondering disabled.
>I think that a necessary condition to do well in comp-comp is to be a very fast
>finder, not sufficient, but necessary. So let me make a prediction for your
>tournament, assuming that you will play a large number of games on 2 computers:
>CM6K, F6 and H732 will be on top; Rebel and Crafty will end up half way, and
>Mchess and Genius will be far behind.
Hmm, I'm not so sure about this. I saw some *very* impressive games by MChess
Pro 8, although I also saw two games with big blunders where MChess was clearly
leading. Bugs? My feeling is, that with some small changes (corrections?) MChess
could be back on top. So I'm not 100% sure about this fast finder thing. On the
other hand, my guess is, that MChess is using some extremely effective
search-extensions, and, if it has a good day, is one of the best tactical
programs around. Positional it's ahead of most other programs anyway.
Genius is always good for a surprise too, although I, personally, have my
problems with it's "lack of agressiveness". But it's still one of the best.
But yes, F6 and CM6K seem to unreachable for Genius and MChess at the moment.
My feelings about Centuries playing strength are mixed at the moment, I'll have
to play more games to make up my mind (I loved Rebel 8's sound play!).
Hiarcs I still can't judge. It seems to be neither the agressive attacker (like
MChess for example) nor the pure defender (like Genius). It definitely has some
problems in king-safety, as MChess has shown in two great games yesterday
(although MChess lost one due to one of the above mentioned blunders).
Watching comp-comp games can be so extremely interesting! If only I knew, how to
explain this to the wife and the kids... ;-)
>I am not sure at all that being a fast finder is as important in human-computer
>games and that comp-comp results can be extrapolated to performance against
>humans. So about trying to find out through comp-comp "how strong Crafty (or any
>program) is compared to the commercials" in human-comp, I am a bit skeptical. I
>think that comparing comp-comp with human-comp is entering unknown territory.
Agreed. My general feeling is, that a program which is strong against other
programs should be strong against humans too. But, as I know from experience
(from running my own program on FICS), there are some very important things,
which you can only learn from letting your program play against humans. Good
human players play *completely* different than good computers. They're so damn
strong in long-range planning and building up king attacks. There are big holes
in conventional chess programs that you will never be able to find and fix
without playing against humans.
Greetings and thanks for your reply,
Heiko :)
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