Author: Amir Ban
Date: 02:55:44 11/06/99
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On November 05, 1999 at 20:19:19, Bruce Moreland wrote: >On November 05, 1999 at 17:40:59, Amir Ban wrote: > >> >>One benefit of the ban-crafty debate of a few days ago is that I learned how to >>use the ICC 'search' command and discovered that it gives much more information >>than I thought it did. >> >>I went looking for the game in which crafty timed out when ban had insufficient >>material. I found it, very easily, and it's listed below. It took place on >>October 7th, i.e. 4 weeks ago. >> >>If you add up the crafty times (or easier, use ICC 'examine'), you will see that >>crafty had 2:19 minutes on the last move, but did not make a move till time ran >>out. >> >>The first reaction to this by Bob & others was that I was making this up. The >>second reaction was that crafty crashed or hung, so I looked for the game crafty >>played next, and I discovered that ban started another game with crafty 15 >>minutes after this game started, meaning immediately after this game ended. So >>crafty did not crash or hang. >> >>I include below the ICC commands I typed in (in quotes), and the ICC output >>including the game moves & information. >> >>I tried messaging Bob on ICC to tell him that, but this is impossible as he's >>censoring me. I assume he has interest in this. > >I don't understand why you bring this up again. > Ok, I will elaborate some, but you have to promise to keep KarinsDad from jumping all over me again. The first reason is because I've been told several times that I'm lying for telling about this game. The second reason is to help the author to track down and analyze this problem, to prevent it from happening again (specially against me), to point to a bunch of similar behavior that have in common that they are annoying to the opponent, and to hope that the program author will take a less indifferent attitude to them. This is more in line with my original reason for jumping in these threads, and I admit that to continue with it now is of not much use since it backfired and I seem to have made a bad job of explaining it. I've explained most of it in http://www.icdchess.com/ccc/message.html?76120, i >Here is my viewpoint. You are sitting there playing chess, the game is a draw >and you are a pawn down. Your opponent, sits there and flags rather than >offering a draw or playing on, which is scored as a draw because you have >insufficient material. Possibilities: > >1) The program had some software difficulty and stopped making moves. > No doubt. Also, this problem, in isolation, is meaningless. It's hardly even the main thing I'm complaining about (I listed it last in my list. The main problems I see are refusal to draw and refusal to adjourn). I'm sure such problems are created innocently, but they stay there because of indifference to things that don't cause direct harm to the program, unlike other problems, which get hunted and fixed right away. >2) The operator deliberately threw a wrench into his own program's spokes in >order to waste two minutes of your time, then lied about it later. > The program's automatic so this didn't happen. >Sorry, but I gotta go with option 1. If Bob had wanted to screw you over it >would have made much more sense to simply grab the newspaper and head off to the >bathroom. You would have had to sit there making manual moves in a pointless >game, which would have annoyed you for a longer period and would have achieved >the same result. > Not in this game, you'll notice. Black loses the knight next move, and it's possible to end the suffering in 3-4 moves, if the opponent agrees to make a move, that is. Making manual moves in a pointless game happens very often in games against crafty when the program functions flawlessly, becuase it will never take a draw. Actually the game is not completely pointless, because you may always lose on time, as happened in, e.g. the last game crafty flagged ban. This rarely happens to a smooth operator, but it's a pain. Remember that crafty not only drags out drawn games to silly lengths, but there's no escape from them: Crafty refuses adjudications, penalizes disconnectors, and its author is sure disconnectors are cheats and says so. The experience of playing crafty manually on ICC is quite a bit like arriving first day to boot camp. >If you want to find reason to accuse your opponent of being evil, this is very >thin. > I'm not accusing my opponent of being evil, and I never did. Rather indifferent about things his program does that are not in its disinterest, and too haughty to be bothered with it. >I found something interesting with "search", too. "search crafty ban mode=tm" >returns 3 games. Did you look at the third one? It's an old game back from >when you were automatic, and it is very similar to this one, with the situation >reversed, and only 33 seconds of dead time rather than 2:19. > This is from 3 years ago when Shay was debugging the interface. It was hanging left and right. Notice the game was played unrated for testing purposes. He didn't manage to find the problem so at the time the automatic interface was shelved soon after this. He looked specifically for automatic computers that will not bother playing against a program that hangs often, as I'm sure you remember since yours was another such opponent. It's not the same thing at all, if that's what you mean. Amir
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