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Subject: Re: The importance of opening books -- a simple experiment

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 13:15:14 02/17/05

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On February 17, 2005 at 14:50:57, John Merlino wrote:

>On February 17, 2005 at 14:23:20, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On February 17, 2005 at 14:15:57, Sune Fischer wrote:
>>
>>>On February 17, 2005 at 14:03:30, Tord Romstad wrote:
>>>
>>>Well 700 Elo is equivalent to about 5-6 pawns material advantage,
>>>I don't think I have ever seen that in an actual game much less
>>>seen it on average.
>>>
>>>I can believe in a good book giving half a pawn or ~50 Elo,
>>>not much more than that is realistic IMO.
>>>
>>>Perhaps the person you refer to is talking about a book
>>>with "perfect chess" reaching 80 plies deep? :)
>>>
>>>-S.
>>
>>No, the person he is talking about simply lives in an alternate universe where
>>our normal rules of physics and math do not apply...
>>
>>I don't see why anyone would even bother participating in that particular
>>discussion, much less running tests.  I claim that water freezes at 12.7C,
>>who is going to run a detailed test to see if that is right or not?  Or is
>>common sense enough?  :)
>
>I can't believe I'm going to do this. But, to defend Vincent and Arturo to some
>degree, I'm PRETTY SURE they were referring to a book that was specifically
>designed to be played against a single opponent. Somebody please correct me if
>I'm wrong.

Even so, 750 points?  Against a program using a random unknown book with
learning?  I personally don't buy it.  Vincent's quote "you lose the first game
and the next 1980 games after that."  I can only say my program would not lose
the next 1980 games by playing the same again and again, with or without the
opening book.

>
>So, the only accurate way to test this (regardless of your argument that it
>doesn't need to be tested at all due to "common sense" -- which may be a fine
>argument but I'm not too sure it holds up scientifically :-) would be to create
>a book that is designed to exploit the weaknesses in Hiarcs' book, and then test
>with that. Then compare the results to using NO book, which, I believe, Vincent
>was arguing reflected the other end of the 700-point range.
>
>Will it show the possibility of a 700-point ELO gain? I very highly doubt it.
>But I do think it will result in a much bigger difference than the 3 points out
>of 100 that came from the first test.
>
>jm


Here is the fly in the ointment.  I'll be happy to run the current version of
Crafty, using the current book, for 3 months.  Vincent or anyone can book up
against it until their hearts are content.  Then I will enter a match with them,
either using a book or not using one.  But I won't necessarily use that exact
version of Crafty for the match since I _always_ enter something more recent
than what has been publicly distributed.  What is the probability I will get
killed by a program that normally plays equal with me if we both use random or
no books, but I lose 99 of every 100 games (750 rating points is somewhere
around that win rate) when they use their super book and I use either no book or
a random book?  I'll bet the two programs will play within reasonable bounds
about the same as they did earlier.  No way to get a 99:1 win rate by just a
book, particularly when you are claiming you can extend that streak for 2000
games.  It just won't happen...  A pre-planned opening against a specific
opponent can win a single game, no question about it.  I have done this in the
past, multiple times.  But not repeatedly against a book with randomness and
learning, or against a version of the program that might well play different
from the first move out of book.




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