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

Author: Tony Werten

Date: 02:38:26 02/18/05

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On February 17, 2005 at 16:15:14, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>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.

Doesn't "no book" also imply "no book learning" ? From Vincents quote, he seems
to mean it that way.

Maybe positional learning will prevent you from loosing the same game time after
time, but not from loosing the same 5 games time after time.

Tony

>
>>
>>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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