Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 12:52:50 02/18/05
Go up one level in this thread
On February 18, 2005 at 13:55:25, Dan Honeycutt wrote: >On February 17, 2005 at 17:48:18, Uri Blass wrote: > >>On February 17, 2005 at 14:42:41, Dan Honeycutt wrote: >> >>>On February 17, 2005 at 14:03:30, Tord Romstad wrote: >>> >>>>A couple of days ago, a well-known programmer and regular >>>>poster here on the CCC claimed that a good opening book >>>>was worth at least 700 Elo points. I thought this number >>>>looked completely outrageous, and decided to do a simple >>>>experiment. >>>> >>>>I am the author of a basic and minimalistic UCI chess engine >>>>called Glaurung. Source code and executables for Mac OS X, >>>>Linux and Windows can be found at the following URL: >>>> >>>>http://www.math.uio.no/~romstad/glaurung/glaurung.html >>>> >>>>Recently, I have played some test matches with Glaurung >>>>against the strongest engine I have on my compter: Hiarcs >>>>9.6. Not surprisingly, all such matches end in crushing >>>>victories for Hiarcs. The last match I played ended >>>>75-25 in Hiarcs' favor. >>>> >>>>As a crude test of the "good book=700 Elo" claim, I have >>>>now repeated the match with identical program versions >>>>and conditions, except that Hiarcs was now playing without >>>>an opening book. Assuming that Hiarcs' book is worth 700 >>>>Elo, the expected result of this second match would be >>>>something like 95-5 in _Glaurung's_ favor. >>>> >>>>The actual result of the second match was very close to >>>>the first match: Hiarcs won by 72-28. >>>> >>>>As far as I can see, this means that at least one of the >>>>following must be true: >>>> >>>>a) The statement "good book=700 Elo" is lightyears away >>>>from the truth. >>>> >>>>b) Hiarcs has an extremely bad opening book, and with a >>>>half decent opening book it would be several hundred >>>>rating points ahead of Shredder. >>>> >>>> >>>>Tord >>> >>>Hi Tord: >>> >>>I too think 700 is a number from the twilight zone. But the statement, IIRC, >>>was 700 points for a very good book vs no book. So you have to include the >>>possibility: >>> >>>c) Glaurung's book is no good. >> >>Glaurung's book is not the subject here. >> >>Tord simply comapred hiarcs book with no book. >> >>He let Glaurung with it's own book to play agaisnt Hiarcs with it's book and let >>Glaurung with it's own book play against Hiarcs with no book. >> >>Hiarcs with it's own book failed to perform even 100 elo better. >> >>Uri. > >All right then add the possibility: > >d) Hiarcs' book is no good. > >However you take it, to prove or disprove the statement you are going to have to >test with a "good book". We know Arturo builds good books - you could test with >Diep or Zappa. We know Sandro builds good books - you could test with Shredder. > (This all supposes the authors are willing to let their tournament prepared >books out, which I doubt). > >Until someone runs tests with a known "good book" verses "no book" Vincent's >statement is not yet disproven. A 5th possibility: e) Hiarc's book is very good, but Hiarcs on a fast machine can compute the opening positions nearly as well as looking them up in a book.
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