On Apr 30, 12:10 pm, raylopez99 wrote:

Not true at all. Crafty could easily tell you which programs far
stronger than itself played the most perfect chess. This is not
debatable.

Not only is it debatable, it's not true.

No it is true.

No, it's not. Would you like to debate the point?


For instance, the winning program between two chess
programs playing each other by definition will produce at least one
less error than the losing program--and Crafty could, at some point,
appreciate this.

Er, how? If Crafty is less able than the losing program, how
can it reliably see the error the losing program couldn't?

Easy. The evaluation function of Crafty will indicate that the losing
program, which we've said is much stronger than Crafty, scored, over
the length of the game, worse than the winning program.

So you say. How about some hard evidence?


To give a simple example: two programs, A and B, both much stronger
than Crafty, play a slugfest game that extends over 100 moves. Play
is evenly matched, and Crafty scores both programs about the same up
to this point.

Perhaps; perhaps not.


However, at the 101st move, program A sees a winning
10 move combination--that happens to be a mating net-- that is just
outside the 8 move horizon of program B.

Hold on there! If the game was a tactical slugfest, as
you said, then how on earth did the dumb program ever
manage to hold its own against the deeper-sighted one
for 100 moves? This seems rather unlikely.


Program A enters into the
combination and after say the 5th move, Crafty, with a mere five move
chess horizon, also "sees" the winning combination.

Unless the game is being scored backwards, from
end to beginning, this means that Crafty would have
penalized the winning program *five times* for a move
which won perforce! Until it "sees" the mate, none
of the moves of the combination make any sense to
a patzer.


Of course program
B also has seen this combination wins after the second move but let's
say is programmed with a contempt factor not to resign but to play to
the end.

Things are getting uglier all the time. Now, not only
is the dumb program so lucky as to somehow survive
a tactical slugfest for 100 moves, but in addition, it did
so despite the handicap of a contempt factor which of
course distorts its meager vision. How likely is that?


Program A checkmates program B after the 10 move
combination.

This statement is the only part of your example so
far which makes any rational sense.


Crafty will reward Program A and penalize Program B for
this play, even though it is much weaker than either program A or B.

Whoopie. So it got lucky at the very end.

Instead of rationalizing or "justifying" the use of
a weak program like crippled-Crafty to judge the
quality of play of the world champions, why not
simply admit that it was quite unnecessary in
view of the fact that there now exists a far
superior program, which is widely available. In
order to do this sort of thing with most players,
just use any modern computer and any strong
program. But in order to do it with the world
championships, get a FAST computer and the
TOP program, put lots of memory in the
computer and give it lots of time to think. So
simple!

-- help bot