On May 3, 3:35 am, raylopez99 wrote:
Let me close this thread by making some observations that will shed
some light on the two warring camps in this thread.

You cannot "close" a thread that I already won.
Only I can do that. ;D


The first camp argues that a computer has to be (1) very, very strong
and (2) play like a GM, before it can be used to rate champions.

This is a lowly "poisoned well" rhetorical trick.

Try reading what was actually written and you will
see that one of "us" stated flatly that, had Rybka
(presumably because it was rated nearly 3000) been
utilized in place of crippled-Crafty, he would have no
objection whatever.


The second camp, myself included, argues that (1) any consistently
applied ("normalized") computer can be used, even a 'weak' computer
like Crafty, since the engines of computers are largely the same

You clearly have a lot to learn. Take GetClub, for
instance; it is hardly "the same" as most other chess
programs. (I will say though that Crafty is a typical
program, not unlike many others.)


(based on the MinMax and A/Beta algorithm, with
pruning and the like, and a decent evaluation function for position
evaluation of candidate moves),

Clearly, my above example refutes this theory.
GetClub uses none of that stuff. Perhaps it
could be utilized to rank the world champions
in *reverse* order?


requirement that the program 'play like a GM' is not necessary (though
it is sufficient).

It seems irrelevant whether or not a given program
plays "like a GM". What matters most is that the
program is sufficiently strong to *correctly* rank the
possible moves, so its scoring will be meaningful.
The weaker the program, the more likely it will rank
moves in the wrong order, yielding garbage as output.


In truth, neither side has all the facts to make their case, but on
balance I believe the second camp is more persuasive.

Did you just say that you considered yourself to
be in one of these two "camps"? I think you did.
Perhaps this personal bias slipped your mind... .


A brief hypothetical will illustrate my point better.

Suppose that a version of Crafty favors "defensive" players like Capa
and Kramnik, while penalizing "attacking" players like Tal and
Fischer.

It's not that simple. For one example, GM Fischer
would quite often greedily snatch a pawn, then hang
on for dear life (i.e. defend). And although GM
Capablanca liked to trade pieces with his patented
....N/f6-d5 as Black, he was not exactly a defensive
player on the whole, nor is GM Kramnik. Probably,
it is nearly impossible to have a glaring "style" and
yet still manage to attain the world championship,
unless your name is GM Tal. Most of them were
flexible enough to attack or defend, as the position
dictated. Two players, GMs Fischer and Kasparov,
may seem to have been attackers largely because
they were so much better than their typical
opponents. Heck, at RedHotPawn, even I look
like a rabid attacking style player in most games.


Call this version of Crafty "Defensive Crafty".

(Note the final results seem to give some credence to this view that
Crafty favors defensive or conservative players: from the Chessbase
article, Capa scored first at 0.1008 error rate,

This only shows that you are *assuming* GM
Capablanca was a defensive player, and that
you wish to pretend the data backs up your
whim. Where's the substance?


followed by Kramnik at 0.1058, Karpov (another 'defensive'

You sure have a lot to learn about chess!

Only in the context of the marathon matches
against GM Kasparov would it be reasonable to
describe GM Karpov as "defensive". Have a
look at his match with Polugaevsky, for instance,
and you will see that it is his victims who were
always running for cover. I noted that despite
the fact that 1.e4 players are typically described
as attackers, and their games as "open", when
the American press decided to strongly dislike
the man this all flew out the window; suddenly
GM Karpov was "defensive", his style abhorrent.
Clearly, what we learn is that the press cannot
be trusted with the facts.


or 'positional' specialist) at 0.1275, Kasparov at 0.1292 (perhaps from
an Elo point of view the best player ever,

That would probably be Deeper Blue, as it defeated
GM Kasparov in a match. BTW, did you notice how
quickly the man's style changed when he was up
against someone his in own class (at least)? Truly,
I cannot recall anything to match GK's horrid play as
Black; there was the Caro-Kan suicide, and the
Ruy Lopez roll-over-and-die. (I suppose if you were
desperate enough, you might interpret these as GK
"attacking" himself.)


but remember the paper only looked at Championship match games), then
Spasky (a very well rounded player)

Who might very easily be classed as an
attacking player, if it suited your current whim.


at 0.1334, Petrosian (positional
God!) at 0.1343, Lasker at 0.1370 (best
player over the length of a career ever, one study found; perhaps
coincidentally he was known for finding great resources in defense),

And in attack. You sure have a lot to learn about
chess history.


Fischer at 0.1383 (an attacking player),

And a defensive one. Try to recall the games
where GM Fischer was surprised by a prepared
line, and yet managed to defend so well that soon
he was on the offensive.

Really, the only champ who can be classed as
mainly defensive was Tigran Petrosian, since he
seemed to love drawing so much. And only GM
Tal can be considered an attacker, because he
leaned so heavily in that one direction; but then
again, it was probably his great success which
prevented him from adopting a more balanced
style.


Alkehine at 0.1402 (another 'attacking' player),

IMO, this does not do him justice. GM Alekhine
was not an *unsound* attacker, like GM Tal. If
he attacked, it was because the position justified
it.

Smyslov at 0.1403,

I really need to study this man's games.


Botvinnik at 0.1581 (a 'weak' World Champion some have argued, and
this study bears it out),

LOL! You really need to study chess history,
my friend. You are embarrassing yourself here.


Euwe at 0.177 (a very underrated player),

And here. Because of the (unusual) lack of hype,
GM Euwe is the most *forgotten* world champion of
all. But every account I have read quickly dismisses
any attempt to "underrate" him, rushing to his defense
instead. One famous quote asserts that among all
the world champions, GM Euwe is the only one to
have "never" played an unsound combination! How
silly is that? In fact, the only thing I have read
which could be considered as underrating ME was
by ME himself, when he modestly stated that he
was not up there with the big names (see below).


and Steinitz, from an earlier era where the
competition was weak

Tell that to GM Lasker, and then tell it to him
once more!
GM Steinitz was lucky to have played at a time
when the three monsters, Lasker, Capablanca and
Alekhine, were not on the scene simultaneously.
But the main reason his competition seems "weak"
to you is that he soundly defeated all of them, save
GM Lasker.


and you could win more games with 'cheapos' so no
need to play flawless chess, at 0.23

No one plays flawless chess even today. Back
then, the expectations were different. The draw,
for instance, was not simply accepted as the
natural result of strong play or home prep. which
failed to yield anything substantive right away.


(some have argued Steinitz was in fact, for his time, the best player
ever--same argument has been advanced for Morphy. THe point being, as
an aside, that if your competition is
weak, why bother playing perfect chess?

Nonsense. These guys were doing their best,
not sandbagging out of your projected laziness.


It's like being the great
athlete Jim Thorpe or Jesse Owen--you have no competition so your
competition is yourself, which ultimately means
you fail to reach your highest potential).


Once again, you are embarrassing yourself with
this rubbish. Paul Morphy, for instance, was
regarded by his peers as a man who put an
inordinate amount of focus and energy into the
game, taking it so seriously as to draw criticism
-- jealous criticism, most likely. Far from being
held back by a purported lack of competition, he
simply offered odds, as was the custom back
then. The truth is that far from being held back,
PM was *pushed forward* to go to Europe and
challenge everyone.

If you really want to lend support to the idea of
using a crippled-Crafty to rank the world champions,
you are going to have to show us how it manages
this feat without itself knowing the *correct* rank
order of the moves it is scoring. Nobody is
disputing that a chess program is "objective". On
the contrary, it is the handlers -- the people like
you who inject their own personal biases and whims
into the formula which is in doubt. I already gave a
cutting example where I showed that the awarding
of a "tie" between GMs Steinitz and Fischer was
absolutely comical in view of the former's clear-cut
win. But the main objection was, of course, that
since Rybka (and Hiarcs, etc.) is available, why
mess around with something vastly inferior, unless
ranking mere patzers?

One more criticism: in looking over a game at
one Web site, I noticed that the depth of search
DURING PLAY achieved by GM Kramnik's
opponent was around 18 plys. Now why on
earth would anyone try to rate the play of the
world champions by cutting of crippled-Crafty's
search at only 12 plys? I mean, get a REAL
computer, and a clue!

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