On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:57:11 -0500, "webfilelib"
wrote:


I have a question about fairness:

If computer programs are allowed to have
opening's books (i.e. human-aided analysis)
when playing against humans...

then why can't humans have endgame analysis
from a hand-held calculator
when playing against computers?


One obvious answer is an opening book is analogous to human memory,
but a calculator is another computer.

But, they *do* have contests of man+computer versus computer.

It's not really a question of "fairness". You can set up these
contests any way you want, just as you can set up consultation games
between humans, or correspondence games where the master takes on the
readership of a publication (with the readership's move selected by
vote), etc.

And you *can* play the computer with the opening book turned off. In
fact, I think the main function of the opening book is just to
channel the game away from anti-computer strategies -- human analysis
is of too low quality to help the silicon monsters these days.