Johnny T wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
Nonsense.

First, I *said*, that depending on you measure it, it may be
sufficient, or insufficient.

You said,

``First, philosophically, it is insufficient. Chess is not solved up
until the tablebases. Therefore, the opening books, by definition,
are unsolved, and because they are unsolved, they are on surface,
insufficient.''

I explained why this is nonsense. If you have a problem with that,
please address it before accusing me of being closed to new ideas.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Mouldy Radioactive Wine (TM): it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like a vintage Beaujolais but it'll
make you glow in the dark and it's
starting to grow mushrooms!

David Richerby wrote:

I explained why this is nonsense. If you have a problem with that,
please address it before accusing me of being closed to new ideas.

You stated that it was non-sequitor (like going to the moon), and
non-sense, and that the only reason was...

The point was opening books and "sufficiency". The original point was
that no opening book, could, on it's surface, be "sufficient". For at
least the reason, it could not be complete, because the game wasn't
solved. This is true, has nothing to do with going to the moon.

Then... If you read further... It was pointed out, that openings are
not just about what is that grandmasters play, but importantly for
research purposes lines that are not good. Surely for research and
learning purposes a "sufficient" opening book helps to minimize the
research of the human. And that there is more bad than good, and that
which has been identified as bad should be included, and it can't be
found in the grandmaster's game.

Then... If you read further... That EVEN WITH THOSE OBJECTIONS, that
for certain purposes, the way it had done may well be "sufficient".

And that's it.

I wasn't mocking you, or him. But you have chosen to mock me with
"nonsense" and "going to the moon" references. I reject those
references. If you still believe it is nonsense. Um, I don't know what
to say. You are not open to anything other than your view.

Johnny T wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
I explained why this is nonsense. If you have a problem with that,
please address it before accusing me of being closed to new ideas.

You stated that it was non-sequitor (like going to the moon), and
non-sense, and that the only reason was...

.... that is it a non-sequitur and nonsense. Sorry.


The point was opening books and "sufficiency". The original point
was that no opening book, could, on it's surface, be "sufficient".
For at least the reason, it could not be complete, because the game
wasn't solved. This is true, has nothing to do with going to the
moon.

The argument does not follow. Sufficiency of a system is measured
against its design goals and the design goals of the opening book do
not include solving chess. The fact that chess has not yet been
solved is utterly irrelevant to how well an opening book performs its
job.

Hence my comment about flying to the moon: flying to the moon is also
not one of the design goals of an opening book so we do not criticise
it for being unable to do that.


Then... If you read further...

Yes, I did read further. I broadly agreed with your points later your
original post and did not address them as I had no further comment to
make on them. It was your claim that opening books are not
`sufficient' because chess has not been solved that I was decribing as
nonsense.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Aluminium Vomit (TM): it's like a pile
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ of puke that's really light!

This is (partially ?) done in the "tactical game" feature : you play
against a weakened engine (Phalanx) that simulates a player between 1200
and 2200 and you can choose an opening line to follow. See for details :
http://prolinux.free.fr/scid/scid_ne...html#playcoach
For now the list of opening lines is limited but I personaly use it a lot
to train with the French Defense Winawer.

I would like to play against a engine around 2200 to 2500. couldnt
find the modified engine Phalanx in the Program folder, so I have
no idea about this feature but improving it further for easy handling
and a stronger engine could make it a mighty tool.Thats for sure.


I already thought about that : a better window integration. You are 100%
right it should be better and more user friendly, but some users (in fact
one) told me they prefer the current windowing system ...

Many peaple, me too, pay nearly 200 bucks to have a userfriendly,
easy to understand Chessbase, but it is not bugfree and the updates
are nearly nonsens. Though i mostly work with CB.
On the other hand Your Scid-Vers. has it nearly all. Very good for
instance the lower priority on engines. That saves from program freezing.
If You muster good training skills that will be also be a great match.

But the many Windows, you always have to change the focus and you
often don't know where is what. And editing games on CB is very
effective.

If You work on the right nails Scid will become very worthy.

Thanks for responding
Emil

David Richerby wrote:

... that is it a non-sequitur and nonsense. Sorry.


The point was opening books and "sufficiency". The original point
was that no opening book, could, on it's surface, be "sufficient".
For at least the reason, it could not be complete, because the game
wasn't solved. This is true, has nothing to do with going to the
moon.

The argument does not follow. Sufficiency of a system is measured
against its design goals and the design goals of the opening book do
not include solving chess. The fact that chess has not yet been
solved is utterly irrelevant to how well an opening book performs its
job.

Untrue... If chess were solved. And *THE* pathways were known, then it
*must* be included in any "sufficient" opening book. But, and we agree
here, chess is not solved, will not be solved, and therefor *cannot*
contain these paths. You must dismiss this case, to determine whether
or not the book is "sufficient". And we agree that is so. But you feel
that this basic premise is nonsense. Nope, sorry partner, you're
simply wrong. Even if you are beyond this point in your personal
definition of opening book. Fundamentally, it is not nonsense to bring
it up, and deal with it.

I agree with you, that this idealized world is impossible in our
physical universe. But the fact that extremely often people come here
and talk about solving chess, and that chess is nearly solved, etc...

You must be able to dismiss the fact that chess, isn't solved. Even if
you do not deal with it's solvability. And that the fact that it isn't
solved, means that the book *cannot* contain *the* optimum paths.


Hence my comment about flying to the moon: flying to the moon is also
not one of the design goals of an opening book so we do not criticise
it for being unable to do that.

No, flying to the moon, is an off handed way to say "non-sequitor" which
is NOT the case, no matter how much you say it. It does follow to the
sufficiency question, even if you say different.

Then... If you read further...

Yes, I did read further. I broadly agreed with your points later your
original post and did not address them as I had no further comment to
make on them.

Without a simple, I agree with the rest, you snipped and dismissed my
entire post.

It was your claim that opening books are not
`sufficient' because chess has not been solved that I was decribing as
nonsense.

No, actually, it is not nonsense at all. There is a premise (It is not
sufficient, it does *not* provide *the* optimum paths to an opening), It
provides a reason (Because the game has not been solved), and even
suggests further along that this is not enough reason to believe the
that book is not good enough. This is, by definition, sensical. Saying
that it is going to the moon, is nonsensical.

And even worse, by broadly agreeing by snipping those parts you agree
with, and comment that the post was nonsense, you dismiss the entire post.

And try as you might, you have merely proven the point, you didn't agree
with part of what I said, even if it is valid, so you dismiss me and the
entire post as nonsense.

Sorry if I offended your fiefdom. I do not agree, and I patently
disagree with you.

Johnny T wrote:
But, and we agree here, chess is not solved, will not be solved,

Actually, I don't agree that chess will not be solved: I think it's
unlikely but possible. That doesn't really matter for current
purposes but I'd be grateful if you'd refrain from putting words into
my mouth.


You must be able to dismiss the fact that chess, isn't solved. Even
if you do not deal with it's solvability. And that the fact that it
isn't solved, means that the book *cannot* contain *the* optimum
paths.

Well, actually, the opening book might contain the optimal paths; it's
just that nobody knows that they're optimal.

But it doesn't have to contain the optimal paths and this is the whole
point. The purpose of the opening book is to document best current
practice in the opening so that an engine can get into a reasonable
middlegame position without having to spend lots of time working out a
phase of the game that strong humans play mainly from memory. Best
current practice is determined by the best human play, often guided by
computer analysis. That's what goes in the opening book.

At some point in the future, we might have solved chess and, at that
point, best current practice will have evolved and opening books will
then have to include that. But to say that an opening book is in some
way deficient because it does not include information that nobody on
the planet knows is unreasonable.


Hence my comment about flying to the moon: flying to the moon is
also not one of the design goals of an opening book so we do not
criticise it for being unable to do that.

No, flying to the moon, is an off handed way to say "non-sequitor"
which is NOT the case, no matter how much you say it.

It's `non sequitur', by the way.


Then... If you read further...

Yes, I did read further. I broadly agreed with your points later
your original post and did not address them as I had no further
comment to make on them.

Without a simple, I agree with the rest, you snipped and dismissed my
entire post.

It would have been better if I'd explicitly said in my first follow-up
that I broadly agreed with the rest of your post.

However, there is a long-standing convention on Usenet that, when
following up, one quotes only the parts of the post that are relevant
to the follow-up. I quoted one particular part of your post (twice!)
and it was that that I was dismissing as nonsense. I did not dismiss
the rest of your post: I didn't even talk about it.


It was your claim that opening books are not `sufficient' because
chess has not been solved that I was decribing as nonsense.

No, actually, it is not nonsense at all. There is a premise (It is
not sufficient, it does *not* provide *the* optimum paths to an
opening), It provides a reason (Because the game has not been
solved), and even suggests further along that this is not enough
reason to believe the that book is not good enough. This is, by
definition, sensical.

It does not make sense because your argument doesn't seem to be based
on any reasonable definition of what an opening book is. I've
explained this several times now and you don't appear to have
addressed this point.


Saying that it is going to the moon, is nonsensical.

I did not say that opening books had anything to do with going to the
moon. In fact, I said the exact opposite: ``flying to the moon is
also *not* one of the design goals of an opening book so we do not
criticise it for being unable to do that.'' (Emphasis added.)


And even worse, by broadly agreeing by snipping those parts you
agree with, and comment that the post was nonsense, you dismiss the
entire post.

I did not comment that the post was nonsense: I commented that the
part I quoted was nonsense. I did not dismiss the entire post or part
of it. I gave a reasoned argument that came to the opposite
conclusion to yours.


And try as you might, you have merely proven the point, you didn't
agree with part of what I said, even if it is valid so you dismiss
me and the entire post as nonsense.

I did not dismiss your entire post as nonsense. I did not dismiss
you.


Sorry if I offended your fiefdom.

I do not have a fiefdom to offend.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Homicidal Clock (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ clock but it wants to kill you!