To kick off some technical discussions

[thorstenczub]

[Fernando]

I tend to see chess as an art because simply it is not a science. If ever become one, its the end of it. I remember games full of beauties lot more than I remember who got more points in the last tournament near my house. Same as I remember note by note compositions by Haydn lot more that the year he died. Or how many scores had that piece I remember.
I do not know the motives some people has to play chess. i suppose lot of them are like beats of prey trying to beat someone and get a kick from that. They are "competitive". They are the kind of people that thinks they are smarter than you because they won the game. They are imbeciles, those guys....
For me to play a game is just a way to solve problems in the most beautiful, logical way. When playing humans if the guy commits a silly mistake, like putting the queen in prise, i give him the chance to play back because what is the sense to "win a point" in that conditions? Chess is a cooperative art where you need the adversary. Thats the reason I can enjoy a win by a computer because I have putted it to the utmost to get the point and in doing that the game was lot more entertaining for me.
We need a programmer that thinks like ROSSOLIMO regards
Fern

[Chris Whittington]

Hi Chris,

....Long time since wooden shack in Cotswolds!

Yes indeed - fun times! It was back in 1991 to 1994 ish. I remember us trying to figure out null move. And on another occasion, you showing me a letter from some raving fan in Germany called "Thorsten Czub".

Whatever happened to Andy Pennel?

Cheers,

Steve

Well, he left Oxford Softworks in about 1994(?), where he went I forget, it wasn't in the games industry, after about a year he achieved his lifelong ambition, to go and work for Microsoft, I think he moved to Seattle and there was even talk of a girl(!) - no doubt cutting into the workaholicism(!), such a long time ago now, I seem to have the idea that he got married, but that may be a bit random. His departure came at a difficult time, OS was being deluged with contracts and having to build up teams fast - its always difficult growing much bigger in a short space of time particularly when key staff leave.

Letter from Czub? Must have been before the internet, so definitely before 1995, actually I think it was Andy's replacement who set us up with internet and a demon.co.uk email, so Andy must have left before 1995.

[Chris Whittington]

I tend to see chess as an art because simply it is not a science. If ever become one, its the end of it. I remember games full of beauties lot more than I remember who got more points in the last tournament near my house. Same as I remember note by note compositions by Haydn lot more that the year he died. Or how many scores had that piece I remember.
I do not know the motives some people has to play chess. i suppose lot of them are like beats of prey trying to beat someone and get a kick from that. They are "competitive". They are the kind of people that thinks they are smarter than you because they won the game. They are imbeciles, those guys....
For me to play a game is just a way to solve problems in the most beautiful, logical way. When playing humans if the guy commits a silly mistake, like putting the queen in prise, i give him the chance to play back because what is the sense to "win a point" in that conditions? Chess is a cooperative art where you need the adversary. Thats the reason I can enjoy a win by a computer because I have putted it to the utmost to get the point and in doing that the game was lot more entertaining for me.
We need a programmer that thinks like ROSSOLIMO regards
Fern

such a programmer would be banned, everything new or creative is suspect in the Brave New World of Capitalist Controlled Club

[govert]

Maybe the way forward should not be to question the elo as a measurement of strength, but to suggest other aspects that could be quantified which could be used together with the elo when discussing a certain engine.

Some dimensions:
* Peaceful <-> Aggressive
* Solid (100% draws) <-> Speculative (0% draws)
* Tactical <-> Strategical
* Prefers Open Positions <-> Prefers Closed positions

You get the idea. I'm not that strong of a chess player.I'm sure others would have more suggestions.
The challenge lies in finding ways of quantifying these entities for an engine.

[Chris Whittington]

Maybe the way forward should not be to question the elo as a measurement of strength, but to suggest other aspects that could be quantified which could be used together with the elo when discussing a certain engine.

Some dimensions:
* Peaceful <-> Aggressive
* Solid (100% draws) <-> Speculative (0% draws)
* Tactical <-> Strategical
* Prefers Open Positions <-> Prefers Closed positions

You get the idea. I'm not that strong of a chess player.I'm sure others would have more suggestions.
The challenge lies in finding ways of quantifying these entities for an engine.

An effective, if crude, method for isolating sacrificial play would be to scan PGN's looking for situations of being material down and then going on to win (or make a draw even). The longer the material down situation lasted, the better.

Quite a simple processor could take huge numbers of game lists and allocate exciting play rankings based on the above.

[orgfert]

Maybe the way forward should not be to question the elo as a measurement of strength, but to suggest other aspects that could be quantified which could be used together with the elo when discussing a certain engine.

Some dimensions:
* Peaceful <-> Aggressive
* Solid (100% draws) <-> Speculative (0% draws)
* Tactical <-> Strategical
* Prefers Open Positions <-> Prefers Closed positions

You get the idea. I'm not that strong of a chess player.I'm sure others would have more suggestions.
The challenge lies in finding ways of quantifying these entities for an engine.

An effective, if crude, method for isolating sacrificial play would be to scan PGN's looking for situations of being material down and then going on to win (or make a draw even). The longer the material down situation lasted, the better.

Quite a simple processor could take huge numbers of game lists and allocate exciting play rankings based on the above.

You must be kidding. The ROSSOLIMO view is nostalgia for pre-scientific days and subjective analysis by then human rulers of the game. But society determined decades ago that science will have the rule and banish the the darkness that was before. The first step was putting game play under the statistical analysis of Elo. Then the computer vied to be equal of its makers. For us this was emotionally exciting until the machine scientifically subjugated the game, topping man in accuracy and endurance. Science marches on to conquer the game without the necessity of valor which is only an emotional resource for the weak. The solution to chess by science might be a very dull game indeed but we would not be sentimental or luddites for that is to admit we are weak and needy of mothers milk. We have banished the unscientific imperfections and contours of light and shadow for the monochrome light of our science. Suck it up or join the flat earth people.

[hyatt]

I'm still waiting for objective measurements. Looking for material down won games is subjective. Which is better, to be a queen down for 10 moves and then win, or to be a rook down for 24 moves and then win? Which is better, to be a queen down and almost win, but ultimately lose, or being a queen up and almost losing but ultimately win?

True science requires accurate measurement. Elo gave us an accurate measuring tool. Since there is no other measurement around, discarding the only objective one we have seems a bit rash.

Now if one wants to simply rank players on a "Tal-ish" scale (or a Karpov-ish scale for boring) there's nothing wrong with doing that. And if one wants to move from the boring side to the Tal side, without hurting overall performance, there's nothing wrong with doing that. However, the flashiest sword-fighter in the world still has the same problem against a gunfighter. He ends up dead, no matter how dashing his personality is.

[Chris Whittington]

I'm still waiting for objective measurements. Looking for material down won games is subjective. Which is better, to be a queen down for 10 moves and then win, or to be a rook down for 24 moves and then win? Which is better, to be a queen down and almost win, but ultimately lose, or being a queen up and almost losing but ultimately win?

True science requires accurate measurement. Elo gave us an accurate measuring tool. Since there is no other measurement around, discarding the only objective one we have seems a bit rash.

Now if one wants to simply rank players on a "Tal-ish" scale (or a Karpov-ish scale for boring) there's nothing wrong with doing that. And if one wants to move from the boring side to the Tal side, without hurting overall performance, there's nothing wrong with doing that. However, the flashiest sword-fighter in the world still has the same problem against a gunfighter. He ends up dead, no matter how dashing his personality is.

Curious you criticise on objective/precision grounds what would of course be a fuzzy way to perform scaling when the internals of the beancounter engine (yours included) contain the fuzziest of fuzzy nonsense aka evaluation function

[Chris Whittington]

I'm still waiting for objective measurements. Looking for material down won games is subjective. Which is better, to be a queen down for 10 moves and then win, or to be a rook down for 24 moves and then win? Which is better, to be a queen down and almost win, but ultimately lose, or being a queen up and almost losing but ultimately win?

True science requires accurate measurement. Elo gave us an accurate measuring tool. Since there is no other measurement around, discarding the only objective one we have seems a bit rash.

Now if one wants to simply rank players on a "Tal-ish" scale (or a Karpov-ish scale for boring) there's nothing wrong with doing that. And if one wants to move from the boring side to the Tal side, without hurting overall performance, there's nothing wrong with doing that. However, the flashiest sword-fighter in the world still has the same problem against a gunfighter. He ends up dead, no matter how dashing his personality is.

Chess is a game for humans to enjoy. They enjoy playing and watching exciting games. Exciting games very often involve sacrifices. So, measuring programs on a scale which assesses excitability (with various fuzzy parameters to account for your above and other stuff) seems eminently senseful to me. And quite easy to do.

Maybe you are just worried Crafty is not a very exciting opponent, after all, as you keep telling us, it is optimised for boring old win/loss/draw/ELO performance?

btw, the swordfighter lives again to fight another day (nobody is killed in chess) but he does get the newspaper coverage, the articles and almost certainly the girls, not to mention the wine. The boring gunfighter goes home to loneliness and his Wii .....