The problem of opening theory in computer chess

[Sven]

Clearly the confusion here is who were you directing this statement towards:
[...]
In the quote box above, it is clear that you were responding to Rolf.
Yet, I have to say that your post
http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... 64&t=28011
seems to imply that Rolf wrote that statement. It is inside his quote box, not outside.

As I already stated above, Bob's placement of quoting brackets was not perfect. But I can't follow your logic for the following reason:

a) Someone who does not detect that can't be confused about who *Bob* was directing his statement towards since he would not even think it was Bob who wrote it.

b) Someone who *does* detect that immediately knows that it was Bob who replied to Rolf, so he can't be confused about that, too.

Maybe we should stop here with this sub-thread since we are already slightly OT and the mods are already watching us

Sven

[Rolf]

As a neutral observer in this case, I can only state that it has been trivial for me to prove - for instance by using thread view - that Bob had indeed responded to you, Rolf. Also it is obvious for me that Bob has done so by intent, so I do not see any point in your claim that Bob had confused content and/or author of some post in this thread.

I propose that you cross-check this first, and then come back to tell us whether my observation is correct. In case you accept I'd assume that your conclusions were without cause.

Sven

If you are a neutral observer, then perhaps you could check where the confusing came from. Bob fell into the trap of an automatsm, a sort of conditioned reflex in his usual defense for the DB people against Kasparov, the evil guy in Hyatt's view, and he thought he could have another bully against Rolf. But the whole DB topic came from Mats this time, not Rolf.

I am allowed to guess that it's correct to assume that you know the content of the charter here in CCC. The charter doesnt forbid the confusing of quotes but it forbids then the insulting on the basis of confused or doctored quotes. Is it neccessary to point out that the charter is valid for Bob Hyatt too?

Of course a formal slip isnt a reason to get emotional, but I strongly oppose you if you want to judge lightly about personal attacks against other members if you succeeded in having found such a formal failure in the beginning. A basic in ethics. And you write yourself that the confusion of a formalism was taken intentiously, for what, I ask you, answer is, to insult another member. In this case two members, Mats and Rolf. Is the charter not valid for members like Bob? Do members have not protection by the charter if Hyatt comes to attack them?

[Rolf]

Clearly the confusion here is who were you directing this statement towards:
[...]
In the quote box above, it is clear that you were responding to Rolf.
Yet, I have to say that your post
http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... 64&t=28011
seems to imply that Rolf wrote that statement. It is inside his quote box, not outside.

As I already stated above, Bob's placement of quoting brackets was not perfect. But I can't follow your logic for the following reason:

a) Someone who does not detect that can't be confused about who *Bob* was directing his statement towards since he would not even think it was Bob who wrote it.

b) Someone who *does* detect that immediately knows that it was Bob who replied to Rolf, so he can't be confused about that, too.

Maybe we should stop here with this sub-thread since we are already slightly OT and the mods are already watching us

Sven

Do you realise the contradiction in your appeal after you became so frequently "involved" in this debate? Were you insulted at all? So, what is your motif at all?

[Adam Hair]

Clearly the confusion here is who were you directing this statement towards:
[...]
In the quote box above, it is clear that you were responding to Rolf.
Yet, I have to say that your post
http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... 64&t=28011
seems to imply that Rolf wrote that statement. It is inside his quote box, not outside.

As I already stated above, Bob's placement of quoting brackets was not perfect. But I can't follow your logic for the following reason:

a) Someone who does not detect that can't be confused about who *Bob* was directing his statement towards since he would not even think it was Bob who wrote it.

b) Someone who *does* detect that immediately knows that it was Bob who replied to Rolf, so he can't be confused about that, too.

Maybe we should stop here with this sub-thread since we are already slightly OT and the mods are already watching us

Sven

The confusion was that obviously Bob wrote it and not Rolf ( due to how
it was written ), yet it came right after MatsW's quote box, not Rolf's.
Newer followers of this forum (such as myself) may not be aware
of the history of exchanges between Bob and Rolf that would provide
the information needed not to have some confusion.

Anyway, I'll stop here also

[Sven]

As a neutral observer in this case, I can only state that it has been trivial for me to prove - for instance by using thread view - that Bob had indeed responded to you, Rolf. Also it is obvious for me that Bob has done so by intent, [...]

[...] And you write yourself that the confusion of a formalism was taken intentiously [...]

As everyone can see, I never wrote that. I wrote that it were obvious for me that Bob had responded to you by intent ("has done so by intent" obviously refers to the previous sentence), which means that he knew he responded to you and did not mix up authors of postings.

Again, if you follow me then this completely invalidates your conclusions.

Sven

[Sven]

Do you realise the contradiction in your appeal after you became so frequently "involved" in this debate? Were you insulted at all? So, what is your motif at all?

I see no contradiction. As you may have noticed, I have sent two consecutive postings where the first tries to address the misunderstanding that I observed in your post(s) and the second points out that also Bob made a small fault. So my motivation to act like some "arbitrator" (I could say "moderator" but this could be mixed up with the role of a moderator in this board) should have been obvious for everyone.

But since not both parties seem to like that, I apologize for having tried to avoid another (for me personally: boring) Rolf vs. Bob or Bob vs. Rolf war. Please regard me as being "not involved" anymore in this debate.

Sven

[bob]

One day we could perfectly have an engine who is the best in the world because it has found a way to always win playing 1.f4 while its result are poor with 1.e4 or 1.d4. As it may choose to allways play 1.f4 it will win every championship.

The engine can only play what is programmed into it, so it is not effectively choosing to play openings as humans do (not yet anyway).

Cheers,
Graham.

I'm not sure what this means. Probably the best "book learner" around was mchess pro. Marty did the usual book-learning stuff to learn which moves were good and which were bad. But then after finishing a game, he went back and added to this book by using the moves played in the game just finished, so that the program would "learn" to extend the book by playing moves where it won, and avoid playing moves that led to a loss...

Yes - I forgot about the learning feature.
The problem with book learning though is that it's quite often a whole line of continuation that's faulty rather than a single move. The single move that the programme culls might in fact be perfectly okay if it preceded the faulty continuation, or alternatively it could be that an earlier move or moves were the ones at fault.
Hope all that makes sense?
However, what Marc says could in fact happen sometime in the future. It's just that such sophistication would seem to be a long way off.

There have been experiments in "assessing blame". I think there was one in the last revision of "Chess Skill in Man and Machine" although mine is at the office and I don't have it handy. I don't remember the game although I think it was checkers, but the problem was to play a game, and then go back through the game and assess blame at the point where the expected game outcome changed.

It's certainly a tough problem. That is one of the reasons that Crafty has the "search learning" approach where it watches the eval for the first ten moves out of book, and then rather than looking at a single score, it looks at the "final trend". For example, you play a gambit and right out of book the score is negative, but after reaching some low point, it starts to climb as the effects of the gambit become more apparent. By the same token, accepting a gambit gives a high initial score, but as the game progresses over the next 10 moves, the score drops steadily as the effect of taking that pawn (or piece) becomes more apparent.

It is hardly "perfect" but it does work pretty well, given a decent starting set of moves, and a decent time control so that the search can be less error-prone.

[bob]

So, my conclusion is, whatever you are on, you need to take _less_ of, and whatever you are not on, you need more of it. My post is directly addressed to you, not to anyone else. It directly follows your post, not anybody elses. And it directly quotes your post, in addition to the one you replied to.

If you can't follow that, then perhaps you should go back to where you have been for the past month or two and stay there..

Perhaps another violation of the charter here is it when someone (Prof. Hyatt!) had it _all_ confused, content and author wise, and to then imply with doctored quotes that the one author (Mats) could well be Rolf in disguise.

Perhaps another good justification to ban you for life, IMHO. My post is still there, unedited, immediately following yours. Anyone can see it. Or at least anyone other than yourself.

[bob]

As a neutral observer in this case, I can only state that it has been trivial for me to prove - for instance by using thread view - that Bob had indeed responded to you, Rolf. Also it is obvious for me that Bob has done so by intent, so I do not see any point in your claim that Bob had confused content and/or author of some post in this thread.

I propose that you cross-check this first, and then come back to tell us whether my observation is correct. In case you accept I'd assume that your conclusions were without cause.

Sven

If you are a neutral observer, then perhaps you could check where the confusing came from. Bob fell into the trap of an automatsm, a sort of conditioned reflex in his usual defense for the DB people against Kasparov, the evil guy in Hyatt's view, and he thought he could have another bully against Rolf. But the whole DB topic came from Mats this time, not Rolf.

I am allowed to guess that it's correct to assume that you know the content of the charter here in CCC. The charter doesnt forbid the confusing of quotes but it forbids then the insulting on the basis of confused or doctored quotes. Is it neccessary to point out that the charter is valid for Bob Hyatt too?

For the record, this is the day I formally announce that I am going to run for moderator the next cycle, with the only platform statements being

(1) I will moderate exactly as I have in the past, being as unobtrusive in the forum as humanly possible;

(2) I will immediately ban your account so long as I am moderator, and I will run for moderator every term until members here tire of having me in that position.

Of course a formal slip isnt a reason to get emotional, but I strongly oppose you if you want to judge lightly about personal attacks against other members if you succeeded in having found such a formal failure in the beginning. A basic in ethics. And you write yourself that the confusion of a formalism was taken intentiously, for what, I ask you, answer is, to insult another member. In this case two members, Mats and Rolf. Is the charter not valid for members like Bob? Do members have not protection by the charter if Hyatt comes to attack them?

Rolf, of all the posters here, I can only think of one that _deserves_ insults at every turn. You. Yet you often do not receive them because even I choose to ignore most of what you say. Until you jump into discussions where you have absolutely no business, no expertise to offer, and no technical points to support your always-flawed arguments.

Computers _can_ play in FIDE events. They _can_ play in USCF events. Crafty has played in at least two international chess events, during the last 10 years or so, both were "Pan American" tournaments. Computers don't "cheat". Actually, they are not capable of "cheating" since that requires "intent" which is something they don't have. They play exactly by the rules as laid out by FIDE. Anything you can fit in _your_ memory can be used in a game. Anything the computer can fit in _its_ memory can be used in a game. Always been that way. Always will be that way. Whether you like it or not is 100% irrelevant, because things are the way they are, not the way you want them to be.

[bob]

As a neutral observer in this case, I can only state that it has been trivial for me to prove - for instance by using thread view - that Bob had indeed responded to you, Rolf. Also it is obvious for me that Bob has done so by intent, [...]

[...] And you write yourself that the confusion of a formalism was taken intentiously [...]

As everyone can see, I never wrote that. I wrote that it were obvious for me that Bob had responded to you by intent ("has done so by intent" obviously refers to the previous sentence), which means that he knew he responded to you and did not mix up authors of postings.

Again, if you follow me then this completely invalidates your conclusions.

Sven

Logic and intent and discussion mean nothing to Rolf. Every discussion he participates in here degenerates into this same quagmire of mangled ideas, misrepresented / altered facts, etc...