In case you missed it: SSDF, shiny new hardware...

[rcmaddox]

SSDF historically accepted only engines with an openings book. Back in the day, we (users) didn't make a big distinction between engines and books. They were just separate components of a single package. Houdini is not on the list because it has no openings book.

The Komodo team provides a few openings books at their website and perhaps offered one to SSDF for testing purposes?

I recall that for Stockfish, they used "Aggressive 1.4 by Fauzi.abk" as the openings book. Stockfish doesn't have an official openings book so I'm not sure how that came about.

[Milos]

It is true that if you knew the opening book used by your opponent you could spend a lot of time and make a counter book to help your winning chances. Hard, but with enough resources it could be done. Komodo has just used a general opening book tuned to lines it understands well, and not against a specific opponent. It is not very practical to have a unique book for each opponent. We do change some lines to prevent repeating games, and Erdo uses his bets judgement to select the first few moves.

I agree it would be unfair to allow one program to use an opening book and another one not. But just as adding an evaluation or search modification to a program can make that program stronger, a well tuned book can help a program play stronger. But I cannot call me adding a new evaluation component to Komodo "unfair" anymore than someone writing a better book.

As long as both parties are allowed to have a book they choose, how is it unfair?

I personally like testing without opening books, but only because I am lazy and am not skilled at making such books. But if you show up to an event like WCCC without a book, your chances will drop a lot.

No you don't tune your book against all opponents just against the strongest one, or in best case strongest two. That seems to be what Junior did on WCCC. Tuned its book against Komodo.

On VLTC and strong hardware the only impact of a general book (tuned for engine, not against particular one) is to save time where it matters the most - in the opening, so with deep enough book you can save a lot of time that converts directly to Elo.

[Milos]

SSDF historically accepted only engines with an openings book. Back in the day, we (users) didn't make a big distinction between engines and books. They were just separate components of a single package. Houdini is not on the list because it has no openings book.

The Komodo team provides a few openings books at their website and perhaps offered one to SSDF for testing purposes?

I recall that for Stockfish, they used "Aggressive 1.4 by Fauzi.abk" as the openings book. Stockfish doesn't have an official openings book so I'm not sure how that came about.

That's the most pathetic excuse ever. SF without the book is stronger than any engines with any book except maybe Komodo and Houdini.
And SF does have a book, the best one the Brainfish book.

[Milos]

tablebases provide equal conditions for all,

They are not, some have them, others don't.

That's an answer equal to "multi-core machines don't provide equal condition for all because some engines have SMP and some don't".
Pathetic excuses.

[Rebel]

Moreover, regular books are just too weak already after move 10 for such a TC and strong machine. So you take Brainfish book, maybe tune it a bit, limit it to 10 moves and with the latest SF you can't loose a single game.

Maybe you should have a look at: http://rebel13.nl/prodeo/prodeo%202.1%20yat.html

I got an 102 ELO improvement. Maybe you underestimate the impact of a book with 150+ million positions?

Surely an 102 ELO improvement is not going to happen with SF8 (and others) but has your above idea (statement actually) been tried?

[Rebel]

tablebases provide equal conditions for all,

They are not, some have them, others don't.

That's an answer equal to "multi-core machines don't provide equal condition for all because some engines have SMP and some don't".
Pathetic excuses.

You are missing the context

[Milos]

tablebases provide equal conditions for all,

They are not, some have them, others don't.

That's an answer equal to "multi-core machines don't provide equal condition for all because some engines have SMP and some don't".
Pathetic excuses.

You are missing the context

No I am not, you are. Lyudmil is right here. There is a de-facto standard for EGBT - syzygy 6-men. Probing code and everything open-source. So any engines that doesn't have it implemented is to blame coz playing field is equal for everyone. With books it's a different game. Every engine uses it's own and even more ridiculous perfectly fine (and strong) engines without books are not allowed to play?!!!

[Milos]

Moreover, regular books are just too weak already after move 10 for such a TC and strong machine. So you take Brainfish book, maybe tune it a bit, limit it to 10 moves and with the latest SF you can't loose a single game.

Maybe you should have a look at: http://rebel13.nl/prodeo/prodeo%202.1%20yat.html

I got an 102 ELO improvement. Maybe you underestimate the impact of a book with 150+ million positions?

Surely an 102 ELO improvement is not going to happen with SF8 (and others) but has your above idea (statement actually) been tried?

I fail to see what my comment has to do with yours?
Is your book 102 Elo stronger than Brainfish book trimmed to 10 moves?
First of all, I strongly doubt that Prodeo with your books would come out as stronger vs. Prodeo with Brainfish book trimmed to 10 moves.
For SF I'm pretty sure that Brainfish (with book trimmed to 10 moves) would destroy SF using only your book.

[zullil]

Lyudmil is right here.

A rare quote that seems worthy of highlighting.

[mclane]

I am not talking about permanent hash. I am talking about permanent brain, that is the engine computes in opponents consideration time.

When I play chess I do also have an opening book in mind and I do also compute when the opponents time is running.
It's a natural feature. So why should it be wrong to have an opening book.