Re pondering

[bezzy3004]

I am the original poster of this topic and am sorry i have started a feud! I only wanted to know how to obtain the best quality chess possible. ponder on or off simple.

[kranium]

i think all will agree that an engine is stronger if it can ponder between moves...

[Matthias Gemuh]

i think all will agree that an engine is stronger if it can ponder between moves...

This is only true if some extra CPU is used that would otherwised not be used.

If the same amount of CPU is used in both cases, an engine is WEAKER if pondering is ON. Remember that each ponder miss is a waste of CPU.
Hash tables may help to reduce the waste but cannot eliminate it.

Matthias.

[Graham Banks]

I am the original poster of this topic and am sorry i have started a feud! I only wanted to know how to obtain the best quality chess possible. ponder on or off simple.

As you can see, there are arguments both ways.
Whereas I do all my testing with ponder off in order to meet CCRL criteria, I think you'll have more fun watching a ponder on tournament in progress.
In the past, I recall seeing some testing that was done to measure how much stronger engines played with ponder on as opposed to ponder off. The difference was negligible.

Cheers, Graham.

[hgm]

I still have little to add to what I originally said:

If you want to play a number of games on a dual, play two games simultaneous with ponder off, with twice longer time control. The engines will then play stronger than when you play one game at the time at the nominal TC with ponder on. In both cases you use 100% of the CPU, but in the former case 20-30% of the CPU time will be wasted because engines are pondering about the wrong move.

The other arguments that have been mentioned, like "butthen engines take tuns in thinking, in stead of thinking all the time" you should only pay attention to if you care abotthem and are willing to sacrifice quality for it or wait longer for your results.

[hgm]

In the past, I recall seeing some testing that was done to measure how much stronger engines played with ponder on as opposed to ponder off. The difference was negligible.

This is interesting, and certainly true for micro-Max (as it does not know how to ponder ). But I would have expected a 20-Elo improvement, or so, for engines with a good ponder implementation.

[Graham Banks]

In the past, I recall seeing some testing that was done to measure how much stronger engines played with ponder on as opposed to ponder off. The difference was negligible.

This is interesting, and certainly true for micro-Max (as it does not know how to ponder ). But I would have expected a 20-Elo improvement, or so, for engines with a good ponder implementation.

20 ELO is negligible in the bigger scheme of things. Just my opinion.

[mcostalba]

20 ELO is negligible in the bigger scheme of things. Just my opinion.

I can assure you that when you are fighting hard with your code just to squeeze that extra bit of speed or tweaking a parameter to death just to find the optimal tuning you are very very far from the bigger scheme of things in that moment

[Matthias Gemuh]

... I would have expected a 20-Elo improvement, or so, for engines with a good ponder implementation.

Such a huge gain is only possible if some opponents ponder so badly that they lose that much Elo approx.

Graham is right that games with ponder ON are more fun to watch, though.

Matthias.

[Graham Banks]

20 ELO is negligible in the bigger scheme of things. Just my opinion.

I can assure you that when you are fighting hard with your code just to squeeze that extra bit of speed or tweaking a parameter to death just to find the optimal tuning you are very very far from the bigger scheme of things in that moment

True. I certainly didn't mean to downplay the efforts of the engine authors in this regard.