I understand well, that AI- engine might need move history and has to have positions brought to board by itself, to get its full performance, "positionally" and tactically.mhull wrote: ↑Fri May 11, 2018 7:52 pm I have argued eloquently and in vain to allow L0 to play all its own moves and not impose book lines upon it (in testing gauntlets). Forced books will skew Elo estimates in unknown ways.
But people have the CCRL-style testing (stripped/hobbled-engine) deeply ingrained in their thinking and one cannot blast them out of it. There is no persuading them.
That's not to say there is no value in forcing L0 to play test positions but it should be compared to letting it play all moves of a game, not just middle/endgame. There would be value in that comparison.
Yet I'm of the oldfashioned kind, judging engines' worth by the usefulness for human requirements.
If I can have an engine only for engine- engine games to watch and count the points afterwards for getting rating lists, I'm not fully happy with it.
There's an old joke of Ephraim Kishon (who by the way wrote chessbooks too), he lets "Jossele" tell: Invention of a machine that grows potatoes, harvests them, cooks them, peels them and eats them up.
Or like Chrilly Donninger used to say: watching engines play against each other is like watching the washing machine washing the laundry.
If I can't "ask" an engine for opening, middlegame and endgame positions' judging without waiting, till the positons are brought to board by AI on its own, I simply lose interest.