WB Elo list

[Georg v. Zimmermann]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Georg v. Zimmermann am 03. Dezember 1999 21:13:17:
To me your WB engine list has become as important to judge the strength of wb-engines as SSDF is to judge standart chess programs.
Here are some suggestions to make the list even more valuable:
- Only one version per program (like "Crafty"), if you get a new version of crafty, then immediately replace the old one. This is not a problem since huge rating jumps tend to happen seldom enough.
- Don't have any commercial programs like nimzo play, or if you do: add a "(c)" to the program name that everyone can see.
- Don't use beta-version which are unavaible to us all, EVER!
- Play a round of Nunn Positions instead of using the built in opening books, we want to know the engine strength, not the opening book strength.
- Don't EVER play a match with permanent brain on, if you can't switch it off don't test the program. If the author doesn't like it ... not your fault.
Ok, of course it is up to you how you do your testing.
Regards,
Georg

[Pete Galati]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Pete Galati am 03. Dezember 1999 22:42:50:
Als Antwort auf:/As an answer to: WB Elo list geschrieben von:/posted by: Georg v. Zimmermann am 03. Dezember 1999 21:13:17:

To me your WB engine list has become as important to judge the strength of wb-engines as SSDF is to judge standart chess programs.
Here are some suggestions to make the list even more valuable:
- Only one version per program (like "Crafty"), if you get a new version of crafty, then immediately replace the old one. This is not a problem since huge rating jumps tend to happen seldom enough.
- Don't have any commercial programs like nimzo play, or if you do: add a "(c)" to the program name that everyone can see.
- Don't use beta-version which are unavaible to us all, EVER!
- Play a round of Nunn Positions instead of using the built in opening books, we want to know the engine strength, not the opening book strength.
- Don't EVER play a match with permanent brain on, if you can't switch it off don't test the program. If the author doesn't like it ... not your fault.
Ok, of course it is up to you how you do your testing.
Regards,
Georg

Or posibly "(com)" or something else because (c) is generally used to indicate that a player is a program on servers, just a thought, I don't really have a problem with (c) though.
I agree completely on this, I would also not use programs like Insomniac since it's not a download program.
If you have the computers & the setup to test on 2 computers, I think pondering should be allowed, but on single computer tournaments, yes, turn the ponder off or don't use the program & ignore any programmer ranting about the subject.
You make very good points.
Pete

[Volker Pittlik]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Volker Pittlik am 05. Dezember 1999 00:02:33:
Als Antwort auf:/As an answer to: WB Elo list geschrieben von:/posted by: Georg v. Zimmermann am 03. Dezember 1999 21:13:17:
Dear Georg,
although I don't maintain the WB Elo list and I agree with most parts of your posting I don't understand why playing with "ponder=on" should be wrong. If appropriate hardware is in use the engines will play stronger. Please don't ask me how big this difference is (there is more than one opinion: 10 to more than 100 Elo points). But I think the growth of strength is not in doubt, in particular at fast time controls.

To me your WB engine list has become as important to judge the strength of wb-engines as SSDF is to judge standart chess programs.
Here are some suggestions to make the list even more valuable:
- Only one version per program (like "Crafty"), if you get a new version of crafty, then immediately replace the old one. This is not a problem since huge rating jumps tend to happen seldom enough.
- Don't have any commercial programs like nimzo play, or if you do: add a "(c)" to the program name that everyone can see.
- Don't use beta-version which are unavaible to us all, EVER!
- Play a round of Nunn Positions instead of using the built in opening books, we want to know the engine strength, not the opening book strength.
- Don't EVER play a match with permanent brain on, if you can't switch it off don't test the program. If the author doesn't like it ... not your fault.
Ok, of course it is up to you how you do your testing.
Regards,
Georg

This will be interesting but from my point of view to play with the built in opening book is the more "natural" way to play. The books are something what belongs to the programs. As the knowledge of openings belongs to a human player. It takes hard work to accumulate this.
Beste Gruesse
Volker