From: os9ug@gkcl.ists.ca (OS-9 User Group)
Subject: Re: computers that intentionally slip up (was Re: chinook)
Keywords: update
Reply-To: sizone!justin@ee.ryerson.ca (Justin Wells)
Organization: y
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 92 07:56:37 GMT

In article <BtppH6.4nu@acsu.buffalo.edu> v5875bza@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Michael M Gorman Jr) writes:

>Just curious:  would you go so far as to resign in this situation
>when your game was otherwise won?  E.g., your're a GM, your opponent
>is rated 1300, you're up a rook, but then you realize that he's got
>a mate in 11 -- and you are quite sure he doesn't see it.  I don't
>mean to ask this in an accusatory fashion--I'm just curious about
>how much of a matter of principle this is to you.


When I think of my own games, I do play a "just checking" move to see
if my opponant sees it too.  

However, I would like to say this:  The GREATER the difference between
the ranks of the players, the MORE OFTEN the stronger player should
resign in such a situation.  It is MORE sensible for the stronger player
to resign under a tricky mate in 11 when there is a difference of 1000
points in the rating, than when there is a difference of 100.

The point being that, with such a large difference, the stronger player
should be trying to play a flawless and pure game.  When your opp. is
roughly equal to you, then pulling a few fast ones is more justifiable:
they aren't expecting to learn from you, they're expecting a good game.
I also think that, outside of tournament games, the stronger player 
should play "straight forward book chess" against a  hideously weaker    
player -- rather than playing strange and unusual moves designed to win
an arcane advantage.  There is much more learning potential in it this
way.  If I played against Karpov, and he played the sorts of things 
against me that he would play against Kasparov... well.. I don't think
I would understand a whole hell of a lot of the game.  But if he played
a straight forward game, and demolished me the "usual" way, I could
probably learn enormously from it, and keep learning every time I went
back to look at it.

Besides... it is more FUN, and a bigger ego boost, to resign on a 
mate that was far beyond your opps. capability of reading.  After the
game you will probably take on legendary qualities in their mind...
whereas if you beat them through trickery, they will go away thinking
"I lost.. but he really wasn't all that great." To me, there is much
more of a victory in such a resignation, than in such a victory.

ANYHOW -- this is sliding away from the original topic --

The question that was posed was this:  The computer can avoid mate in
11 by dropping the queen.  Should the computer go for queen down, where
the situation becomes more simplified (easier for opp. to see how to win),
or go for the "sure loss" route that the opp. might not see.

My (duly revised) position is that the computer should evaluate the
chances for stalemate with queen down, and if there are none, ONLY
then play the losing (though complicated) sequence.  If it seems like
there are chances for a stalemate, this should be preferable to 
intentionally making a losing move.

And there doesn't seem to be a need of any extra playing critereon
to code it this way: one would hope this is the path it would take
in any case.

>
>Michael G

Justin
sizone!justin@ee.ryerson.ca (Justin Wells)