Mscp 1.6 small bug fix update & great game against Glaur

[Jim Ablett]

Hi Marcus,

OK course, Drunkenmaster in relation to Mscp is a strong engine, I think almost every engine is strong compared to it. In my own tests Drunkenmaster was winning about 7-1 although most of the games were quite close. I just find it strange that now and again mscp 'hit's a sweet spot' and outplays even very strong engines like Glaurung. It's also beaten other engines Gaia, Arion. What's happening here?

[Uri Blass]

Hi Jim,
How many losses that you do not report did mscp lose before the win
against drunkenmaster and the draws against glaurung and horizon.

If the answer is more than 0 then your report is misleading.

readers may get the impression that you have superior evaluation that compensate for the plies that other programs searching when it is not the case.

Note that even a program with inferior evaluation that is outsearched can win games thanks to luck so one win does not prove nothing.

I remember a game when Nejmet outsearched old version of Movei and won a pawn but lost the game because Nejmet's knight got trapped.

Movei did not know more than Nejmet in the evaluation but after Nejmet's knight was trapped nothing could save the game for it.

The fact that Nejmet saw that it's knight was trapped earlier relative to Movei could not help poor Nejmet.

Today Movei can win games against Nejmet because it is probably slightly better than Nejmet but at that time the only way for movei to beat an opponent that is more than 400 elo better than it was by that type of luck.

Uri

[Jim Ablett]

Hi Uri,
Yes, it must just be down to luck. I got a bit carried away with the game gainst Glaurung, it was the very first game, against Horizon, the third and Drunkenmaster, the seventh, but does this mean there are bad flaws in all engines, where even a lowly engine such as Mscp can win if it has luck on it's side?

[Uri Blass]

Yes

There were bigger surprises in the past

one example:
tscp1.73 beated list4.61
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/his4thedition.html

You cannot expect weaker engines to lose every game but I think that it may be more productive to test changes against engines of similiar strength.

Uri