Pepito 1.54 and learning

[Igor Korshunov]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Igor Korshunov at 12 November 2002 11:28:26:

Hi All!
How I can switch off learning in Pepito 1.54?
I'm not sure that it learning, but it updates books after every game.
My main goal is determining playing strenght of engines. The main assumption the engines must stay without any changes from game to game. Elsewhere we can obtain incorrect rating. So learning must be off.
Can somebody help me?
Best regards,
Igor

[Roger Brown]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Roger Brown at 12 November 2002 12:24:07:
Als Antwort auf: / In reply to: Pepito 1.54 and learning geschrieben von: / posted by: Igor Korshunov at 12 November 2002 11:28:26:

Hi All!
How I can switch off learning in Pepito 1.54?
I'm not sure that it learning, but it updates books after every game.
My main goal is determining playing strenght of engines. The main assumption the engines must stay without any changes from game to game. Elsewhere we can obtain incorrect rating. So learning must be off.
Can somebody help me?
Best regards,
Igor

Hello Igor,

BOOK_LEARN (default value: yes)
Acticates/deactivates the book learning. Pepito will avoid playing lines
that it once lost with. Note: turning it off won't prevent Pepito from using
the learned data present in the book, it will just stop updating it after each
game.


I have taken that from Pepito's readme file. It seems to me as if the
choices are limited.
Indicating no does not prevent learning so if you are interested in totally
eliminating learning you may have to carry out the following procedure:
(a) Place a virgin book in a folder and play a sequence of matches
(b) before starting the next sequence, delete that book and start over.

Based on comments by others far more knowledgeable than I, the cumulative
effects of learning over a thirty to fifty game match is not significant.
No matter how much Baron learns, Crafty will beat it to a pulp. Everytime.
It is tedious but Pepito's author hardwired learning into the program and I
for one support it (learning).
The other point is that if the games are of sufficiently short duration, what
is learned could actually be bad!
Finally, not to bore you, perhaps you could consider using no books and instead
employing the Nunn test set of positions. To my recollection I believe that
there are thirty of them and in Galis that translates to sixty (the colours are
alternated) matches per pair of programs...
I hope the above helped.
Later.

[Günther Simon]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Günther Simon at 12 November 2002 12:32:40:
Als Antwort auf: / In reply to: Pepito 1.54 and learning geschrieben von: / posted by: Igor Korshunov at 12 November 2002 11:28:26:

Hi All!
How I can switch off learning in Pepito 1.54?
I'm not sure that it learning, but it updates books after every game.
My main goal is determining playing strenght of engines. The main assumption the engines must stay without any changes from game to game. Elsewhere we can obtain incorrect rating. So learning must be off.
Can somebody help me?
Best regards,
Igor

'BOOK_LEARN no' in the config.dat and setting the flag for write protection
of the two book files should do the job I suppose though I never tried it.
Regards,
Günther