Rebel wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 9:50 pm
Alayan wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 9:29 pm
What's the reference used to judge opening move quality ? I see "2, 3 and 4-moves.epd are created from 2600+ elo rated human players.", is this related to what moves are considered good/bad ?
The assumption is that 2600+ elo rated players seldom blunder the first 6 moves, let alone in the first 2-3 moves.
They don't blunder, but then neither do engines.
In the end, the challenge is to find moves that lead into positions where the most complications exists for your opponent while conceding the least possible, so as to maximize the expected score.
Human GMs are rather good at doing choices that maximize their expected score, but there is a strong specialization bias - try to go into lines you know very well and avoid lines your opponent knows very well.
The expected score of a line might very well be different for 3000+ engines than for 2600+ humans. The expected score of a line is also a function of the rating difference between the two playing entities - the optimal line vs a stronger opponent is drawish, while it is more forceful and imbalanced vs a weaker opponent. In this regard, there is often no absolute best move in balanced drawn positions.
Openings that are objectively worse might also get selected by a human GM because they offer a higher chance to get a win that's needed to get a good tournament placement.
In short, I'm skeptical about the methodology.
