OpenChess

Robert Houdart wrote:

notyetagm wrote:What was the Houdini 1.5 eval of 16 Nb5xa7?! ?
Stockfish 2.0.1 on the chessbomb site gives it an eval of -0.36, a far cry from Rybka's dubious 0.24 eval.

You can find that information at the TCEC web site, all the games are available for replay.
Rybka was at +0.24, Houdini at -0.32.

Wow, that website is really a work of art.

Thanks for the tip!

This headline could create more chaos:

Houdini 1.5 stays perfect, destroys Rybka 4 with black
Ivanhoe jumps into clear second position

Rybka 4 won the World Cumputer Chess Championship 2009 with a large margin. It was a culmination of years of dominations on the computer chess scene. However, despite winning the 2010 title, things have been going on a downwards spiral for Rybka. Strong competitors have been emerging and new algorythms have been challenging the top spot.

Are they now blocking chessdom at Rybka forum?

P.S. I do believe it is spelled IvanHoe -- someone please correct me if am wrong.

kingliveson wrote:This headline could create more chaos:

Houdini 1.5 stays perfect, destroys Rybka 4 with black
Ivanhoe jumps into clear second position

Rybka 4 won the World Cumputer Chess Championship 2009 with a large margin. It was a culmination of years of dominations on the computer chess scene. However, despite winning the 2010 title, things have been going on a downwards spiral for Rybka. Strong competitors have been emerging and new algorythms have been challenging the top spot.

Are they now blocking chessdom at Rybka forum?

P.S. I do believe it is spelled IvanHoe -- someone please correct me if am wrong.

They cannot block out reality forever.

Houdini is already stronger than Rybka 4 and Houdart said today on chessbomb that he expects both Stockfish and Critter to surpass Rybka 4 this year.

Rybka's days of dominance are over.

kingliveson wrote:sdom at Rybka forum?

P.S. I do believe it is spelled IvanHoe -- someone please correct me if am wrong.

When the engine is installed in any GUI it's spelled like you believe, with a capital H.

But being the perfectionist that I am and to get it coherent with the other names, I changed it on my website to a small h.
So I guess Chessdom just wrote it that way because that's how it appears on my website.

Best Regards,
Martin

Fascinating, and an incredible blunder by ChessDom. It isn't to besmirch Houdini BTW, as that is not the problem. It is the fact they are promoting a small private computer chess tournament, with no official recognition, on their front page as the main article, after only three rounds, which is the sort of reporting reserved for major international chess tournaments.... It is amazingly bad judgment, and beyond stupid.

I happen to agree with some of this (especially after I figured out how the TCEC openings are chosen), though, alternatively, one could spin it the other way: "A bold new leap into chess reporting by ChessDom, putting computer chess on par with human events, enabling pawn-ogling fanatics to fend off virtual starvation until the mere ~2800 chess in Wijk aan Zee starts on Friday..."

P.S. I do believe it is spelled IvanHoe -- someone please correct me if am wrong.

I too try to imitate internal capitalisation from the engine makers (though it is not always easy), but the book/movie is definitely with a small haitch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanhoe

Martin Thoresen wrote:Honestly, I am a bit surprised by all this. But also glad. Glad that people visit my site and enjoy chess, and glad that Chessdom actually dares to write an article like they have done.

It's beautiful. Well done.

As a human I wouldn't go for the RR+6 vs RBN+5 with Nxa7 as Rybka did, as two minors tend to win these, especially when White has redundant majors.

I might point out that (in my opinion) RR is more "redundant" than QR, particularly when the opponent's King is not safe in the latter.

After looking at the other games, I actually think Naum's win over Critter in Round 4 was a better example of how B+N vs R+P (each side also with a queen and some pawns) can turn into a win:[Event "TCEC Division 1"]<br> [Round "4"]<br> [White "Naum"]<br> [Black "Critter"]<br> [Result "1-0"]<br> 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. g3 b6 4. Bg2 Bb7 5. O-O Be7 6. c4 O-O 7. Nc3 Ne4 8. d5 Nxc3 9. bxc3 Na6 10. e4 Nc5 11. Nd4 Ba6 12. Qe2 Nb7 13. dxe6 fxe6 14. Rd1 Bc5 15. e5 Rb8 16. Be4 Qe7 17. Bd3 Na5 18. Be3 Bb7 19. f4 d6 20. exd6 cxd6 21. Nb3 Bxe3+ 22. Qxe3 Nc6 23. Nd4 Rbe8 24. Nb5 Rd8 25. Be4 e5 26. Bd5+ Kh8 27. Rf1 h6 28. Rae1 Qd7 29. Qe4 exf4 30. Rxf4 Rfe8 31. Qb1 Rxe1+ 32. Qxe1 Ne5 33. Bxb7 Nd3 34. Qe4 Nxf4 35. gxf4 Re8 36. Qf3 Qf5 37. Nd4 Qb1+ 38. Kg2 Qxa2+ 39. Kh3 Qxc4 40. Bd5 Qc7 41. Bc6 Re1 42. Qg3 Qc8+ 43. Kg2 Rd1 44. Qf3 Rc1 45. h4 Re1 46. Bd5 Qe8 47. Kf2 Rb1 48. Be6 a5 49. Qe4 Rb2+ 50. Kg3 Rd2 51. h5 Rd1 52. Nf5 Rd3+ 53. Kf2 Rd2+ 54. Ke1 Rd3 55. Ne7 Re3+ 56. Qxe3 Qxe7 57. Kd2 Qd8 58. Bc4 d5 59. Qd4 Qd6 60. Kc2 Qd7 61. Bxd5 a4 62. Bc4 Qc8 63. Qe4 Qd8 64. Bd3 Qg8 65. Qxa4 1-0

As a human I wouldn't go for the RR+6 vs RBN+5 with Nxa7 as Rybka did, as two minors tend to win these, especially when White has redundant majors. [...]
I might point out that (in my opinion) RR is more "redundant" than QR, particularly when the opponent's King is not safe in the latter.

Just to round this off, with BN vs R and no other majors, Dvoretsky's maxim "The Strongest Piece is the Rook" can sometimes be true, especially if there are pawns on both sides of the board (the knight can't be two places at once too easily), or there are rook-pawns with a mis-matched bishop. Müller's third column on the subject of the strength of the Rook in the endgame has the notable Tal-Geller endgame and some other examples. http://www.chesscafe.com/text/mueller60.pdf

BB+ wrote:I happen to agree with some of this (especially after I figured out how the TCEC openings are chosen), though, alternatively, one could spin it the other way: "A bold new leap into chess reporting by ChessDom, putting computer chess on par with human events, enabling pawn-ogling fanatics to fend off virtual starvation until the mere ~2800 chess in Wijk aan Zee starts on Friday..."

If you were to run TCEC how would you define/make the opening rules?

Best,
Martin

If you were to run TCEC how would you define/make the opening rules?

My opinion is that random openings of length X are useful for testing, but trying to splice this into a "league" concept is not so palatable. Choosing 12 moves from a large PGN file can lead to funky play, especially when strange moves are made at the opening part in the game. Maybe if you stuck to "top GM" games it would work better, but from what I've seen, a non-negligible percentage of the games have "quirks" in the first few moves. [Computers shouldn't have to put up with openings from dodgy humans ]. Also, especially with 3:1:0 scoring, if engine X happens to get 4-5 drawish opening from the 7 choices, and engine Y receives two less, it could be a burden.

Ideally, the makers of the engines would have some input, perhaps via a submitted opening book (similar to SSDF). I'm personally somewhat against the separation of book/engine, though I know many developers prefer it (and UCI almost tends to enforce it). However, given that some of the developers are probably now "boycotting" TCEC due to the inclusion of IvanHoe/Houdini, this is unlikely to get anywhere in practise.

Another option would be to query outside expertise. There's got to be some quality book-makers around who would be willing to spend the time (3-5 hours?) to collate 56 (times 3, plus a few more for the Elite match) playable opening positions for a season's worth of games, especially now that TCEC has gone big-time. I don't see how this could fail to improve on random PGN selections. You could also open it up to the public via a poll somehow.