Natural TB

[jhellis3]

I was able to condense and improve things just a tiny bit more:

Branch: https://github.com/jhellis3/Stockfish/tree/tb_fix_2

Compare: https://github.com/official-stockfish/S ... 3:tb_fix_2

[Nordlandia]

Can someone summarize what kind of difference "TB Fix 2" adds over present syzygy please

How long until official release?

[jhellis3]

It just allows SF to resolve mate scores more quickly while using TBs, and perhaps play a bit more like it normally would while still benefiting from the TB knowledge.


I am not aware of any plans to merge this or anything like it. It adds 6 lines of code (granted 3 of them are spaces and brackets) and the issues it fixes are only cosmetic.

[Nordlandia]

It just allows SF to resolve mate scores more quickly while using TBs, and perhaps play a bit more like it normally would while still benefiting from the TB knowledge.


I am not aware of any plans to merge this or anything like it. It adds 6 lines of code (granted 3 of them are spaces and brackets) and the issues it fixes are only cosmetic.

So reliable alternative to matefinder, cool!

Is windows bindary available somewhere?

I suppose this version is better for endgame studies?

[jhellis3]

So reliable alternative to matefinder, cool!

Not really, no....

I suppose this version is better for endgame studies?

Better than Vanilla SF with TBs I suppose.... though MateFinder has this as well and is probably what I would use for any studies....

[carldaman]

I have modified current SF+sygyzy in a way that I have called "Natural TB"..... hiding mates, unnatural sacrifices ... (cursed win and losses at the moment are ignored)

Please tell me this is a bad dream. The notion of "unnatural" play is completely misguided even as i will argue in human terms. Yes, people complain about "unnatural" play, strange engine scores and wonder why a computer chess engine does not find the shortest mates. BUT, who are those people? They are most certainly not strong chess players who even have an iota of tournament experience. To be frank here, these people are usually not even club players but more sunday morning puzzle sovlers, who's only exposure to real chess is the bi-weekly chess puzzle they want to solve. Only thing they understand even less than chess is how modern engines work and they are not a one-size fits all tool. What they think is "natural" or "unnatural" bears very little correspondence to what club players think, which in turn is diffirent from what elite players think and even in those groups there are hugely divergent opinions about what is natural or not:
1) Trading down into a won ending, instead of looking for the shortest mate. Every chess player from club-level upwards does this! It is an essential skill - why is the same for SF+SYZYGY now considered "unnatural" is completely beyond me. To the contrary, even if a strong player sees a complicated mate in 12, he would still trade down to a known winning endgame position - the risk would be to high to miss something. If generally a "natural" TB SF would now play mate in 67 instead of trading into a won ending - it would be unnatural from a human standpoint. Yes there will be some positions where even I would agree that a mate in 4 is in realm of human play instead of trading into a 47 move endgame win - but as a general rule it fails. Also i find it hard to fault a 3200+ player for knowing more winning endgame positions than a <1500 chess-puzzle afficionado.

[snip]... At least make it optional so i can turn this "natural" crap off immediatly.

Sorry, but any decent club player (or stronger) would not sac a Queen unnecessarily so they would be forced to win a very difficult ending as a result. You may see some logical simplifications, by humans, into an easily won endgame, but not into one that's very hard to win as a result of the sac.

A lot of us "club players" do employ chess engines for (serious) analysis and training purposes.

I do agree with having an option to turn it off, if you don't like it.

[syzygy]

Sorry, but any decent club player (or stronger) would not sac a Queen unnecessarily so they would be forced to win a very difficult ending as a result. You may see some logical simplifications, by humans, into an easily won endgame, but not into one that's very hard to win as a result of the sac.

A lot of us "club players" do employ chess engines for (serious) analysis and training purposes.

How many club players use chess engines to learn how to convert endgames with more than a queen up?

Most engines anyway allow you to switch off TBs in case you do want to analyse such an endgame.

So, in all seriousness, I really do wonder when (actually occurring rather than hypothesised on false premises) "unnatural play" is more than a slight cosmetic issue.

[bob]

I have modified current SF+sygyzy in a way that I have called "Natural TB"..... hiding mates, unnatural sacrifices ... (cursed win and losses at the moment are ignored)

Please tell me this is a bad dream. The notion of "unnatural" play is completely misguided even as i will argue in human terms. Yes, people complain about "unnatural" play, strange engine scores and wonder why a computer chess engine does not find the shortest mates. BUT, who are those people? They are most certainly not strong chess players who even have an iota of tournament experience. To be frank here, these people are usually not even club players but more sunday morning puzzle sovlers, who's only exposure to real chess is the bi-weekly chess puzzle they want to solve. Only thing they understand even less than chess is how modern engines work and they are not a one-size fits all tool. What they think is "natural" or "unnatural" bears very little correspondence to what club players think, which in turn is diffirent from what elite players think and even in those groups there are hugely divergent opinions about what is natural or not:
1) Trading down into a won ending, instead of looking for the shortest mate. Every chess player from club-level upwards does this! It is an essential skill - why is the same for SF+SYZYGY now considered "unnatural" is completely beyond me. To the contrary, even if a strong player sees a complicated mate in 12, he would still trade down to a known winning endgame position - the risk would be to high to miss something. If generally a "natural" TB SF would now play mate in 67 instead of trading into a won ending - it would be unnatural from a human standpoint. Yes there will be some positions where even I would agree that a mate in 4 is in realm of human play instead of trading into a 47 move endgame win - but as a general rule it fails. Also i find it hard to fault a 3200+ player for knowing more winning endgame positions than a <1500 chess-puzzle afficionado.

[snip]... At least make it optional so i can turn this "natural" crap off immediatly.

Sorry, but any decent club player (or stronger) would not sac a Queen unnecessarily so they would be forced to win a very difficult ending as a result. You may see some logical simplifications, by humans, into an easily won endgame, but not into one that's very hard to win as a result of the sac.

A lot of us "club players" do employ chess engines for (serious) analysis and training purposes.

I do agree with having an option to turn it off, if you don't like it.

Here is what you are overlooking: "what is an easy win?" To a computer, EVERY won 6 piece ending is trivial...

It is all about "perspective".

[Laskos]

Tested the latest Natural from middlegame positions in round-robin of 24,000 games at 10''+0.1''. From early opening positions the differences are smaller and much more games are needed for a statistically significant result, the Stockfish Testing Framework must run these 100,000+ games mammoth matches. My results are statistically significant, and they show that Natural 5-men is somewhere middle way from No TB at all and full Syzygy 5-men.

Code: Select all

Rank   Name                                 ELO     +/-   Games   Score   Draws
   1 SF SYZYGY                               21       4   12000     53%     48%
   2 SF NATURAL                               5       4   12000     51%     49%
   3 SF NO TB MASTER                        -12       4   12000     48%     48%
   4 SF NO TB MARCO                         -14       4   12000     48%     48%

I included 2 No TB engines to check that the compile of the Natural performs similarly with the compile of the Master from SF testing framework, and they are within error margins.

[Rochester]

The syzygy programer know the syzygy better. The natural play loose more oftenly, so also good simulation of the real.