Alpha Zero vs Stockfish 8 tournament conditions.

Leo · Post by **Leo** » Thu Dec 07, 2017 5:15 am

shrapnel · Post by **shrapnel** » Thu Dec 07, 2017 5:47 am

The Age of Chess Engines based on alpha-beta Search is over.
This is just nit-picking/quibbling by old men who are too set in their ways of thinking to fully grasp or accept the sudden change in the World of Computer chess.
No point arguing with them, because if the change is for real, they will have to accept the Truth sometime or the other or risk making themselves a laughing stock.

Graham Banks · Post by **Graham Banks** » Thu Dec 07, 2017 6:05 am

The only thing I question is that AlphaZero had an opening book based on learning over millions of games, whereas it looks as though Stockfish may not have used an opening book at all.

royb · Post by **royb** » Thu Dec 07, 2017 6:28 am

How many CPUs / cores did each program have? Were the computing resources during the match the same for both AlphaZero and Stockfish 8? I didn't see that when I admittedly hastily scanned the article I saw on the web.

Evert · Post by **Evert** » Thu Dec 07, 2017 10:57 am

This is irrelevant, and besises the point. People arguing about hardware or number of cores are equally missing the point.
Even discussions of which is stronger under what conditions, or whether Stockfish dev would be stronger or not, miss the point.

The astounding thing here is that Alpha Zero is in the same ballpark as Stockfish. Especially given the claim of how little time was spent training Alpha Zero.

stavros · Post by **stavros** » Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:53 am

we compare 64 cores stockfish vs 120 Teraflops special hardware right?
its like hydra back in 2006 with special FPGA chips for chess vs pc's right?
so i have a pc with 8 cores+latest stockfish=3400 elo with 1300$
take pls that google software and run it on my pc and make a match
until then practicaly i can wait 5-10 years for a 1300$ monster NN hardware and a fair match

AdminX · Post by **AdminX** » Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:58 am

I think people place to much 'Stock' in Stockfish. I see it here, and also witnessed it while viewing the TCEC chat of season 10. I think we are seeing too-big-to-fail syndrome happening.

stavros · Post by **stavros** » Thu Dec 07, 2017 12:14 pm

to make it more practical: i want to know the price of 64core st hardware and the price of alpha zero hardware pls anyone? to make a more fair comparison

shrapnel · Post by **shrapnel** » Thu Dec 07, 2017 1:36 pm

Evert wrote:This is irrelevant, and besises the point. People arguing about hardware or number of cores are equally missing the point.
Even discussions of which is stronger under what conditions, or whether Stockfish dev would be stronger or not, miss the point.

The astounding thing here is that Alpha Zero is in the same ballpark as Stockfish. Especially given the claim of how little time was spent training Alpha Zero.

+1.
This is meaning of the Proverb, "Missing the Wood for the Trees ".

Branko Radovanovic · Post by **Branko Radovanovic** » Thu Dec 07, 2017 1:43 pm

stavros wrote:to make it more practical: i want to know the price of 64core st hardware and the price of alpha zero hardware pls anyone? to make a more fair comparison

Price would, of course, be a good criterion for comparison, but from an engineering standpoint it would be interesting to compare power consumption of these two systems. If Google's TPU system does not draw (much) more power than a 64-core PC, then it might be argued that it is not (much) more powerful, both in a literal and in a metaphorical sense. Does anyone know the figures?

For those who believe the matchup was not fair on the account of (supposedly or not) much stronger hardware used by AlphaZero, consider the following question: how many cores on a conventional PC running Stockfish 8 would it take to outplay a 64-core PC also running Stockfish 8 by as much as 100 Elo? 256 would certainly not suffice, and my guess is that even 512 would not be enough. It's not just that AlphaZero is stronger - it's by what margin, and I'm not sure this could be explained simply by having more powerful hardware.