Crafty no improvement in strength?

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

It really sickens me when users of programs, who probably haven't programmed a chess game themselves, criticise the efforts of others.

This is the kind of stuff that some programmers dish out when they don't have anything else to say,I've seen some of the programmers state that to different people a lot of time,especially when someone enquire about the engine's progress with comments exactly like how the original poster does.

It should not be taken seriously and I'd suggest that you go to amazon site for book reviews and take Da vinci code for example and read only the reviews of critics,There are critcs,there are always critics and critics are needed to judge the quality of the book and even someone who voted 4 out of 5 adds some critical points,and asking the critic if he has written a book is silly ,the same principle applies here.Asking a mechanical engineer if he has written a chess program looks silly and quite irritating to me

Crafty is a great program

I agree with you,it's great because it's strong open source program,after Fruit and Toga,Glaurung and few others.

[Tony Thomas]

Why is it that you always start threads without providing any kind of proof John? True that Crafty lagged behind for a while, but it seem to have caught up with a lot of engines. If you want to get the true strength of crafty use a 64bit version with ponder on. Here is the data from the web's premier tournament aka WBEC. If you look at the history, you can see that previous public version 19.20 was demoted to first division and that the newer version was able to make it back to the premier and it is not facing any kind of relegation. My testing also shows that crafty has improved about 50 points from the 19.20 series, if you want me to post the data, I will post that as well. Below listed are the 24 of the strongest chess engines available(some only for a select few) counting out Fritz and Junior.

Code: Select all

1: Rybka 2.2-x64          75.0 / 92  
 2: Shredder 10-x64        65.0 / 92   
 3: Spike 1.3x4            63.5 / 92   
 4: Naum 2.1b-x64          56.5 / 92   
 5: Fruit 061027y          56.0 / 92   
 6: LoopMP 12.32           53.0 / 92  
 7: Hiarcs X54-x64         52.0 / 92   
 8: The King 3.33          50.0 / 92 
 9: Ktulu 8.0              49.5 / 92   
10: Glaurung 1.21-x64      48.0 / 92  
11: Scorpio 1.83           46.5 / 92   
12: SmarThink 1.0 uci      44.0 / 92   
13: Gandalf 6.01           43.5 / 92   
14: Crafty 20.14-x64BH     42.5 / 92 
15: Thinker 5.0b-x64       42.0 / 92   
16: The Baron 2.8-x64      40.0 / 92   
17: SlowChess blitz WV2.1  40.0 / 92   
18: Pharaon 3.51           39.0 / 92   
19: DeepSjeng ZZ3          37.0 / 92   
20: Ruffian 2.1.0          36.0 / 92   
21: Aristarch 4.50         35.0 / 92 
22: Delfi 5.0              33.5 / 92   
23: Jonny 2.86             32.0 / 92   
24: SOS 5.1                24.5 / 92   

[Graham Banks]

My testing also shows that crafty has improved about 50 points from the 19.20 series,

All the latest Crafty versions have shown progressive gains in strength in CCRL 40/40 testing.
Still early in my testing, but I'm particularly impressed with the latest version so far - Crafty 21.5.
Keep up the good work Bob and team.

[Tony Thomas]

My testing also shows that crafty has improved about 50 points from the 19.20 series,

All the latest Crafty versions have shown progressive gains in strength in CCRL 40/40 testing.
Still early in my testing, but I'm particularly impressed with the latest version so far - Crafty 21.5.
Keep up the good work Bob and team.

Word...

[Marc Lacrosse]

(....)
counting out Fritz and Junior.
(...)

and Zap and Toga ...

[Tony Thomas]

(....)
counting out Fritz and Junior.
(...)

and Zap and Toga ...

Yes, counting out Zappa, a new version of Fruit is already on the list. I dont count toga as another engine.

[fern]

He does not criticize the program, neither his author. He just observe that, perhaps, there is not progress in it.
To realize that it is not necessary to be programmer; it is enough to be user.

my best
Fernando

[Tony Thomas]

He does not criticize the program, neither his author. He just observe that, perhaps, there is not progress in it.
To realize that it is not necessary to be programmer; it is enough to be user.

my best
Fernando

His criticism is invalid.

[MikeB]

The likes of Fritz, Rybka etc can claim improvement in strength as the later versions are released. How come crafty does not enjoy the same improvement in strength as the commercial versions? Even something like the free spike has seen a dramatic improvement in strength from 0.9 to 1.2.

My $.02 - Crafty is getting better - I do think some of the commercial engines are getting better faster. Latest test version of Crafty is clearly stronger (imo) than any previous version. Crafty is non commercial , being worked by voluteers, when they have the time, while holding down their day jobs. Commercial engines are being by people who are depending, or perhaps trying to depend on their success and earning financial rewards - perhaps enough to live on. Big difference. If interesed, I can you send a version that i better than any previous version of crafty and you can run your own tests. Email me mfbyrne_pa@msn.com

Michael

[fern]

Could be, but the point is he was unfairly criticised because of his perhaps wrong critic.

Fernando