fire and other engines playing style

[ethanara]

What playing style do fire have ?
And what playing style do your engine have ?

[kranium]

What playing style do fire have ?
And what playing style do your engine have ?

Fire has many styles due to the # of configurable parameters...

unfortunately, today's top engines now play in a much more somewhat similar fashion than previously...
due to the wholesale cloning of search/eval ideas from ippolit source code.

i.e. previously many played like Fruit, now they mostly play like IvanHoe...
(which I would categorize as 'passive/aggressive' ?)

thanks to the talented and innovative ippolit authors for pushing things forward and raising the bar far above Rybka 3!

good luck with your testing!

[Laskos]

What playing style do fire have ?
And what playing style do your engine have ?

Fire has many styles due to the # of configurable parameters...

unfortunately, today's top engines now play in a much more somewhat similar fashion than previously...
due to the wholesale cloning of search/eval ideas from ippolit source code.

i.e. previously many played like Fruit, now they mostly play like IvanHoe...
(which I would categorize as 'passive/aggressive' ?)

thanks to the talented and innovative ippolit authors for pushing things forward and raising the bar far above Rybka 3!

good luck with your testing!

Yes, after all these stories will settle down, what will remain of value, as a real contribution, are the anonymous authors of Ippos (Robbos, Igorrits, Ivanhoes) who raised the level of open, free-source engines to the top commercial, of dubious origins Rybka 4 a year earlier than Rybka 4. The work they did for us all is enormous and totally disinterested, to the point of assumed anonymity. Recalls me of some excellent, anonymous medieval works of music, written probably by some friars "for God's sake".

Kai

[BubbaTough]

I think we already have enough threads arguing about how bad Rybka's copying is and how good Ippolit's copying is (or vice-versa). Back to the style question. Of the very top engines I have some experience with my impressions are:

1. Rybka and related engines: tactical monsters. They seem to wait around and then find some amazing shot leading to an advantage. That advantage might be positional or material, but it is definitely looking for the big score, more than an accumulator of small advantages.

2. Stockfish: aggressive positional play. Activates its pieces, and then expects something good to happen. A good game by stockfish can look very smooth and attractive, as if it was actually playing with a consistent plan from beginning to end.

3. Komodo: passive positional play. Komodo seems to value concrete positional characteristics like pawn structure highly and well, and does not compromise these things in search of activity as often as Stockfish will. Instead, it will wait for mistakes by the opponent, and grind out a win.

A tier lower, a couple of engines I am fond of:

4. Spark. This engine plays like some sort of brilliant alien. It seems to have a completely different way of viewing positional characteristics, but give it an opportunity to weaken your king a bit and it can conduct some amazing attacks. A very original engine.

5. Hannibal (my and Edsel's engine). Coffee-House style. Sometimes has a shocking disregard for material and pawn structure, and will blithely allow big pawn weaknesses or drop a pawn without it being clear why. After that though, it can very purposefully and conduct some excellent attacks or maintain nice piece pressure.

-Sam

[ethanara]

thanks Sam.
How can you categorize an engines playing style?

[Laskos]

1. Rybka and related engines: tactical monsters.


-Sam

Both tactical AND positional. I don't think that Stockfish has more knowledge or is more positional.

Kai

[kranium]

I think we already have enough threads arguing about how bad Rybka's copying is and how good Ippolit's copying is (or vice-versa). Back to the style question. Of the very top engines I have some experience with my impressions are:

-Sam

unfortunately, there's no proof (not a shred) that ippolit copied anything.
however it's clearly in your interest to suggest it (i mean: state it as fact).

i.e, with no IvanHoe, etc., in the rating lists...Hannibal's value is artificially inflated.
that's why so many programmers of so-called 'legitimate original' engines are so keen to discredit it and keep it banned.

Making subtle and completely unsupported accusations to discredit another program is as bad as anything else,
really sad to see you stoop so low...

[hgm]

Unfortunately there is not a shred of evidence that it is not copied either. So only people with a serious flaw in their logic department would think it is original. It is a bit like saying: "there is not a shred of evidence that I will die. I never died before..."

[kranium]

1 Houdini 1.5 x64 3001 15 15 1920 77% 2784 30%
2 Rybka 4 x64 Exp. 42 2969 20 19 1240 80% 2719 25%
3 Rybka 4.1 x64 Exp. 79TD v.1 2962 19 19 1240 78% 2743 26%
4 Rybka 4 x64 Exp. 61 2961 21 21 1000 78% 2743 27%
5 Rybka 4.1 x64 2958 16 16 1400 72% 2793 38%
6 Critter 1.2 x64 2955 18 18 1240 76% 2754 34% NEW, + 58
7 Fire 2.2 xTreme x64 2946 19 18 1200 76% 2748 33% NEW, + 9 to 1.5 xTreme
8 Stockfish 2.1.1 JA x64 PHQ 2946 17 17 1360 75% 2757 32% NEW, + 9 to 2.1.1 JA default
9 Houdini 1.03a x64 2944 21 20 1000 80% 2711 30%
10 Rybka 4 x64 2939 17 17 1520 80% 2700 29%
11 IvanHoe B47cB x64 2939 16 16 1360 70% 2791 41%
12 Stockfish 2.1.1 JA x64 2937 16 16 1440 72% 2768 36% NEW, + 30
13 Fire 1.5 xTreme x64 2937 17 16 1400 73% 2763 36% NEW, + 33
14 IvanHoe B49jA x64 2933 17 17 1360 72% 2767 36%
15 Komodo 2.03 JA x64 2929 16 16 1480 70% 2773 33% NEW, + 88
16 IvanHoe B52aC x64 2924 18 18 1160 73% 2756 36%
17 Stockfish 2.0.1 JA x64 2907 18 18 1120 69% 2768 38%
18 Stockfish 1.9.1 JA x64 2906 18 17 1280 73% 2728 33%
19 Stockfish 1.8.0 JA x64 2906 18 18 1200 75% 2715 33%
20 Fire 1.31 x64 2904 19 19 1040 73% 2733 37%
21 Rybka 3 x64 2903 21 20 1000 78% 2686 29%
22 Critter 1.01 x64 2897 16 16 1360 66% 2781 39%
23 Stockfish 1.7.1 JA x64 2896 19 19 1120 76% 2706 34%
24 Stockfish 1.9.1 JA w32 2893 20 20 1000 77% 2692 31%
25 Rybka 4 w32 2891 18 18 1200 76% 2695 32%
26 Critter 0.90 x64 2872 18 17 1200 68% 2741 37%
27 Stockfish 1.7.1 JA w32 2872 18 18 1200 75% 2687 31%
28 Stockfish 2.0.1 JA w32 2872 20 20 1000 76% 2679 34%
29 Critter 0.90 w32 2868 20 20 1000 76% 2679 32%
30 Stockfish 1.8.0 JA w32 2863 19 19 1000 73% 2702 38%
31 Rybka 3 w32 2858 16 16 1520 74% 2687 31%

Last version of IvanHoe is more than 80 points higher than the program from which it was allegedly 'cloned'...
?
relationship kinda looks like Fruit 2.1/ Rybka 1.0 beta at end 2005

yet some here are using the fact that Vas significanty improved Fruit 2.1 as justification for it's legitimacy.
in that case, i guess the ippolit authors are also 'geniuses'...

[kranium]

Unfortunately there is not a shred of evidence that it is not copied either. So only people with a serious flaw in their logic department would think it is original. It is a bit like saying: "there is not a shred of evidence that I will die. I never died before..."

ippolit must provide evidence to prove their innocence...?
i thought it worked the other way around?

yes, it does...you almost had me confused for a bit.
thankfully, we moved past the Inquisition centuries ago...

just not here apparently.