Stockfish dumbed down?

[farbror]

I just installed Stockfish and ChessPad. It works great but I would also like an occasional training game on my netbook with a realistic chance of winning. So, is there any way to reduce the playing strength os Stockfish a bit?

[Eelco de Groot]

Hello Patrik, welcome to the board!

It might also be fun to try some of the less strong programs, if you enjoy playing against them. Not that many people try playing against strong chess programs anymore if they just lose everything, but new programs from starting from scratch programmers often are not that strong. There is in the latest Stockfish introduced an option to set "Skill Level" meant for dimishing strength so maybe that is someyhing to try, see the introductory thread posted by Jim Ablett http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... kill+level

Christophe Théron with his program Chess Tiger, it now is named differently but I forgot the exact name, also is experimenting with all sets of levels for people who want to train or just have a sparring partner of similar strength. Ed Schröders programs also had ways to reduce strength that still played an attractive game for human opponents. It is not so easy to not let the program make strange tactical oversights to reduce strength when at other moments it still sees "everything" it quickly becomes an unrealistic simulation of a human opponent. Johan de Koning also did work on this in Chess Master with lots of personalities to choose from.

Regards, Eelco

[farbror]

Thank you! Great advice! I will look around and see if I can figure out how to use Stockfish at a usable level.

To make an engine play realistic bad chess is quite a challenge!

[lucasart]

Thank you! Great advice! I will look around and see if I can figure out how to use Stockfish at a usable level.

To make an engine play realistic bad chess is quite a challenge!

have a look at the options of SF. in version 2.1 they introduced a limited strength feature. but even at the lowest level, it is still quite strong (perhaps beatable by good players, but not by me...)

Here's my own engine, you might be able to beat it !
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1 ... Check.html

Lucas

[Tord Romstad]

in version 2.1 they introduced a limited strength feature. but even at the lowest level, it is still quite strong (perhaps beatable by good players, but not by me...)

If you get the iOS version, I promise you'll be able to beat it at the weakest levels. Here is a game I just played with the "Strength" option reduced to 0:

Code: Select all

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "3. aug. 2011"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Tord"]
[Black "Stockfish"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. Nf3 a6 7. Be3 a5 8. a4 f5
9. exf6 Ra7 10. fxg7 Bxg7 11. Nb5 Qb6 12. Nxa7 Qxa7 13. Ne5 O-O 14. Be2 b6 15.
O-O Bh8 16. c3 Bb7 17. Bg4 Rf5 18. Bxf5 exf5 19. Qh5 Bxe5 20. fxe5 Nf8 21. Qxf5
Nbd7 22. Qf7+ Kh8 23. Bh6 Ne6 24. Qxe6 Qb8 25. Qxd7 Qg8 26. Qxb7 cxd4 27. Rf8
Qxf8 28. Bxf8 dxc3 29. Qg7#
1-0

You can't play much weaker than that without playing completely random moves.

[lucasart]

in version 2.1 they introduced a limited strength feature. but even at the lowest level, it is still quite strong (perhaps beatable by good players, but not by me...)

If you get the iOS version, I promise you'll be able to beat it at the weakest levels. Here is a game I just played with the "Strength" option reduced to 0:

Code: Select all

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "3. aug. 2011"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Tord"]
[Black "Stockfish"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. Nf3 a6 7. Be3 a5 8. a4 f5
9. exf6 Ra7 10. fxg7 Bxg7 11. Nb5 Qb6 12. Nxa7 Qxa7 13. Ne5 O-O 14. Be2 b6 15.
O-O Bh8 16. c3 Bb7 17. Bg4 Rf5 18. Bxf5 exf5 19. Qh5 Bxe5 20. fxe5 Nf8 21. Qxf5
Nbd7 22. Qf7+ Kh8 23. Bh6 Ne6 24. Qxe6 Qb8 25. Qxd7 Qg8 26. Qxb7 cxd4 27. Rf8
Qxf8 28. Bxf8 dxc3 29. Qg7#
1-0

You can't play much weaker than that without playing completely random moves.

Oh you're right. I must have done something wrong. I just played a game with SF at strength 0 and I destroyed it

[farbror]

Looks promising! Please be patient with someone totally computer illiterate. How do I change the "strength parameter"?

[parrish]

I think the easiest way to "dumb" down chess programs is to play games with unbalanced time controls. Turn of pondering for the program, so it can't think on your time; and give yourself as much time as you want, and the program as little time as necessary until you can beat it. Then slowly give yourself less time as you get better.

[farbror]

Nice suggestion! I run Stockfish as an engine under "ChessPad" which is a free SCID type of program. I have not managed to figure out how to change any parameters in that enviroment. There are some options for adding parameters and to link to an ini-file but it is all alien to me.

[Robert Weck]

Maybe you should consider switching to a different GUI like "Arena", which offers much more options than Chesspad/Chesspad 2 (and changing engine-parameters is very easy there)