chess 960 engines vs humans

[George]

Just one criticism: you should never run tests like this without some meaningful increment. Otherwise one engine may lose a very long game simply due to running out of time, either forfeiting or having to make instant moves and blunder. Perhaps a strong engine may have hardly ever been tested at sudden death, and it simply is much weaker at that level than with an increment. I think the 45' + 15" we use is close to optimum in terms of getting the best overall level of play for the likely amount of time it will take. Of couse 30' + 10" would also be fine. This 180 to 1 ratio for base time vs. increment is quite good, except for very fast games where the ratio should be smaller, for example one minute plus 0.5 or 0.6" is much better than 1 min plus 1/3 of a second. Anyway I doubt this affected the games you posted much.

Now based on the last standard position with the f7 pawn removed and a program close to the strength of GM Nakamura Booot 2828, do you believe that the f7 pawn odds giving by your team with Komodo vs GM Nakamura was fair?

Well I already knew and reported well before that match that Komodo could give f7 odds successfully to other engines rated well above it, but had much more trouble doing the same with older or time/crippled Komodo versions. When engines play each other with a handicap they don't know that they are playing a stronger opponent and should avoid unnecessary complications, but humans do know this and avoid complications as much as possible. This makes it very hard to make predictions of engine vs human games based on engine vs engine games. The only way to tell what is "fair" for engine vs. human games is trial and error. I think that based on the games we have run so far vs. GMs that 2800 (close to Nakamura) is roughly the rating that should break even with Komodo givning f7 odds at 45' + 15". If I have time I might do an exact calculation later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmOaSLJU7aQ

Where Can I get one previous version older than the current and latest version of Komodo? I would like to test different Engines with different odds in Standard chess as well as Chess960

If you bought a subscription to Komodo, all older versions are free. Komodo 8 is free for everyone at komodochess.com. If you bought Komooo 10.1 from us you are not supposed to get Komodo 10 or 9 for free, but if you send me an email along with a copy of your order I'll send whichever one you want to you free.

Thanks Larry, I will wait for your next release to purchase it.