Attacker vs Positional Challenge Match

[BrendanJNorman]

Hey guys,

I've decided to create a 25 board challenge match between attacking and positional engines/personalities.

All participants are my own subjective opinions (for the most part).

Bolded ratings are estimates, unbolded ratings are from CCRL.

Anyway, this is not meant to be scientific, just a bit of fun...

So look at the teams - how do you think I could have improved either team?



Note: There was a 3050 Elo cutoff.

[Graham Banks]

I'd regard Gaviota as more aggressive rather than positional.
Perhaps Nemo 1.0.1 or Deuterium 14.3.34.130 64-bit instead?

Other positional engines - Pedone, Crafty, Cheng and ChessBrainVB.
Other aggressive engines - SCTR, Hakkapeliitta and Quazar.

[BrendanJNorman]

I'd regard Gaviota as more aggressive rather than positional.
Perhaps Nemo 1.0.1 or Deuterium 14.3.34.130 64-bit instead?

Maybe. I was led to Gaviota after reading the following testimonials:

I love Gaviota for its positional play. It can play very unusual moves that raises an eyebrow but then a few moves later everything becomes clear, meaning there was a plan after all. Quite unique. - Ed Schroder

I use the Gaviota 1.0 version. It's a fine positionnal player - Boban Stanojevic

But indeed, in the late middlegame Gaviota can play very fine positional moves. I think one of the strenghts of Gaviota. - Frank Quisinsky

So I tested it a little and tended to agree - I guess things like
"style" are hard to quantify though...

Other positional engines - Pedone, Crafty, Cheng and ChessBrainVB.
Other aggressive engines - SCTR, Hakkapeliitta and Quazar.

I'll check these out (maybe in next challenge match), thanks Graham!

[matejst]

You could add somewhere Gandalf 7b. While it plays a kind of balanced chess, it's tactically excellent, and with the appropriate book it can do a lot of damage (it usually beats Zarkov quite handily in sharp openings).

Books in this match could be very important. On Ed's site, you could find some old Jeroen Noomen books that could fit the task, and convert them in the format you need.

I dowloaded and tried Frenzee, as you recommended. It looks good, so far.

Then, perhaps Gambit Tiger could be added to the list, if you have it.

I don't agree with Graham (just saw his post). While both Gaviota and Wasp can be aggressive, they are playing sound, human-like positional chess, and they are good at containing their opponents. I tested them in some positions where they had initiative for material, and they both aimed for a mixture of limiting and active chess. These are not the kind of engines to throw the kitchen sink at you, but they "understand" initiative.

[Ovyron]

Missing from the attacking team:

Deep Fritz 10.1
Hiarcs Paderborn 2007
The King 3.23 Tribute Personality
Strelka 1.8
Critter 0.90 (restricted to 1CPU to avoid cutoff)
Zappa Mexico Dissident Aggressor Personality
ChessTiger2007

[BrendanJNorman]

You could add somewhere Gandalf 7b. While it plays a kind of balanced chess, it's tactically excellent, and with the appropriate book it can do a lot of damage (it usually beats Zarkov quite handily in sharp openings).

Books in this match could be very important. On Ed's site, you could find some old Jeroen Noomen books that could fit the task, and convert them in the format you need.

I dowloaded and tried Frenzee, as you recommended. It looks good, so far.

Then, perhaps Gambit Tiger could be added to the list, if you have it.

Have added Gandalf 7 to the attacking team but have decided to avoid using ChessBase native engines.

So sadly no Gambit Tiger, Fritz, Hiarcs 8 Bareev, Chess Tiger 14, Deep Junior 7 etc.

Will be running the matches in Arena GUI.

BTW...completely agree about the need for suitable books, but at the same time I don't want the books to be too deep.

No more than 12 or so moves, or else the games will lack content.

I have Spassky, Tal, Kasparov, Topalov, Wei Yi, as well as gambit books which might be interesting for the attacking players.

And I have Karpov, Andersson, Seirawan, Petrosian and a "solid.bin" book, which might be useful for the positional side.

The other option is to start from a "rich" position where style (regardless of whether aggressive or positional) can dominate straight from the tabiya.

Something like this:

[pgn]1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 h6[/pgn]

Positional engines beginning from here will play slowly and strategically, whilst aggressive ones will soon set the board on fire, probably saccing the c-pawn.

So this might be an interesting position...

I'll have to think about it.

Opening books might be better for diversity of openings though.

[BrendanJNorman]

Missing from the attacking team:

Deep Fritz 10.1
Hiarcs Paderborn 2007
The King 3.23 Tribute Personality
Strelka 1.8
Critter 0.90 (restricted to 1CPU to avoid cutoff)
Zappa Mexico Dissident Aggressor Personality
ChessTiger2007

How the hell did I forget Dissident Aggressor???!

Have added everyone here except DF10.1 which I don't have.

Will be using ChessTiger 2007 on the "Gambit Aggressive" setting.

The match is now up to 34 boards

[Ovyron]

Nice! Looking forward to the games

And, yeah, ZM Dissident Aggressor is the only engine I have ever seen that is able to produce crazy sacrifices that are sound (that is, they don't lose the game) and stand even in corr time controls (where you got at least an entire day to decide on a move) against the strongest engines, with others thinking they have 2 or 3 pawn advantage and ZM claiming it has a slight edge, too bad they're always defensible so no point sacking just to look cool when the best you can get is a draw...

Anyway, I'm going to root here for the Attacking engines, may the Positional team go down in fire unable to defend against the incoming attacks!

[Robert Flesher]

Nice! Looking forward to the games

And, yeah, ZM Dissident Aggressor is the only engine I have ever seen that is able to produce crazy sacrifices that are sound (that is, they don't lose the game) and stand even in corr time controls (where you got at least an entire day to decide on a move) against the strongest engines, with others thinking they have 2 or 3 pawn advantage and ZM claiming it has a slight edge, too bad they're always defensible so no point sacking just to look cool when the best you can get is a draw...

Anyway, I'm going to root here for the Attacking engines, may the Positional team go down in fire unable to defend against the incoming attacks!

I am pleased to see that my Dissident Aggressor settings have stood the test of time. I am glad you like them. Awesome!

[Ovyron]

I am pleased to see that my Dissident Aggressor settings have stood the test of time. I am glad you like them. Awesome!

Oh, I didn't know they came from you, well done with the settings!