Cerebellum, correspondence chess and me

[Harvey Williamson]

What do You think about this message in SF forum:

"sign up with ICCF and let stockfish make ALL the moves with no intervention on human part - in all probability your rating will not go over 2200"

I don't believe this with 3300 engine!

Sounds about right as everyone has access to the same engine. To get beyond that you have to show some serious centaur skills.

[Rodolfo Leoni]

What do You think about this message in SF forum:

"sign up with ICCF and let stockfish make ALL the moves with no intervention on human part - in all probability your rating will not go over 2200"

This statement is probably true, although it may depend a little on the amount of time/processors you have at your disposal

I don't believe this with 3300 engine!

A matter of comparing apples and oranges. The rating scales are not comparable.

I guess truth is halfway. I won some games because opponent "centaur" couldn't see beyond horizon effects. A monster hardware helps, but it's often not enough. Human skills still play a role, for now. But if someone finds a way to get an automatic analysis with a persistent hash Stockfish, then we could guess that Stockfish would be an extremely strong opponent, even without human intervention. Score propagation heavily impacts on game quality and that's what I'm manually using, thanks to Daniel Jose code.

[MikeB]

What do You think about this message in SF forum:

"sign up with ICCF and let stockfish make ALL the moves with no intervention on human part - in all probability your rating will not go over 2200"

This statement is probably true, although it may depend a little on the amount of time/processors you have at your disposal

Time control is known, 864000+259200s. Processors if you have at least 16 at your disposal mean very little.
At that TC and with 16 cores Xeon server with 128GB of RAM and Cerebelum limited to 8 moves for example, newest SFdev alone would have ICCF rating of 2600+ and probably not lose a single game.

LOL - your comment displays your ignorance of the type of games played on ICCF. You have not played any , nor you have you even looked at any of the games. So your comment is totally meaningless since you have no basis to make any comment at all. But it did make me chuckle. 😂 And if you think so , go try it, you will start at 1800 and if you're any good at all, it will take you 7 to 8 years to get to 2500/2600 - but you will never get there if you just played the SF moves. SF is not good enough, neither is Komodo or is Houdini - all of your opponents will have access to the same engines - the only difference being the hardware and how many games you decide to play at once. and of course your centaur skills.

[MikeB]

What do You think about this message in SF forum:

"sign up with ICCF and let stockfish make ALL the moves with no intervention on human part - in all probability your rating will not go over 2200"

This statement is probably true, although it may depend a little on the amount of time/processors you have at your disposal

I don't believe this with 3300 engine!

A matter of comparing apples and oranges. The rating scales are not comparable.

I guess truth is halfway. I won some games because opponent "centaur" couldn't see beyond horizon effects. A monster hardware helps, but it's often not enough. Human skills still play a role, for now. But if someone finds a way to get an automatic analysis with a persistent hash Stockfish, then we could guess that Stockfish would be an extremely strong opponent, even without human intervention. Score propagation heavily impacts on game quality and that's what I'm manually using, thanks to Daniel Jose code.

"But if someone finds a way to get an automatic analysis with a persistent hash Stockfish, then we could guess that Stockfish would be an extremely strong opponent,..." but that is the rub, if you have it, so does everybody else , so yes, you will be an extremely strong opponent, but so would your opponent. The best analogy is that when one engine had EGTB and the other engines did not, it produce Elo, but when all engines have EGTB, you have to have it just to stay even. You might get a lot of draws, , and you might have very few losses, but without consistent wins, the Elo will never get to 2600. This is what ICCF has become, but you still have players like Harvey that maintain a 2500 rating despite of all these challenges because they know chess better than any program in certain positions, Positions that are posted here all the time where a top engine does not see the critical drawing or winning move.

[Milos]

LOL - your comment displays your ignorance of the type of games played on ICCF. You have not played any , nor you have you even looked at any of the games. So your comment is totally meaningless since you have no basis to make any comment at all. But it did make me chuckle. 😂 And if you think so , go try it, you will start at 1800 and if you're any good at all, it will take you 7 to 8 years to get to 2500/2600 - but you will never get there if you just played the SF moves.

Remind me again what is your ICCF rating?

SF is not good enough, neither is Komodo or is Houdini - all of your opponents will have access to the same engines - the only difference being the hardware and how many games you decide to play at once. and of course your centaur skills.

Which can "only" make up a 2 orders of magnitude difference in speed of calculation or if you wish 200+Elo.
Not only you are ignorant, but you have literally no clue about engine scaling or what difference having 5x more powerful hardware and 20x more time per move means.

[MikeB]

LOL - your comment displays your ignorance of the type of games played on ICCF. You have not played any , nor you have you even looked at any of the games. So your comment is totally meaningless since you have no basis to make any comment at all. But it did make me chuckle. 😂 And if you think so , go try it, you will start at 1800 and if you're any good at all, it will take you 7 to 8 years to get to 2500/2600 - but you will never get there if you just played the SF moves.

Remind me again what is your ICCF rating?

SF is not good enough, neither is Komodo or is Houdini - all of your opponents will have access to the same engines - the only difference being the hardware and how many games you decide to play at once. and of course your centaur skills.

Which can "only" make up a 2 orders of magnitude difference in speed of calculation or if you wish 200+Elo.
Not only you are ignorant, but you have literally no clue about engine scaling or what difference having 5x more powerful hardware and 20x more time per move means.

You don’t think people have already tried that , also I didn’t call you ignorant , but I said your ignorance is being displayed once again. Personal attack are frowned upon here 😊. You might get a few more wins, not 200 Elo - tell you what go try it for a year and let me know how you. Will be waiting in much anticipated response - NOT! Hahha. Have a great day - does a troll ever have a great day. What an effing idiot. LOL Bring it on buddy , I can use a little TROLL humor LOL - moron!

[Milos]

You don’t think people have already tried that , also I didn’t call you ignorant , but I said your ignorance is being displayed once again. Personal attack are frowned upon here 😊. You might get a few more wins, not 200 Elo - tell you what go try it for a year and let me know how you. Will be waiting in much anticipated response - NOT! Hahha. Have a great day - does a troll ever have a great day. What an effing idiot. LOL Bring it on buddy , I can use a little TROLL humor LOL - moron!

Talking about personal attacks and calling ppl idiots and morons in the same time, you are really one hell of a case buddy. Seems you didn't take your medicines for today or someone really rattled your cage. In any case your competence in CC is well documented with your ICCF rating, so please share with us a bit more of your wisdom.

[MikeB]

You don’t think people have already tried that , also I didn’t call you ignorant , but I said your ignorance is being displayed once again. Personal attack are frowned upon here 😊. You might get a few more wins, not 200 Elo - tell you what go try it for a year and let me know how you. Will be waiting in much anticipated response - NOT! Hahha. Have a great day - does a troll ever have a great day. What an effing idiot. LOL Bring it on buddy , I can use a little TROLL humor LOL - moron!

Talking about personal attacks and calling ppl idiots and morons in the same time, you are really one hell of a case buddy. Seems you didn't take your medicines for today or someone really rattled your cage. In any case your competence in CC is well documented with your ICCF rating, so please share with us a bit more of your wisdom.

Ok - I will stop feeding the troll - goodnight everyone 😴! 😆

[Ovyron]

And if you think so , go try it, you will start at 1800 and if you're any good at all, it will take you 7 to 8 years to get to 2500/2600

I disagree.

I think Milos will never break 2300.

[mroh]

What do You think about this message in SF forum:

"sign up with ICCF and let stockfish make ALL the moves with no intervention on human part - in all probability your rating will not go over 2200"

I (as a ~2350 ICCF player) would guess this to be true.

Time control is known, 864000+259200s. Processors if you have at least 16 at your disposal mean very little.
At that TC and with 16 cores Xeon server with 128GB of RAM and Cerebelum limited to 8 moves for example, newest SFdev alone would have ICCF rating of 2600+ and probably not lose a single game.

This is nonsense. Try it and find out!
I am not sure, if you would even pass 2000 with this approach.

Engines are still too stupid, too often to let them run alone. Want some examples?

The people who think that you can win with bigger hardware or newer engines dont have a clue how corr. chess works and more often than not, havent even played a single game.

Sure, better hardware and better engines help, but both are not the main factor. Time and patience is, especially patience. If you analyzed a position for days and you think you have it right, make a break for a day or two and look at it again with a different angle, different engine etc. You will nearly always find something new and this is a (nearly) endless process, chess is that deep, but at some day you have to make a move, or you dont have that much time, play too many games etc...

Just talk to people who are doing that for years, you will nearly always hear the same answers...


Also, as Rudolfo said, good tools and analysis methods help a lot, ways to propagate an eval up the tree, and I am working on such a thing ^^