Stockfish Handicap Matches

[lkaufman]

I got my old i486 DX2-66 Computer from my baseman clean it very good, vacuumed it very good inside and made all connections and called my friend Jorge Sammour and asked him if he was willing to play against a modified version of Rebel almost the same that play versus Vishy Anand back in 2002;

Some history milestone :
The i486 DX2-66 was the best Intel processor from beginning of 1992 to beginning of 1994 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I ... s#80486DX2
Anand played the match against Rebel on a 450 MHz CPU in 1998 : https://www.rebel.nl/anand.htm

From 1992 to 1994, micro computers was not very successful against GMs yet.
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1992
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1993
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1994

I hope you will get some Stockfish compiles to run on this 80486 and test it against Jorge

Maybe they were unsuccessful at standard tournament time limits then, but in rapid games (at least 25' per side) the top engines scored in the 30 to 40% range vs. GMs, typically around 2600 FIDE or so, mostly in the Hardvard Cup series. Maybe you wouldn't call that successful, but anyway they were competitive. I think that the engines I worked on with Don Dailey back then scored near the 40% mark overall.

This GM is friend with me on Facebook he would like to know if he will be able to win at least 2 games out of 6, in other word he already has seen Nakamura games and MVL games versus Komodo on Youtube, what he is asking me is if the Odds is fair enough for his rating using your 32 cores. GM Max illingWorth was rated FIDE 2525 in July 2018 is also an online trainer https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=3205207

I am not sure what your question is. Is he asking what would be fair odds for a rapid match (what TC?) vs. my 32 core machine? I would say either "pawn and 3 moves" (f7 off, e4,d4 played, WTM), or c7+f7 handicap would be about fair. If he wants to discuss an actual match with Komodo he can email me or send a friend request on Facebook and follow up there.

This is another GM rated FIDE over 2530 who told me that it would an interesting match, and he is now thinking about accepting Komodo Odds Challenge he will let me know later today. I told him that he could request to be friend with you on Facebook and discuss the condition of the match including Time control etc https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=14505959

PS: WOW is he really the FIDE Director?

I don't see him listed as one of the FIDE directors, but it says he is a Zonal president so perhaps that's what you mean. Anyway he would be a suitable opponent, about same strength as David Smerdon (higher on FIDE standard, lower on FIDE Rapid). At 15' + 10", I think pawn and three or c7/f7 would be about fair; at slower Rapid time controls these might be a bit much, but two White pawns would be too small a handicap for a balanced match. At the P+3 or c7/f7 handicaps I sometimes score against Komodo or NN engines good at handicap, but usually I lose.

[Vinvin]

I got my old i486 DX2-66 Computer from my baseman clean it very good, vacuumed it very good inside and made all connections and called my friend Jorge Sammour and asked him if he was willing to play against a modified version of Rebel almost the same that play versus Vishy Anand back in 2002;

Some history milestone :
The i486 DX2-66 was the best Intel processor from beginning of 1992 to beginning of 1994 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I ... s#80486DX2
Anand played the match against Rebel on a 450 MHz CPU in 1998 : https://www.rebel.nl/anand.htm

From 1992 to 1994, micro computers was not very successful against GMs yet.
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1992
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1993
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1994

I hope you will get some Stockfish compiles to run on this 80486 and test it against Jorge

Maybe they were unsuccessful at standard tournament time limits then, but in rapid games (at least 25' per side) the top engines scored in the 30 to 40% range vs. GMs, typically around 2600 FIDE or so, mostly in the Hardvard Cup series. Maybe you wouldn't call that successful, but anyway they were competitive. I think that the engines I worked on with Don Dailey back then scored near the 40% mark overall.

Jorge does NOT want to play versus Stockfish

Strange reaction. Does Jorge know that the 486-66 MHz is 2000 times slower than an average (4 cores@3GHz) computer of the year 2020 ?

Other free engines to test on this old computer :
1) Houdini 1.5a 32-bit
2) Critter 1.6a 32-bit
3) Protector 1.5.0 32-bit
4) Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit

Well 2000 times is an exageration, but probably 600 times slower.

For the numbers I saw : A 486/66MHz runs around 4 Kn/sec : http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 51#p821251
And a recent 4 cores CPU runs around 8 Mn/sec. So, there's no exaggeration for "2000 times".

My mother in law has a 450 MHz CPU, I will see if she sell it to me for $25.00 she has not use it for almost 18 years and it is on her garage, 10 years ago she tried to sell it and nobody gave her at least $40.00.

That would be great

[lkaufman]

I got my old i486 DX2-66 Computer from my baseman clean it very good, vacuumed it very good inside and made all connections and called my friend Jorge Sammour and asked him if he was willing to play against a modified version of Rebel almost the same that play versus Vishy Anand back in 2002;

Some history milestone :
The i486 DX2-66 was the best Intel processor from beginning of 1992 to beginning of 1994 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I ... s#80486DX2
Anand played the match against Rebel on a 450 MHz CPU in 1998 : https://www.rebel.nl/anand.htm

From 1992 to 1994, micro computers was not very successful against GMs yet.
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1992
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1993
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1994

I hope you will get some Stockfish compiles to run on this 80486 and test it against Jorge

Maybe they were unsuccessful at standard tournament time limits then, but in rapid games (at least 25' per side) the top engines scored in the 30 to 40% range vs. GMs, typically around 2600 FIDE or so, mostly in the Hardvard Cup series. Maybe you wouldn't call that successful, but anyway they were competitive. I think that the engines I worked on with Don Dailey back then scored near the 40% mark overall.

Jorge does NOT want to play versus Stockfish

Strange reaction. Does Jorge know that the 486-66 MHz is 2000 times slower than an average (4 cores@3GHz) computer of the year 2020 ?

Other free engines to test on this old computer :
1) Houdini 1.5a 32-bit
2) Critter 1.6a 32-bit
3) Protector 1.5.0 32-bit
4) Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit

Well 2000 times is an exageration, but probably 600 times slower.

For the numbers I saw : A 486/66MHz runs around 4 Kn/sec : http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 51#p821251
And a recent 4 cores CPU runs around 8 Mn/sec. So, there's no exaggeration for "2000 times".

My mother in law has a 450 MHz CPU, I will see if she sell it to me for $25.00 she has not use it for almost 18 years and it is on her garage, 10 years ago she tried to sell it and nobody gave her at least $40.00.

That would be great

This is quite remarkable, because I remember clearly, as the operator, that RexChess running on a 486/25 MHz in a WBCA Blitz tournament made an even or better score vs. GMs, including a win over GM Leonid Yudasin, who was a World Champion Candidate just a year later! Based on your numbers, it was at least 5,000 times slower than a recent quad. So if we assume that Komodo (which had the same two original authors as RexChess, although Mark Lefler took over Don Dailey's role in Komodo when he died) is at least not weaker than Rexchess (a fair assumption; probably even on ancient hardware it is much stronger), this suggests that Komodo on a recent quad playing game in 300/5000 = 0.06 seconds would perform at GM level or better in blitz! But that's not plausible; it would be playing about 1 millisecond per move, too fast for valid play. I suppose one error here is that four threads won't work that fast, so we need to set it for game in 0.24 seconds using just one Thread or about 4 ms per move. Even at that speed it's hard to believe it could play even with GMs at blitz, but not impossible. Stockfish can't play decent chess this fast due to PV pruning, so that probably means SF would be quite weak on that 66 MHz hardware at least in blitz.

[Chessqueen]

I got my old i486 DX2-66 Computer from my baseman clean it very good, vacuumed it very good inside and made all connections and called my friend Jorge Sammour and asked him if he was willing to play against a modified version of Rebel almost the same that play versus Vishy Anand back in 2002;

Some history milestone :
The i486 DX2-66 was the best Intel processor from beginning of 1992 to beginning of 1994 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I ... s#80486DX2
Anand played the match against Rebel on a 450 MHz CPU in 1998 : https://www.rebel.nl/anand.htm

From 1992 to 1994, micro computers was not very successful against GMs yet.
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1992
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1993
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1994

I hope you will get some Stockfish compiles to run on this 80486 and test it against Jorge

Maybe they were unsuccessful at standard tournament time limits then, but in rapid games (at least 25' per side) the top engines scored in the 30 to 40% range vs. GMs, typically around 2600 FIDE or so, mostly in the Hardvard Cup series. Maybe you wouldn't call that successful, but anyway they were competitive. I think that the engines I worked on with Don Dailey back then scored near the 40% mark overall.

Jorge does NOT want to play versus Stockfish

Strange reaction. Does Jorge know that the 486-66 MHz is 2000 times slower than an average (4 cores@3GHz) computer of the year 2020 ?

Other free engines to test on this old computer :
1) Houdini 1.5a 32-bit
2) Critter 1.6a 32-bit
3) Protector 1.5.0 32-bit
4) Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit

Well 2000 times is an exageration, but probably 600 times slower.

For the numbers I saw : A 486/66MHz runs around 4 Kn/sec : http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 51#p821251
And a recent 4 cores CPU runs around 8 Mn/sec. So, there's no exaggeration for "2000 times".

My mother in law has a 450 MHz CPU, I will see if she sell it to me for $25.00 she has not use it for almost 18 years and it is on her garage, 10 years ago she tried to sell it and nobody gave her at least $40.00.

That would be great

My Very Old 486 66MHz runs at 5Kn/sec and in some position 6Kn/sec. Good News My mother in law decided to give me her Old 450 MHz CPU Computer, and With this GM's Chess beater, it is an antique worth preserving. Well I do NOT have Plan to compete versus God, so I do NOT need a 32 cores computer. Plus Chess would NOT be solved in my Lifetime where all games will be drawn

[Vinvin]

I got my old i486 DX2-66 Computer from my baseman clean it very good, vacuumed it very good inside and made all connections and called my friend Jorge Sammour and asked him if he was willing to play against a modified version of Rebel almost the same that play versus Vishy Anand back in 2002;

Some history milestone :
The i486 DX2-66 was the best Intel processor from beginning of 1992 to beginning of 1994 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I ... s#80486DX2
Anand played the match against Rebel on a 450 MHz CPU in 1998 : https://www.rebel.nl/anand.htm

From 1992 to 1994, micro computers was not very successful against GMs yet.
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1992
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1993
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aegon_1994

I hope you will get some Stockfish compiles to run on this 80486 and test it against Jorge

Maybe they were unsuccessful at standard tournament time limits then, but in rapid games (at least 25' per side) the top engines scored in the 30 to 40% range vs. GMs, typically around 2600 FIDE or so, mostly in the Hardvard Cup series. Maybe you wouldn't call that successful, but anyway they were competitive. I think that the engines I worked on with Don Dailey back then scored near the 40% mark overall.

Jorge does NOT want to play versus Stockfish

Strange reaction. Does Jorge know that the 486-66 MHz is 2000 times slower than an average (4 cores@3GHz) computer of the year 2020 ?

Other free engines to test on this old computer :
1) Houdini 1.5a 32-bit
2) Critter 1.6a 32-bit
3) Protector 1.5.0 32-bit
4) Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit

Well 2000 times is an exageration, but probably 600 times slower.

For the numbers I saw : A 486/66MHz runs around 4 Kn/sec : http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 51#p821251
And a recent 4 cores CPU runs around 8 Mn/sec. So, there's no exaggeration for "2000 times".

My mother in law has a 450 MHz CPU, I will see if she sell it to me for $25.00 she has not use it for almost 18 years and it is on her garage, 10 years ago she tried to sell it and nobody gave her at least $40.00.

That would be great

This is quite remarkable, because I remember clearly, as the operator, that RexChess running on a 486/25 MHz in a WBCA Blitz tournament made an even or better score vs. GMs, including a win over GM Leonid Yudasin, who was a World Champion Candidate just a year later! Based on your numbers, it was at least 5,000 times slower than a recent quad. So if we assume that Komodo (which had the same two original authors as RexChess, although Mark Lefler took over Don Dailey's role in Komodo when he died) is at least not weaker than Rexchess (a fair assumption; probably even on ancient hardware it is much stronger), this suggests that Komodo on a recent quad playing game in 300/5000 = 0.06 seconds would perform at GM level or better in blitz! But that's not plausible; it would be playing about 1 millisecond per move, too fast for valid play. I suppose one error here is that four threads won't work that fast, so we need to set it for game in 0.24 seconds using just one Thread or about 4 ms per move. Even at that speed it's hard to believe it could play even with GMs at blitz, but not impossible. Stockfish can't play decent chess this fast due to PV pruning, so that probably means SF would be quite weak on that 66 MHz hardware at least in blitz.

These considerations remind me an article in French from year 1988 ( http://download.abandonware.org/magazin ... %20032.jpg )
where they say "Botvinnik declared that computers will beat world chess champion when they will reach depth 15 in middle game (classic time control)".
At this time Hitech reaches depth 8 to 9 and Chiptest (predecessor of Deep Thought) reaches depth 9 to 10. EBF value was around 4.

[Vinvin]

For the numbers I saw : A 486/66MHz runs around 4 Kn/sec : http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 51#p821251
And a recent 4 cores CPU runs around 8 Mn/sec. So, there's no exaggeration for "2000 times".

This is quite remarkable, because I remember clearly, as the operator, that RexChess running on a 486/25 MHz in a WBCA Blitz tournament made an even or better score vs. GMs, including a win over GM Leonid Yudasin, who was a World Champion Candidate just a year later! Based on your numbers, it was at least 5,000 times slower than a recent quad. So if we assume that Komodo (which had the same two original authors as RexChess, although Mark Lefler took over Don Dailey's role in Komodo when he died) is at least not weaker than Rexchess (a fair assumption; probably even on ancient hardware it is much stronger), this suggests that Komodo on a recent quad playing game in 300/5000 = 0.06 seconds would perform at GM level or better in blitz! But that's not plausible; it would be playing about 1 millisecond per move, too fast for valid play. I suppose one error here is that four threads won't work that fast, so we need to set it for game in 0.24 seconds using just one Thread or about 4 ms per move. Even at that speed it's hard to believe it could play even with GMs at blitz, but not impossible. Stockfish can't play decent chess this fast due to PV pruning, so that probably means SF would be quite weak on that 66 MHz hardware at least in blitz.

These considerations remind me an article in French from year 1988 ( http://download.abandonware.org/magazin ... %20032.jpg )
where they say "Botvinnik declared that computers will beat world chess champion when they will reach depth 15 in middle game (classic time control)".
At this time Hitech reaches depth 8 to 9 and Chiptest (predecessor of Deep Thought) reaches depth 9 to 10. EBF value was around 4.

+ The software become so strong and computers become so fast that we can't evaluate anymore how much time does it take for an engine to reach the GM level in classic game.
On the other hand, GM preparation and play has improved a lot (thanks to computers) over the last 10 years also.

[Alayan]

On the other hand, GM preparation and play has improved a lot (thanks to computers) over the last 10 years also.

Memorization of plans, moves, positions, structures play such a massive role at the top level that top GMs have a very weird strength patterns. While in prep the play can be 4000 elo, and still strong as long as the position's truth match the learned patterns. But then, it becomes more erratic. There can be brilliant play as well as gross mistakes. Finally, once in a simple enough endgame, the position becomes familiar once again and accuracy gets better.

Games aiming at assessing engine strength vs human strength at general chess positions (rather than at the chess start position) should use chess 959 (FRC without the normal start position) in order to force the human out of position-specific preparation and think from move one just like the engine do.

[lkaufman]

On the other hand, GM preparation and play has improved a lot (thanks to computers) over the last 10 years also.

Memorization of plans, moves, positions, structures play such a massive role at the top level that top GMs have a very weird strength patterns. While in prep the play can be 4000 elo, and still strong as long as the position's truth match the learned patterns. But then, it becomes more erratic. There can be brilliant play as well as gross mistakes. Finally, once in a simple enough endgame, the position becomes familiar once again and accuracy gets better.

Games aiming at assessing engine strength vs human strength at general chess positions (rather than at the chess start position) should use chess 959 (FRC without the normal start position) in order to force the human out of position-specific preparation and think from move one just like the engine do.

As a fan of FRC, I agree, but there is another solution for those who maintain that FRC is not real chess because the positions and castling rules are not legal under chess rules and are "strange". You can simply require that all games be opened with rare but not outright bad first moves for White, such as 1.e3, 1.b4, 1.a3 etc, randomly chosen. There is of course still some theory but games are likely to leave theory quite early, and the start positions are close to balanced.

[Chessqueen]

For the numbers I saw : A 486/66MHz runs around 4 Kn/sec : http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 51#p821251
And a recent 4 cores CPU runs around 8 Mn/sec. So, there's no exaggeration for "2000 times".

This is quite remarkable, because I remember clearly, as the operator, that RexChess running on a 486/25 MHz in a WBCA Blitz tournament made an even or better score vs. GMs, including a win over GM Leonid Yudasin, who was a World Champion Candidate just a year later! Based on your numbers, it was at least 5,000 times slower than a recent quad. So if we assume that Komodo (which had the same two original authors as RexChess, although Mark Lefler took over Don Dailey's role in Komodo when he died) is at least not weaker than Rexchess (a fair assumption; probably even on ancient hardware it is much stronger), this suggests that Komodo on a recent quad playing game in 300/5000 = 0.06 seconds would perform at GM level or better in blitz! But that's not plausible; it would be playing about 1 millisecond per move, too fast for valid play. I suppose one error here is that four threads won't work that fast, so we need to set it for game in 0.24 seconds using just one Thread or about 4 ms per move. Even at that speed it's hard to believe it could play even with GMs at blitz, but not impossible. Stockfish can't play decent chess this fast due to PV pruning, so that probably means SF would be quite weak on that 66 MHz hardware at least in blitz.

These considerations remind me an article in French from year 1988 ( http://download.abandonware.org/magazin ... %20032.jpg )
where they say "Botvinnik declared that computers will beat world chess champion when they will reach depth 15 in middle game (classic time control)".
At this time Hitech reaches depth 8 to 9 and Chiptest (predecessor of Deep Thought) reaches depth 9 to 10. EBF value was around 4.

+ The software become so strong and computers become so fast that we can't evaluate anymore how much time does it take for an engine to reach the GM level in classic game.
On the other hand, GM preparation and play has improved a lot (thanks to computers) over the last 10 years also.

I was wondering what would happened if a millionaire pay Carlsen 1 million to play 6 games using the same hardware 486 450 MHz versus the same engine Rebel that played versus Anand at normal time control NOT game in 15 minutes like this

[Chessqueen]

For the numbers I saw : A 486/66MHz runs around 4 Kn/sec : http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 51#p821251
And a recent 4 cores CPU runs around 8 Mn/sec. So, there's no exaggeration for "2000 times".

This is quite remarkable, because I remember clearly, as the operator, that RexChess running on a 486/25 MHz in a WBCA Blitz tournament made an even or better score vs. GMs, including a win over GM Leonid Yudasin, who was a World Champion Candidate just a year later! Based on your numbers, it was at least 5,000 times slower than a recent quad. So if we assume that Komodo (which had the same two original authors as RexChess, although Mark Lefler took over Don Dailey's role in Komodo when he died) is at least not weaker than Rexchess (a fair assumption; probably even on ancient hardware it is much stronger), this suggests that Komodo on a recent quad playing game in 300/5000 = 0.06 seconds would perform at GM level or better in blitz! But that's not plausible; it would be playing about 1 millisecond per move, too fast for valid play. I suppose one error here is that four threads won't work that fast, so we need to set it for game in 0.24 seconds using just one Thread or about 4 ms per move. Even at that speed it's hard to believe it could play even with GMs at blitz, but not impossible. Stockfish can't play decent chess this fast due to PV pruning, so that probably means SF would be quite weak on that 66 MHz hardware at least in blitz.

These considerations remind me an article in French from year 1988 ( http://download.abandonware.org/magazin ... %20032.jpg )
where they say "Botvinnik declared that computers will beat world chess champion when they will reach depth 15 in middle game (classic time control)".
At this time Hitech reaches depth 8 to 9 and Chiptest (predecessor of Deep Thought) reaches depth 9 to 10. EBF value was around 4.

+ The software become so strong and computers become so fast that we can't evaluate anymore how much time does it take for an engine to reach the GM level in classic game.
On the other hand, GM preparation and play has improved a lot (thanks to computers) over the last 10 years also.

I was wondering what would happened if a millionaire pay Carlsen 1 million to play 6 games using the same hardware 486 450 MHz versus the same engine Rebel that played versus Anand at normal time control NOT game in 15 minutes like this

I thought it over for 2 hours and came to the conclusion that even the Rebel that played versus Anand in 2002 on a 486 450 MHz is NOT good enough to beat Carlsen even on game in 90 Minutes, it would have to be one of the current top 5 engines converted to play on a Mere 486 450 MHz