Sargon 1978 UCI Available

[mwyoung]

I missed this at the time;

Have any rated human players played games against Sargon on a modern computer to provide any data on the human rating it might earn today? If so at what time control?

When Larry Kaufman takes an interest in your project you should definitely take note! So when I saw this around a month ago I decided to fill the gap myself by playing 3+2 Blitz and 15+5 Rapid matches against Sargon 1978 V1.0 to try to measure Sargon's "Human" Elo. It's computer Elo seems to be about 1300. I am a capable player, I even have a FIDE CM title, although I am getting old and it's some time since I was even 2000 FIDE. My current FIDE ratings are 1858 (Classical), 1924 (Rapid). No Blitz rating unfortunately. I am definitely weak at Blitz, I maintain around 1700 on chess.com and 1900 on lichess.org. So let's estimate my Blitz rating at 1700. The results of the match were;

Blitz: Sargon scored 12/16, according to FIDE's calculator that translates to 1860 (vs a 1700).
Rapid: Sargon scored 4.5/10, according to FIDE's calculator that translates to 1888 (vs a 1924).

A PGN of the match is available here https://triplehappy.com/downloads/Bill ... n 1978.pgn. I used this resource https://www.sp-cc.de/unbalanced-human-openings.htm to provide interesting starting positions.

Embarrassed by my own performance I sat on the results, thinking I would try again, treat the first match as a training match / take it more seriously / force myself to play anti-computer tactics / skip the blitz and focus on rapid etc. etc. But who has time. So I decided to swallow my pride and publish the raw results, in the hope that Larry sees this and is still interested.

I had previously stated that I didn't think Sargon 1978 could beat me if I paid attention. That was based on innumerable "games" played while I wrestled the project into life. But in those games I never put myself on the clock, and I suppose I just abandoned them if my slow burning sacrificial attacks (normal fun approach) didn't draw the horizon effect slaughter I was going for. I didn't use an opening book then either for obvious reasons, and using a book in the match definitely helped Sargon as it is poor in the opening and this way it gets something to work with in the middle game (definitely its happy place).

Sargon 1978's positional wisdom is limited to "try to castle early" and "try to control squares". In the endgame it suffers horribly from the horizon effect, since it's SOMA boost doesn't help with passed pawn advances. It also has a bad repetition issue (indeed like a scoundrel I got many draws in games I deserved to lose because of this), and would very rarely be able to convert even very advantageous endings since even the Q+K v K elementary mate is beyond it because controlling squares misses the point and its unpruned search without a transposition cache is too shallow to brute force the mate unless the K is already cornered.

Despite this, Sargon 1978 running on a modern PC is capable of beating weak humans like me, especially at blitz, simply because it doesn't offer or miss simple tactical opportunities.

Some other things that came up that I can answer authoritatively if required were;

A) TIMING

Have any rated human players played games against Sargon on a modern computer to provide any data on the human rating it might earn today? If so at what time control?

Maybe that helps:

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 1&start=12

OK, as best as I can figure out from all the posts, the elo rating of Sargon 1 in 1978 was about 1400, and its estimated elo vs. humans on an i7 now is around 1700. The hardware speedup is either 50 to 1 or 6000+ to 1 depending on which post you believe; if it is 50 to 1 this all makes sense, since 1700 elo is not too far out of line with 1254 CCRL Blitz if you contract rating differences by a third or so. I get 52knps on my very fast i7 which means about 40k on a typical one, so if there is some evidence that the original hardware got around 800 nps then everything fits. The 6000 to 1 figure is hard to credit, especially since it referred to using some old hardware, not an i7, so an i7 might be 10000 to 1 which means the original Sargon got 4 nodes per second?? That seems impossibly low.
I note that the 1700 elo mentioned was based on Shredder and SF versions set to 1600, but does anyone know whether those ratings were themselves based on human games or on games with CCRL rated engines?

You can estimate the speed up. The level times 1ply meaning level 1, 2 to 2..... level 6 for 6 ply took an average of 4 hours. Sargon did not have time controls only levels. Take a few positions and see how long your Sargon takes to search 6 ply. And compare that to 4 hours.This will give you a speed ratio compared to a TRS-80 computer.

I get anywhere from 3 to 36 seconds with depth set to 6, maybe 15 seconds or so average, which would give a 960 to 1 ratio. That implies that Sargon got about 50 nodes per second on the TRS-80. Was it really that slow, or could it perhaps be nonlinear, maybe the ratio is much lower for a 4 ply search than for a six ply search for example?

I estimated 2 or 3 orders of magnitude speedup, but measured a 6000 times speed up. This measurement was fairly robust and the details are up-thread. I am surprised you measure "only" a 1000 times speed up on your much faster computer. Although all those thread-ripper threads will make no difference, this is strictly single threaded stuff. A possible source of trouble is the way I measure Nodes (I didn't give this much attention, I just count the position evaluations). I am willing to dig deeper if necessary to answer this more authoritatively.

(Actually I just did a different type of measurement - one of my regression test suites checks 33 positions in about 50 seconds, 20 of those are at depth 5 (the rest run essentially instantaneously), so this means an average of 2.5 seconds for a depth 5 calculation compared to 40 minutes from the TRS-80 version manual kindly provided by mwyoung upthread. 40x60 = 2400, so very close to a 1000 times speedup by this alternative approach too.)

And

B) The repetition problem.

It seems that its blindness to repetition draws makes any ratings or results it obtains rather questionable; probably it would have a significantly higher CCRL blitz rating with this one bug fixed. I imagine it was fixed with a later Sargon version, although I don't know this. I don't think of this as a question of evaluation, it is just not knowing the rules of the game.

It's true Sargon 1978 doesn't know anything about this rule, I think this was entirely normal at the time. Later versions of Sargon undoubtedly addressed this problem, as that became normal practice. I thought that this problem was of about the same magnitude as Sargon's inability to complete elementary K+Q (or K+R) v K mates. For my match I planned to use these holes to seek shelter and get undeserved draws if necessary. The elementary mates problem never arose, but the repetition problem did keep coming up (and I used it shamelessly). Conveniently, I can fix the repetition problem in the UCI wrapper, without altering the core Sargon code at all. I can create a new API call, basically "Calculate best move - but this list of moves (which create repetition) are off limits". Then in pseudo code;

Calculate best move
If Sargon is better and best move repeats
Calculate best move excluding repetition moves
If Sargon is still better use new best move else use the original best move

If anyone shows any interest (maybe even if nobody does I shall go ahead and implement this, resulting in a new Sargon 1978 V1.01 to replace the existing Sargon 1978 V1.00.

Thank you! And I was surprised at how well it played on today's hardware.

[mephisto]

Yes Bill

The upgrade would be great

[Vinvin]

Yes Bill

The upgrade would be great

+1

[Bill Forster]

If anyone shows any interest (maybe even if nobody does ) I shall go ahead and implement this, resulting in a new Sargon 1978 V1.01 to replace the existing Sargon 1978 V1.00.

Thanks to the three posters expressing interest. I will go ahead and work on a new V1.01 release with the goal of fixing the repetition problem whilst respecting the provenance of the program, i.e. without making any changes to the core Sargon 1978 assembly code. Improving the core Sargon 1978 code is an interesting possible project, but that's not what the current project is all about.

I will also add a new "timing" set to the suite of regression tests, to try to get a more satisfactory resolution of the "speed up factor" issue.

I tried to make a "one [V1.00 release] and done" model project. That meant comprehensive and coherent documentation, a proper UCI implementation (support for position setup, time management and PV reporting etc.), full tests, a window into the chess algorithms complete with ascii-art animations, and a completely described evolutionary path from the original unaltered hybrid 8080 assembly to the final working x86 code. So just pumping out a new release is a not a trivial exercise. Especially as the repetition fix itself is going to be a tricky operation. So I will give myself at least a week.

""It has been so long since I owned Sargon. Or a TRS-80, or as I called it the Trash-80. I looked up the instructions.

Hardware needed: one TRS-80 level II with 32k of memory minimum.

Levels of Play (time per move average)

0 - Immediate response
1 - 20 seconds
2 - 1 minutes
3 - 2 minutes
4 - 6 minutes
5 - 40 minutes
6 - 4 hours ""

Thanks for this, it was particularly helpful and motivational to me to see this (i.e. convinces me the project wasn't a waste of time). The x86 UCI version typically adaptively settles on level 5 for *Blitz*, and can go to higher levels than 6 in endings. The original Sargon had no setting higher than 6, but their code didn't have any underlying issue with higher levels, other than memory and (especially) the practical constraints of time. But the time needed does increase exponentially, and I internally clamp the maximum level to 20, we don't want to be waiting around for the heat death of the universe

[mwyoung]

If anyone shows any interest (maybe even if nobody does ) I shall go ahead and implement this, resulting in a new Sargon 1978 V1.01 to replace the existing Sargon 1978 V1.00.

Thanks to the three posters expressing interest. I will go ahead and work on a new V1.01 release with the goal of fixing the repetition problem whilst respecting the provenance of the program, i.e. without making any changes to the core Sargon 1978 assembly code. Improving the core Sargon 1978 code is an interesting possible project, but that's not what the current project is all about.

I will also add a new "timing" set to the suite of regression tests, to try to get a more satisfactory resolution of the "speed up factor" issue.

I tried to make a "one [V1.00 release] and done" model project. That meant comprehensive and coherent documentation, a proper UCI implementation (support for position setup, time management and PV reporting etc.), full tests, a window into the chess algorithms complete with ascii-art animations, and a completely described evolutionary path from the original unaltered hybrid 8080 assembly to the final working x86 code. So just pumping out a new release is a not a trivial exercise. Especially as the repetition fix itself is going to be a tricky operation. So I will give myself at least a week.

""It has been so long since I owned Sargon. Or a TRS-80, or as I called it the Trash-80. I looked up the instructions.

Hardware needed: one TRS-80 level II with 32k of memory minimum.

Levels of Play (time per move average)

0 - Immediate response
1 - 20 seconds
2 - 1 minutes
3 - 2 minutes
4 - 6 minutes
5 - 40 minutes
6 - 4 hours ""

Thanks for this, it was particularly helpful and motivational to me to see this (i.e. convinces me the project wasn't a waste of time). The x86 UCI version typically adaptively settles on level 5 for *Blitz*, and can go to higher levels than 6 in endings. The original Sargon had no setting higher than 6, but their code didn't have any underlying issue with higher levels, other than memory and (especially) the practical constraints of time. But the time needed does increase exponentially, and I internally clamp the maximum level to 20, we don't want to be waiting around for the heat death of the universe

[Chessqueen]

I should add that I've tested the program, it runs fine and searches about 8 ply on my modest laptop at fast time controls. It will beat you if you don't pay attention. It beats me even when I do.

I finally found an engine that I can play when a human is NOT around, this is an excellent old engine for Patzer like myself specially during this time of COVi19

[Event "My New Challenger"]
[Site "DESKTOP-OFQ3C0P"]
[Date "2020.12.31"]
[Round "1"]
[White "ChessQueen"]
[Black "Sargon-engine"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[BlackElo "1900"]
[ECO "D21"]
[Opening "QGA"]
[Time "22:47:55"]
[Variation "3.Nf3"]
[WhiteElo "1900"]
[TimeControl "600+3"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "86"]


1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Be6 4. e4 c6 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. Ng5 Qa5 7. Nxe6 fxe6
8. e5 Nd5 9. Bxc4 Nxc3 10. Qd2 Na6 11. Qxc3 Qxc3+ 12. bxc3 Nc7 13. a4 Nd5
14. a5 O-O-O 15. Bd2 b5 16. axb6 axb6 17. Be2 Kb7 18. O-O g6 19. Rfb1 Nc7
20. Bf3 Bg7 21. Bg5 Rhe8 22. Be3 Nd5 23. Bd2 Nc7 24. Rd1 Ra8 25. c4 Rxa1
26. Rxa1 Rd8 27. Be3 h6 28. Rb1 Rf8 29. d5 cxd5 30. Rxb6+ Ka8 31. cxd5 exd5
32. Rxg6 Bxe5 33. Rxh6 e6 34. Rh7 Kb7 35. h4 Kc6 36. h5 Kd6 37. h6 Kc6 38.
Kf1 Ra8 39. Re7 Ra1+ 40. Ke2 Ra2+ 41. Kf1 Ra1+ 42. Ke2 Ra2+ 43. Kf1 Ra1+
{3-fold repetition} 1/2-1/2

[Chessqueen]

I should add that I've tested the program, it runs fine and searches about 8 ply on my modest laptop at fast time controls. It will beat you if you don't pay attention. It beats me even when I do.

I finally found an engine that I can play when a human is NOT around, this is an excellent old engine for Patzer like myself specially during this time of COVi19. I forgot I am using the New i9 computer of my brother.

[Event "My New Challenger"]
[Date "2020.12.31"]
[Round "1"]
[White "ChessQueen"]
[Black "Sargon-engine"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[BlackElo "1900"]
[ECO "D21"]
[Opening "QGA"]
[Time "22:47:55"]
[Variation "3.Nf3"]
[WhiteElo "1900"]
[TimeControl "600+3"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "86"]


1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Be6 4. e4 c6 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. Ng5 Qa5 7. Nxe6 fxe6
8. e5 Nd5 9. Bxc4 Nxc3 10. Qd2 Na6 11. Qxc3 Qxc3+ 12. bxc3 Nc7 13. a4 Nd5
14. a5 O-O-O 15. Bd2 b5 16. axb6 axb6 17. Be2 Kb7 18. O-O g6 19. Rfb1 Nc7
20. Bf3 Bg7 21. Bg5 Rhe8 22. Be3 Nd5 23. Bd2 Nc7 24. Rd1 Ra8 25. c4 Rxa1
26. Rxa1 Rd8 27. Be3 h6 28. Rb1 Rf8 29. d5 cxd5 30. Rxb6+ Ka8 31. cxd5 exd5
32. Rxg6 Bxe5 33. Rxh6 e6 34. Rh7 Kb7 35. h4 Kc6 36. h5 Kd6 37. h6 Kc6 38.
Kf1 Ra8 39. Re7 Ra1+ 40. Ke2 Ra2+ 41. Kf1 Ra1+ 42. Ke2 Ra2+ 43. Kf1 Ra1+
{3-fold repetition} 1/2-1/2

Here is my 2nd chess challenge I am starting to figure how to beat Sargon, simply avoiding possible tactics and to use every little knowledge that I have in creating advantage in the Middle game and Endgame stage

[Event "My Next Chess Challenger"]
[Date "2021.01.01"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Sargon-engine"]
[Black "ChessQueen"]
[Result "0-1"]
[BlackElo "1900"]
[ECO "B30"]
[Opening "Sicilian"]
[Time "08:06:51"]
[Variation "2...Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6"]
[WhiteElo "1800"]
[TimeControl "600+3"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "81"]


1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bc4 d6 5. O-O Nd4 6. e5 dxe5 7. Nxe5 Be6
8. Bxe6 fxe6 9. d3 b5 10. Bd2 Qd6 11. Bf4 Qa6 12. Ne4 Nxe4 13. dxe4 Qb7 14.
Qh5+ g6 15. Nxg6 hxg6 16. Qxh8 Ne2+ 17. Kh1 Nxf4 18. Qe5 Bh6 19. g3 Nh5 20.
Qxe6 Nf6 21. Rfe1 Rd8 22. f4 Rd2 23. Rac1 c4 24. b3 Rd4 25. Rcd1 Rxd1 26.
Rxd1 Qxe4+ 27. Qxe4 Nxe4 28. Kg2 c3 29. a4 bxa4 30. Rd4 axb3 31. Rxe4 b2
32. Re1 a5 33. Kf3 a4 34. g4 a3 35. f5 gxf5 36. gxf5 a2 37. f6 a1=Q 38.
Rxe7+ Kf8 39. Rh7 Qf1+ 40. Ke4 b1=Q 41. Rh8+ {White resigns} *

[Chessqueen]

Have any rated human players played games against Sargon on a modern computer to provide any data on the human rating it might earn today? If so at what time control?

Maybe that helps:

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 1&start=12

OK, as best as I can figure out from all the posts, the elo rating of Sargon 1 in 1978 was about 1400, and its estimated elo vs. humans on an i7 now is around 1700. The hardware speedup is either 50 to 1 or 6000+ to 1 depending on which post you believe; if it is 50 to 1 this all makes sense, since 1700 elo is not too far out of line with 1254 CCRL Blitz if you contract rating differences by a third or so. I get 52knps on my very fast i7 which means about 40k on a typical one, so if there is some evidence that the original hardware got around 800 nps then everything fits. The 6000 to 1 figure is hard to credit, especially since it referred to using some old hardware, not an i7, so an i7 might be 10000 to 1 which means the original Sargon got 4 nodes per second?? That seems impossibly low.
I note that the 1700 elo mentioned was based on Shredder and SF versions set to 1600, but does anyone know whether those ratings were themselves based on human games or on games with CCRL rated engines?

You can estimate the speed up. The level times 1ply meaning level 1, 2 to 2..... level 6 for 6 ply took an average of 4 hours. Sargon did not have time controls only levels. Take a few positions and see how long your Sargon takes to search 6 ply. And compare that to 4 hours.This will give you a speed ratio compared to a TRS-80 computer.

I get 63knps using my brother very fast i9 computer

[Event "My Next Chess Challenger"]
[Date "2021.01.01"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Sargon-engine"]
[Black "ChessQueen"]
[Result "0-1"]
[BlackElo "1900"]
[ECO "B30"]
[Opening "Sicilian"]
[Time "08:06:51"]
[Variation "2...Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6"]
[WhiteElo "1800"]
[TimeControl "600+3"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "81"]


1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bc4 d6 5. O-O Nd4 6. e5 dxe5 7. Nxe5 Be6
8. Bxe6 fxe6 9. d3 b5 10. Bd2 Qd6 11. Bf4 Qa6 12. Ne4 Nxe4 13. dxe4 Qb7 14.
Qh5+ g6 15. Nxg6 hxg6 16. Qxh8 Ne2+ 17. Kh1 Nxf4 18. Qe5 Bh6 19. g3 Nh5 20.
Qxe6 Nf6 21. Rfe1 Rd8 22. f4 Rd2 23. Rac1 c4 24. b3 Rd4 25. Rcd1 Rxd1 26.
Rxd1 Qxe4+ 27. Qxe4 Nxe4 28. Kg2 c3 29. a4 bxa4 30. Rd4 axb3 31. Rxe4 b2
32. Re1 a5 33. Kf3 a4 34. g4 a3 35. f5 gxf5 36. gxf5 a2 37. f6 a1=Q 38.
Rxe7+ Kf8 39. Rh7 Qf1+ 40. Ke4 b1=Q 41. Rh8+ {White resigns} *

[Chessqueen]

Have any rated human players played games against Sargon on a modern computer to provide any data on the human rating it might earn today? If so at what time control?

Maybe that helps:

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 1&start=12

OK, as best as I can figure out from all the posts, the elo rating of Sargon 1 in 1978 was about 1400, and its estimated elo vs. humans on an i7 now is around 1700. The hardware speedup is either 50 to 1 or 6000+ to 1 depending on which post you believe; if it is 50 to 1 this all makes sense, since 1700 elo is not too far out of line with 1254 CCRL Blitz if you contract rating differences by a third or so. I get 52knps on my very fast i7 which means about 40k on a typical one, so if there is some evidence that the original hardware got around 800 nps then everything fits. The 6000 to 1 figure is hard to credit, especially since it referred to using some old hardware, not an i7, so an i7 might be 10000 to 1 which means the original Sargon got 4 nodes per second?? That seems impossibly low.
I note that the 1700 elo mentioned was based on Shredder and SF versions set to 1600, but does anyone know whether those ratings were themselves based on human games or on games with CCRL rated engines?

You can estimate the speed up. The level times 1ply meaning level 1, 2 to 2..... level 6 for 6 ply took an average of 4 hours. Sargon did not have time controls only levels. Take a few positions and see how long your Sargon takes to search 6 ply. And compare that to 4 hours.This will give you a speed ratio compared to a TRS-80 computer.

I get 63knps using my brother very fast i9 computer, I forgot to mentioned if it makes any difference it is the intel i9 9900K, and the final score after 10 games I won 5 games to Sargon 3 games and two draw


[pgn]
[Event "My Next Chess Challenger"]
[Date "2021.01.01"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Sargon-engine"]
[Black "ChessQueen"]
[Result "0-1"]
[BlackElo "1900"]
[ECO "B30"]
[Opening "Sicilian"]
[Time "08:06:51"]
[Variation "2...Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6"]
[WhiteElo "1800"]
[TimeControl "600+3"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "81"]


1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bc4 d6 5. O-O Nd4 6. e5 dxe5 7. Nxe5 Be6
8. Bxe6 fxe6 9. d3 b5 10. Bd2 Qd6 11. Bf4 Qa6 12. Ne4 Nxe4 13. dxe4 Qb7 14.
Qh5+ g6 15. Nxg6 hxg6 16. Qxh8 Ne2+ 17. Kh1 Nxf4 18. Qe5 Bh6 19. g3 Nh5 20.
Qxe6 Nf6 21. Rfe1 Rd8 22. f4 Rd2 23. Rac1 c4 24. b3 Rd4 25. Rcd1 Rxd1 26.
Rxd1 Qxe4+ 27. Qxe4 Nxe4 28. Kg2 c3 29. a4 bxa4 30. Rd4 axb3 31. Rxe4 b2
32. Re1 a5 33. Kf3 a4 34. g4 a3 35. f5 gxf5 36. gxf5 a2 37. f6 a1=Q 38.
Rxe7+ Kf8 39. Rh7 Qf1+ 40. Ke4 b1=Q 41. Rh8+ {White resigns} *[/pgn]

[Chessqueen]

Have any rated human players played games against Sargon on a modern computer to provide any data on the human rating it might earn today? If so at what time control?

Maybe that helps:

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 1&start=12

OK, as best as I can figure out from all the posts, the elo rating of Sargon 1 in 1978 was about 1400, and its estimated elo vs. humans on an i7 now is around 1700. The hardware speedup is either 50 to 1 or 6000+ to 1 depending on which post you believe; if it is 50 to 1 this all makes sense, since 1700 elo is not too far out of line with 1254 CCRL Blitz if you contract rating differences by a third or so. I get 52knps on my very fast i7 which means about 40k on a typical one, so if there is some evidence that the original hardware got around 800 nps then everything fits. The 6000 to 1 figure is hard to credit, especially since it referred to using some old hardware, not an i7, so an i7 might be 10000 to 1 which means the original Sargon got 4 nodes per second?? That seems impossibly low.
I note that the 1700 elo mentioned was based on Shredder and SF versions set to 1600, but does anyone know whether those ratings were themselves based on human games or on games with CCRL rated engines?

You can estimate the speed up. The level times 1ply meaning level 1, 2 to 2..... level 6 for 6 ply took an average of 4 hours. Sargon did not have time controls only levels. Take a few positions and see how long your Sargon takes to search 6 ply. And compare that to 4 hours.This will give you a speed ratio compared to a TRS-80 computer.

I get 63knps using my brother very fast i9 computer, I forgot to mentioned if it makes any difference it is the intel i9 9900K, and the final score after 10 games I won 5 games to Sargon 3 games and two draw


[pgn]
[Event "My Next Chess Challenger"]
[Date "2021.01.01"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Sargon-engine"]
[Black "ChessQueen"]
[Result "0-1"]
[BlackElo "1900"]
[ECO "B30"]
[Opening "Sicilian"]
[Time "08:06:51"]
[Variation "2...Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6"]
[WhiteElo "1800"]
[TimeControl "600+3"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "81"]


1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bc4 d6 5. O-O Nd4 6. e5 dxe5 7. Nxe5 Be6
8. Bxe6 fxe6 9. d3 b5 10. Bd2 Qd6 11. Bf4 Qa6 12. Ne4 Nxe4 13. dxe4 Qb7 14.
Qh5+ g6 15. Nxg6 hxg6 16. Qxh8 Ne2+ 17. Kh1 Nxf4 18. Qe5 Bh6 19. g3 Nh5 20.
Qxe6 Nf6 21. Rfe1 Rd8 22. f4 Rd2 23. Rac1 c4 24. b3 Rd4 25. Rcd1 Rxd1 26.
Rxd1 Qxe4+ 27. Qxe4 Nxe4 28. Kg2 c3 29. a4 bxa4 30. Rd4 axb3 31. Rxe4 b2
32. Re1 a5 33. Kf3 a4 34. g4 a3 35. f5 gxf5 36. gxf5 a2 37. f6 a1=Q 38.
Rxe7+ Kf8 39. Rh7 Qf1+ 40. Ke4 b1=Q 41. Rh8+ {White resigns} *[/pgn]

What I do NOT understand neither my trainer online is why did Sargon decided to repeat the three fold and accept a draw instead of playing 43.Qxh6!

[pgn][Event "My New Challenger"]
[Date "2021.01.01"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Sargon-engine"]
[Black "ChessQueen"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[BlackElo "1900"]
[ECO "C46"]
[Opening "Three Knights"]
[Time "13:10:15"]
[Variation "Winawer Defence"]
[WhiteElo "1850"]
[TimeControl "600+3"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "91"]


1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 f5 4. d4 fxe4 5. Nxe5 Nf6 6. Bg5 Bb4 7. Be2 Qe7
8. Nxc6 dxc6 9. O-O h6 10. Bxf6 gxf6 11. Bh5+ Kf8 12. Re1 f5 13. a3 Bd6 14.
Kh1 Be6 15. g3 Qg5 16. f4 Qf6 17. Nb1 b6 18. c3 a5 19. Nd2 a4 20. Kg2 c5
21. dxc5 Bxc5 22. Qe2 Bd5 23. Nc4 Kg7 24. Ne5 Rhd8 25. Rad1 Rd6 26. c4 Be6
27. Rxd6 cxd6 28. Nc6 Rc8 29. Na7 Rc7 30. Nb5 Rc8 31. Rd1 Bd7 32. Qd2 Bc6
33. Qc2 Ra8 34. Nc7 Rc8 35. Nd5 Qe6 36. Qc3+ Kg8 37. Nf6+ Kf8 38. Nd5 Kg8
39. Nf6+ Kf8 40. Nd5 Bxd5 41. cxd5 Qd7 42. Qf6+ Kg8 43. Qg6+ Kf8 44. Qf6+
Kg8 45. Qg6+ Kf8 46. Qf6+ {3-fold repetition} 1/2-1/2[/pgn]