Re: INTERESTING Engines with Unique Styles (Unlike SF)
Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2020 11:16 pm
"Interesting" generally means 'not very good'. Sorry.
Computer Chess Club
https://talkchess.com/
Could you list what makes an engine interesting? Like, likes to attack opponent's king than defends it own. Prefers mobile pieces in exchange for material, an engine that blunders like human giving away its queen or rook in a complicated position, etc. Perhaps there is rating range. Interesting engine in the range 1000 to 1200, and so on. With a given list hopefully programmers will make an attempt to create such interesting engine.BrendanJNorman wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 5:01 pm This is a fresh thread for Thorsten's idea of making a list of all "interesting" engines.
For me, in no particular order, they are:
Teki 2
Thinker 5.1c Passive
Baron 1.8.1
Gandalf 6
WChess 1.06
Vajolet 2.03
ProDeo 1.0-1.6 (assuming no personality used)
ZuriChess Graubuenden
Alfil 8.11
Stash 21.0 (new discovery...nice style to play against)
CM9000 (King 3.23)
Lambchop
Gromit 2.2
Horizon 4.3
Wyldchess 1.5.1
Detrich Kappe's "Distilled" Leela Nets like Bad Gyal etc
Winter
Zarkov
Trace
Tons more. Let's see your opinions.
Well, for me an engine (outside of the Stockfish 12 and Leela world, which I use for analysis) needs to be weak enough to be a sparring partner that doesn't crush me like a bug.mvanthoor wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 5:19 pmMost of those are either old, very old, or new engines that are still in development and have not reached the stage where the author starts to automatically tune the eval-function. Maybe I was right when I said that the hand-crafted evaluation function determines the engine's personality I hope that at some point, my engine will be in that list as well. (I actually intend to have a hand-crafted evaluation and a tuned one, at some point, for playing against people, or computers. IIRC, DanaSah does something similar.)BrendanJNorman wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 5:01 pm This is a fresh thread for Thorsten's idea of making a list of all "interesting" engines.
For me, in no particular order, they are:
Teki 2
Thinker 5.1c Passive
Baron 1.8.1
Gandalf 6
WChess 1.06
Vajolet 2.03
ProDeo 1.0-1.6 (assuming no personality used)
ZuriChess Graubuenden
Alfil 8.11
Stash 21.0 (new discovery...nice style to play against)
CM9000 (King 3.23)
Lambchop
Gromit 2.2
Horizon 4.3
Wyldchess 1.5.1
Detrich Kappe's "Distilled" Leela Nets like Bad Gyal etc
Winter
Zarkov
Trace
Tons more. Let's see your opinions.
My personal picks would be Hiarcs (I only know the versions 10 and 12), and Fritz 10 and 11. (After 11, Fritz 12 and 13 got tuned to play more like Ryba, and suddenly Frans Morsch went on retirement, if I recall correctly.)
Is there a link to download? You're making me curious!Madeleine Birchfield wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 5:59 pm I would like to add Minic NNUE with the Nascent Nutrient net trained by the Minic author himself using the Minic engine search and eval, it plays a very aggressive style that is very different from Stockfish according to Sylwy.
Sylwy wrote: ↑Fri Oct 09, 2020 12:21 pm Test conditions:
-TC=4'+2"
-Hash=256 MB
-GUI: Arena 3.5.1
-Book: Perfect_2010.abk for both engines
-default settings for both engines
-1 thread-CPU=Intel i5-7400-3GHz (Kaby Lake)
-OS: Windows 10 Home
-6-men Syzygy bases for both engines.
Texel 1.07 x64 has .......................3114 Elo points-CCRL Blitz
Minic 2.50 NNUE-Nascent Nutrient...around 3355 Elo points (3114+241)
Minic 2.50 NNUE-SV1520.............around 3458 (3451-Komodo 14 x64 +7)
Nascent Nutrient is about 100 Elo points below the best Segio Vieri nets.
A strong chess entity and an original play ! Congratulations !Sylwy wrote: ↑Fri Oct 09, 2020 1:29 pmYes, it's definitely something different ! Almost all my NNUE tests used various versions of SV net. In Igel and Minic the difference is obvious. A very aggressive Minic.
I understand the frustration of the masters of handcrafted evaluation. A lot of years. A lot of work. But the finality is chess and here the progress is great......and inevitable. Someday the end of the new NNUE age will come. That's life !I think as NNUE authors stop using Stockfish to train their nets and start using their own engines, we would begin to see more diversity in engine playing style.
Hi Thorsten, these Dos oldies look great. Do you have a direct download link? I'd love to download, challenge and review them.mclane wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:42 pm Ok, I would like to begin with 2 dos engines:
Philidor by David broughton.
It runs in dosbox.
https://www.schachcomputer.info/forum/s ... php?t=6209
This dos engine for 8086 CPU was developed 1983 in assembler.
David Broughton got the championship title for dedicated chess computers with his chess champion MK V by scisys.
I like the human playing style.
The next dos Program is Gandalf 2.1 by steen suurballe.
I think I first met steen at the championship in Munich.
And hold contact in the years later.
http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=68797
Gandalf 2.1 is said to have 1 ply plus extensions.
Okay you made me curious...
So I put 2 Olithink versions through a test and I also played a few blitz games myself.Dann Corbit wrote: ↑Fri Oct 09, 2020 9:09 am
Let's pause for a moment and consider Olithink.
It does not give a damn about King safety. You can pile wood around the king until the cows come home and he won't flinch.
Bishop pairs? Who cares?
All the eval terms we know and love are nothing.
And yet, it is about Glaurung strength. That is (quite frankly) absurd and flies in the face of chess knowledge painstakingly coded into most chess engines.
No need to be sorry, you misunderstood our intentions.
Ferdy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 11:32 pm Could you list what makes an engine interesting? Like, likes to attack opponent's king than defends it own. Prefers mobile pieces in exchange for material, an engine that blunders like human giving away its queen or rook in a complicated position, etc. Perhaps there is rating range. Interesting engine in the range 1000 to 1200, and so on. With a given list hopefully programmers will make an attempt to create such interesting engine.
Hi Carl and Ferdy,