In the Openings and Middlegames
After correcting for the methodological problem Uri pointed out, I got again that Lc0 is the strongest engine in openings and middlegames. To have some statistical significance, first at very fast time control, 0.2s/move.
At this short time control, Lc0 performs badly, and I got from 4-mover PGN opening suite the following, playing the full games without any adjudication:
Code: Select all
Score of lc0_v18.1 11261 vs SF8 (4 cores):
+20 -117 =63 [0.258]
Elo difference: -183.97 +/- 42.52
200 of 200 games finished.
+55 -34 =111 55.25%
+37 Elo points
LOS = 98.7%
Lc0 is stronger than SF8 (4 cores) in the first 25 moves, adding value to the final result even at this short TC, after the rest of the games (endgames) were finished as SF8 vs SF8. And the difference of the two performances is a whopping 200+ Elo points.
To see how well Lc0 fares in the first 25 moves against SF-dev, I used longer 2'+2'' time control (similar to CCRL 40/4' conditions), and again, first 25 moves were played Lc0 vs SF-dev, the rest (endgames) were SF-dev vs SF-dev (all engines Syzygy enabled). The result in 100 games is:
+20 -15 =65 52.5%
LOS = 80.0%
Not very conclusive, but it seems Lc0 is stronger than SF-dev (4 cores) in these conditions in the first 25 moves.
Another aspect: analyzing the 100 games at 2'+2'', 4 were lost by Lc0 by game-changing tactical blunders (one of them was from fairly balanced position to SF-dev showing Mate score) during those initial 25 moves. So, a combination of Lc0 + Houdini Tactical (for tactical blunders above 100cp) in the openings and middlegames, and SF-dev for the late middlegames and endgames would score:
+20 -11 =69
against SF-dev. Houdini Tactical saw the tactical blunders almost instantly, so the time allotted to it shouldn't be too high. Also, these crass tactical blunders occur only in some 5% of the games in the openings and middlegames. This "combination" of engines, which is clearly stronger than SF-dev, might interest, for example, correspondence chess players. I tried to automate this kind of playing using ChessCombi or Nucleus, without success.