Komodo 14 released.

[lkaufman]

Mark! i know Fritz allow to adjust more time for the white side.

To offset the draw odds. I suppose it make sense to give white more time than black even for engine games.

Any recommended time controls for Armageddon. White get extra time, i.e. a minute or so (no extra increment).

I did some tests on that. In bullet chess double time for White is almost enough to balance things, in blitz White needs triple time at least. You can use a small increment, but of course White also gets double (or whatever is applied to main time) increment time. If you use no increment at all there is always the risk of time forfeits or games decided by the arbitrary minimum number of milliseconds per move an engine might require. The newest Komodo 14 GUI now allows engine matches to be set with tenths of a minute and of a second increment, so if you use that you can test with just 0.1" increment to avoid problems, that's plenty to avoid forfeits and minimums.

[Chessqueen]

Mark! i know Fritz allow to adjust more time for the white side.

To offset the draw odds. I suppose it make sense to give white more time than black even for engine games.

Any recommended time controls for Armageddon. White get extra time, i.e. a minute or so (no extra increment).

I did some tests on that. In bullet chess double time for White is almost enough to balance things, in blitz White needs triple time at least. You can use a small increment, but of course White also gets double (or whatever is applied to main time) increment time. If you use no increment at all there is always the risk of time forfeits or games decided by the arbitrary minimum number of milliseconds per move an engine might require. The newest Komodo 14 GUI now allows engine matches to be set with tenths of a minute and of a second increment, so if you use that you can test with just 0.1" increment to avoid problems, that's plenty to avoid forfeits and minimums.

[d]q3r2k/1R4p1/2n1p2p/3pP2P/5PP1/p1P1n1B1/R7/1Q4K1 w - -
Can Komodo be modified to first consider sacrificing a major piece like in this case with the Rook to chase the opponent KING
even if the position is a winning position and winning in many ways. Like a boxer he could beat you slowly with many jabs but
he could also find a fast way to knock you out with a solid punch, with a code that first look at any piece that can take
regardless if it is only a mere pawn like in this case and further after the sacrifice within 15 to 20 moves deep if it come
up with a positive score that will not let the other engine out of the knockout punch, then it will select that route first.

PS: So again how many other engines first consider to chase the opponent KING by sacrificing a major piece

[lkaufman]

Mark! i know Fritz allow to adjust more time for the white side.

To offset the draw odds. I suppose it make sense to give white more time than black even for engine games.

Any recommended time controls for Armageddon. White get extra time, i.e. a minute or so (no extra increment).

I did some tests on that. In bullet chess double time for White is almost enough to balance things, in blitz White needs triple time at least. You can use a small increment, but of course White also gets double (or whatever is applied to main time) increment time. If you use no increment at all there is always the risk of time forfeits or games decided by the arbitrary minimum number of milliseconds per move an engine might require. The newest Komodo 14 GUI now allows engine matches to be set with tenths of a minute and of a second increment, so if you use that you can test with just 0.1" increment to avoid problems, that's plenty to avoid forfeits and minimums.

[d]q3r2k/1R4p1/2n1p2p/3pP2P/5PP1/p1P1n1B1/R7/1Q4K1 w - -
Can Komodo be modified to first consider sacrificing a major piece like in this case with the Rook to chase the opponent KING
even if the position is a winning position and winning in many ways. Like a boxer he could beat you slowly with many jabs but
he could also find a fast way to knock you out with a solid punch, with a code that first look at any piece that can take
regardless if it is only a mere pawn like in this case and further after the sacrifice within 15 to 20 moves deep if it come
up with a positive score that will not let the other engine out of the knockout punch, then it will select that route first.

PS: So again how many other engines first consider to chase the opponent KING by sacrificing a major piece

Well, it's not very important what Komodo considers first at the root, it looks at all moves to depth 1, then 2, then 3, etc. It is true that moves near the end of the list, including moves that look like blunders, do get reduced more which makes it take longer to see their benefit. It's easy to turn that off, but it loses elo. There are things we can do to increase the odds of finding a forced mate or overwhelming win of material, but they usually lose elo. It's hard to tell the difference between a clever sacrifice and a stupid blunder without a lot of analysis. If you are looking for a way to make Komodo choose a move that wins less material than another move just because it looks pretty, well aesthetics aren't in the program now. Of course they could be, but that would also lose elo.

[Cornfed]

A question about Komodo MCTS and Chessbase (since all serious - and most other - chess players uses it).

In their Tactical Analysis feature, an engine goes to the end of a game and works backwards comparing each move vs an engines preferred move. If you look at the GUI, it seems as a default to automatically consider two lines (pv). So, for MCTS, should you turn on that engine first and then simply hit 'tactical analysis' or go ahead and turn on the engine to consider 2 lines - pv, (or 3? 4?) having already set the CPU's to 2 (or 3 or 4)?

Or is simply turning on Komodo regular and let the default settings take over - 2 lines being looked at under however many CPU you specify.

[lkaufman]

A question about Komodo MCTS and Chessbase (since all serious - and most other - chess players uses it).

In their Tactical Analysis feature, an engine goes to the end of a game and works backwards comparing each move vs an engines preferred move. If you look at the GUI, it seems as a default to automatically consider two lines (pv). So, for MCTS, should you turn on that engine first and then simply hit 'tactical analysis' or go ahead and turn on the engine to consider 2 lines - pv, (or 3? 4?) having already set the CPU's to 2 (or 3 or 4)?

Or is simply turning on Komodo regular and let the default settings take over - 2 lines being looked at under however many CPU you specify.

I am not very familiar with that specific GUI feature, I'd have to check it out to advise on how it works, but if you want to know whether to use Komodo regular or MCTS mode with it, I can advise just based on your comments. If it is analyzing and displaying just the best two lines, it's pretty much a toss-up as to which to use, but if it is analyzing three or more lines, then it is better to use the MCTS version. I can also say that if you use the regular version, looking at more lines will lower the quality of the analysis, while with the MCTS version you might as well look at a large number of lines, the quality of the analysis will be the same. This should be the same whether you are analyzing live or using this GUI feature.

[Ovyron]

I'd have to check it out to advise on how it works

The idea of the feature is to visit future positions to fill up the hash and then visit previous ones so MultiPV=2 makes use of the hash contents to be faster.

In reality it's a poor designed feature and the user would get much better results (either the same results much faster or the same output with higher depth) by using the engines' searchmoves feature and exclude lines already checked.

It's a feature for lazy users that want to have automation, an "I click and have to do nothing and get something" option, and the best advice I can give is to stick with Komodo regular and use SinglePV and exclude the future moves you already have analyzed on future positions, because then it'll be like the improvement of move choices between Komodo SinglePV and KomodoMCTS SinglePV.

(I don't actually have KomodoMCTS but that's how these things work)

[Cornfed]

I'd have to check it out to advise on how it works

In reality it's a poor designed feature and the user would get much better results (either the same results much faster or the same output with higher depth) by using the engines' searchmoves feature and exclude lines already checked.

It's a feature for lazy users that want to have automation, an "I click and have to do nothing and get something" option, and the best advice I can give is to stick with Komodo regular and use SinglePV and exclude the future moves you already have analyzed on future positions, because then it'll be like the improvement of move choices between Komodo SinglePV and KomodoMCTS SinglePV.

Colorful language...and I'll not take offense; but truly its use is in having an engine quickly go thru a set of games (maybe those you played online or raw games from tournaments), check for tactical refutations/missed combinations/combinational themes, divergence from theory, endgame classification , diagrams of key points with training questions, etc...and a handy little graph occurs so you can spot where a game trended good or bad. All handy stuff really.

Oh, and how would one use this 'search moves feature' you mention on a set of games to get this kind of information?

[Ovyron]

Colorful language...and I'll not take offense; but truly its use is in having an engine quickly go thru a set of games (maybe those you played online or raw games from tournaments), check for tactical refutations/missed combinations/combinational themes, divergence from theory, endgame classification , diagrams of key points with training questions, etc...and a handy little graph occurs so you can spot where a game trended good or bad. All handy stuff really.

All I'm saying is that if the feature was well designed you could have that in half the time or with twice the accuracy, because if you already have a chess's line score, reanalyzing it with MultiPV=2 from 2 plies before is a waste of resources.

Oh, and how would one use this 'search moves feature' you mention on a set of games to get this kind of information?

The Chessbase GUI doesn't support this feature, the thing they have is "next best" (where you have to be lucky that the engine shows the played move on analysis so you exclude it), but don't use it on their automated features.

Here's a superior free alternative:

https://lichess.org/paste

Import your PGN, request computer analysis (this is ticked before importing game), in a blast you'll have a full game report, will be able to compare your game's opening with their master database or customizable player database (by rating or time control) will show you the blunders and mistakes from each side (and a graph where you can see clearly where the score slopes happened), will allow you to train so you make the right moves in similar positions you face in the future, and will show perfect moves on endgames including free access to 7men tablebases and below. With an engine superior to Komodo.

Of course the problem is you need Internet to use this, but Chessbase seems stuck in the past.

[Cornfed]

"Stuck in the past". Funny...I tried that link before I went to bed last night...the site was down. Online is no good if you can't get to it.

But back to the question: For Chessbase Tactical Analysis, using MCTS on multi-pv (even 3 or 4) with 3 or 4 cores conveys no advantage over Regular Komodo at the same # of cores even though the program defaults to multi-PV of 2...and you could probably set it to multi-PV of 3 or 4 before starting it?

Perhaps you answered that and it was obscured by other things. But if you know and could let me know, I would appreciate it.

[Cornfed]

"Stuck in the past". Funny...I tried that link before I went to bed last night...the site was down. Online is no good if you can't get to it.

But back to the question: For Chessbase Tactical Analysis, using MCTS on multi-pv (even 3 or 4) with 3 or 4 cores conveys no advantage over Regular Komodo at the same # of cores even though the program defaults to multi-PV of 2...and you could probably set it to multi-PV of 3 or 4 before starting it?

Perhaps you answered that and it was obscured by other things. But if you know and could let me know, I would appreciate it.

Too late to edit, but I played a quick game on ChessTempo, downloaded it (pgn), uploaded. Faster for sure...but clearly not as substantial. And it doesn't look like you can do a set of games to check for the things I mentioned.