Does Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit cheat when playing ply games ?

[Spacious_Mind]

Hi Everyone,

Recently I started tinkering with some chess engines, letting them play 5 ply matches against some old Commodore 64 Software. (Yes I know this is a manual input process .

I used my Turion 1.8 GHz Laptop with Fritz 9. Setting up the engines without ponder and Hash down to about 1 MB which I think was the barest minimum. Endgame tablebases etc were also all turned off.

What I noticed was that most engines playing 5 ply on my laptop take about 30 seconds for 100 moves ie Stockfish 1.5.1, whereas Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit takes about half this time and almost gives me the feeling that Rybka continues to Ponder even though it is turned off. This also seems inconsistent with other engines that I tested. It actually feels way stronger then other engines with these settings.

Of course Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit may be a lot more efficient at these settings but perhaps there are some other explanations or perhaps I am missing something in the settings.

If anyone knows more about setting Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit to play ply games without Ponder then please let me know.

Also in 4 min + 2 sec engine matches I find that TogaII_14_beta5c and TogaII_141_SE have a tendency to lose on time. Is there something in the settings that I need to adjust?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

ps. My main love is for dedicated chess computers and old Home Computers and chess software for these. But I also like to keep up with engines from time to time and compare these to the old masters from the past

Best regards

Nick

[Steve B]

Hi Everyone,

ps. My main love is for dedicated chess computers and old Home Computers and chess software for these. But I also like to keep up with engines from time to time and compare these to the old masters from the past

Best regards

Nick

Hi Nick
welcome to the CCC
Glad to see a well known dedicated chess computer collector join our numbers
of course i will leave the Rybka question to one of our resident experts

No My Job Regards
Steve

[bob]

Hi Everyone,

Recently I started tinkering with some chess engines, letting them play 5 ply matches against some old Commodore 64 Software. (Yes I know this is a manual input process .

I used my Turion 1.8 GHz Laptop with Fritz 9. Setting up the engines without ponder and Hash down to about 1 MB which I think was the barest minimum. Endgame tablebases etc were also all turned off.

What I noticed was that most engines playing 5 ply on my laptop take about 30 seconds for 100 moves ie Stockfish 1.5.1, whereas Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit takes about half this time and almost gives me the feeling that Rybka continues to Ponder even though it is turned off. This also seems inconsistent with other engines that I tested. It actually feels way stronger then other engines with these settings.

Of course Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit may be a lot more efficient at these settings but perhaps there are some other explanations or perhaps I am missing something in the settings.

If anyone knows more about setting Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit to play ply games without Ponder then please let me know.

Also in 4 min + 2 sec engine matches I find that TogaII_14_beta5c and TogaII_141_SE have a tendency to lose on time. Is there something in the settings that I need to adjust?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

ps. My main love is for dedicated chess computers and old Home Computers and chess software for these. But I also like to keep up with engines from time to time and compare these to the old masters from the past

Best regards

Nick

This is a funny question to ask. Everyone knows that it reports false depths and node counts. So how could you _possibly_ expect it to play reasonable fixed depth games?

[Spacious_Mind]

This is a funny question to ask. Everyone knows that it reports false depths and node counts. So how could you _possibly_ expect it to play reasonable fixed depth games?

Aha! So it does cheat! Perhaps I should stick to dedicated computers, (safer territory for the ignorant )

But what a pity it seems I will never be able to compare Rybka to old past masters

ps.. Here is a game between Commodore 64 (1.022 MHz) Colossus 4 at 2 hrs/40 (less than 5 ply) and Stockfish 1.5.1 playing under the mentioned settings at 5 ply.

I nearly fell of my chair when I played this game because I really expected a modern engine to hammer an old program written for the C64.

[Event "5 Ply Test"]
[Site "Hoover, Alabama, USA"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Stockfish 1.5.1 JA, 5 PLY."]
[Black "CBM C64 Colossus 4.0, 150 Sec"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A08"]
[WhiteElo "1800"]
[BlackElo "1800"]
[Annotator "Mind,Spacious"]
[PlyCount "128"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d3 d5 4. Nbd2 Nc6 5. g3 Nf6 6. Bg2 Bd6 7. O-O O-O 8. Re1
e5 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Ng5 Be7 11. Nc4 f6 12. Ne4 Be6 13. Bd2 Rc8 14. Qh5 Nd4 15.
Rac1 Rc7 16. c3 g6 17. Qd1 Nf5 18. Qa4 a6 19. Bf3 Rf7 20. Bg4 Rc6 21. Qa5 Nc7
22. Be2 b5 23. Ne3 Nxe3 24. Bxe3 f5 25. Nd2 f4 26. Bxf4 exf4 27. Bf3 Rd6 28.
Be2 fxg3 29. hxg3 Bh3 30. Ne4 Re6 31. f4 Kh8 32. c4 Bf5 33. Kg2 Bxe4+ 34. dxe4
Rxe4 35. cxb5 axb5 36. Bxb5 Rb4 37. Be2 Rxb2 38. Qc3+ Bf6 39. Qxc5 Qd3 40. Qc4
Qxc4 41. Rxc4 Rxa2 42. Kf3 Re7 43. Rb4 Rd2 44. Rbb1 Kg7 45. Bc4 Rxe1 46. Rxe1
h5 47. Re2 Rxe2 48. Bxe2 Ne6 49. Ke4 Bc3 50. Kd5 Kf6 51. Ke4 Be1 52. g4 Bd2 53.
f5 Nf4 54. Bd1 Bc1 55. fxg6 h4 56. g7 Kxg7 57. Kf5 h3 58. Bf3 Nd3 59. g5 Nf2
60. Bd5 h2 61. Bg2 h1=R 62. Bd5 Rh5 63. Ke6 Bf4 64. Ke7 Rxg5 {
Stockfish 1.5.1 JA resigns} 0-1

But it may be just a fluke.....

Best regards

Nick

[Spacious_Mind]

Hi Everyone,

ps. My main love is for dedicated chess computers and old Home Computers and chess software for these. But I also like to keep up with engines from time to time and compare these to the old masters from the past

Best regards

Nick

Hi Nick
welcome to the CCC
Glad to see a well known dedicated chess computer collector join our numbers
of course i will leave the Rybka question to one of our resident experts

No My Job Regards
Steve

Hi Steve,

Thank you for your warm welcome! I look forward to the opportunity to chat with you again about dedicates. This forum seems to be really interesting.

All the best

Nick

[bob]

This is a funny question to ask. Everyone knows that it reports false depths and node counts. So how could you _possibly_ expect it to play reasonable fixed depth games?

Aha! So it does cheat! Perhaps I should stick to dedicated computers, (safer territory for the ignorant )

But what a pity it seems I will never be able to compare Rybka to old past masters

ps.. Here is a game between Commodore 64 (1.022 MHz) Colossus 4 at 2 hrs/40 (less than 5 ply) and Stockfish 1.5.1 playing under the mentioned settings at 5 ply.

I nearly fell of my chair when I played this game because I really expected a modern engine to hammer an old program written for the C64.

[Event "5 Ply Test"]
[Site "Hoover, Alabama, USA"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Stockfish 1.5.1 JA, 5 PLY."]
[Black "CBM C64 Colossus 4.0, 150 Sec"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A08"]
[WhiteElo "1800"]
[BlackElo "1800"]
[Annotator "Mind,Spacious"]
[PlyCount "128"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d3 d5 4. Nbd2 Nc6 5. g3 Nf6 6. Bg2 Bd6 7. O-O O-O 8. Re1
e5 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Ng5 Be7 11. Nc4 f6 12. Ne4 Be6 13. Bd2 Rc8 14. Qh5 Nd4 15.
Rac1 Rc7 16. c3 g6 17. Qd1 Nf5 18. Qa4 a6 19. Bf3 Rf7 20. Bg4 Rc6 21. Qa5 Nc7
22. Be2 b5 23. Ne3 Nxe3 24. Bxe3 f5 25. Nd2 f4 26. Bxf4 exf4 27. Bf3 Rd6 28.
Be2 fxg3 29. hxg3 Bh3 30. Ne4 Re6 31. f4 Kh8 32. c4 Bf5 33. Kg2 Bxe4+ 34. dxe4
Rxe4 35. cxb5 axb5 36. Bxb5 Rb4 37. Be2 Rxb2 38. Qc3+ Bf6 39. Qxc5 Qd3 40. Qc4
Qxc4 41. Rxc4 Rxa2 42. Kf3 Re7 43. Rb4 Rd2 44. Rbb1 Kg7 45. Bc4 Rxe1 46. Rxe1
h5 47. Re2 Rxe2 48. Bxe2 Ne6 49. Ke4 Bc3 50. Kd5 Kf6 51. Ke4 Be1 52. g4 Bd2 53.
f5 Nf4 54. Bd1 Bc1 55. fxg6 h4 56. g7 Kxg7 57. Kf5 h3 58. Bf3 Nd3 59. g5 Nf2
60. Bd5 h2 61. Bg2 h1=R 62. Bd5 Rh5 63. Ke6 Bf4 64. Ke7 Rxg5 {
Stockfish 1.5.1 JA resigns} 0-1

But it may be just a fluke.....

Best regards

Nick

Unfortunately that is a "bogus comparison". What was done in 5 plies back then is not what is done in 5 plies today. Reductions, null-move search, etc, make a 5 ply search do much less searching than was done back in the old days. But then again, the 5 ply searches back then too much longer than today because of this. If you want to try to handicap the hardware, you don't want to use fixed depth at all, that's a bad comparison. You really want to play ponder=off, using different time controls. how different? Compare the speed of the old machine to the speed of a computer today. Or if you are running an old program on modern hardware, no handicapping is needed at all since the only difference will be in software.

[Spacious_Mind]

Unfortunately that is a "bogus comparison". What was done in 5 plies back then is not what is done in 5 plies today. Reductions, null-move search, etc, make a 5 ply search do much less searching than was done back in the old days. But then again, the 5 ply searches back then too much longer than today because of this. If you want to try to handicap the hardware, you don't want to use fixed depth at all, that's a bad comparison. You really want to play ponder=off, using different time controls. how different? Compare the speed of the old machine to the speed of a computer today. Or if you are running an old program on modern hardware, no handicapping is needed at all since the only difference will be in software.

Hi Bob,

Thanks again for your kind response. I have been searching for a fair method for quite a while and have difficulty finding something which is fair to both modern engines and old software. I have tried slowing down a PC amongst many other methods but none seem satisfactory because either the engine s handicapped or the old software is. I use real machines and not emulators. To find something suitable is almost impossible and yes I agree Ponder should be off in all instances. A Ply comparison seemed the fairest way to approach it since this would allow me to do similar setting on Old Home Computers as well as dedicated machines and engines. But now you have curve balled this

I think it is also unreasonable perhaps if for example the C64 1MHz gets say 1800 seconds to move and the the engine 1 second as an example because the differences in speed would amount to something like this.

What is a shame is that the few games that I have played sofar with 5 ply have been really interesting because both opponents were capable of winning games and this opens up all sorts of possibilities between old software, dedicated and engines in tournaments. If nothing else perhaps it might even bring to light differences in how ply's are evaluated between softwares and perhaps show future ways of improvement, who knows I am not blessed to be a programmer.

I just think it is interesting to play games between the different platforms.

All the best

Nick

[bob]

Unfortunately that is a "bogus comparison". What was done in 5 plies back then is not what is done in 5 plies today. Reductions, null-move search, etc, make a 5 ply search do much less searching than was done back in the old days. But then again, the 5 ply searches back then too much longer than today because of this. If you want to try to handicap the hardware, you don't want to use fixed depth at all, that's a bad comparison. You really want to play ponder=off, using different time controls. how different? Compare the speed of the old machine to the speed of a computer today. Or if you are running an old program on modern hardware, no handicapping is needed at all since the only difference will be in software.

Hi Bob,

Thanks again for your kind response. I have been searching for a fair method for quite a while and have difficulty finding something which is fair to both modern engines and old software. I have tried slowing down a PC amongst many other methods but none seem satisfactory because either the engine s handicapped or the old software is. I use real machines and not emulators. To find something suitable is almost impossible and yes I agree Ponder should be off in all instances. A Ply comparison seemed the fairest way to approach it since this would allow me to do similar setting on Old Home Computers as well as dedicated machines and engines. But now you have curve balled this

I think it is also unreasonable perhaps if for example the C64 1MHz gets say 1800 seconds to move and the the engine 1 second as an example because the differences in speed would amount to something like this.

What is a shame is that the few games that I have played sofar with 5 ply have been really interesting because both opponents were capable of winning games and this opens up all sorts of possibilities between old software, dedicated and engines in tournaments. If nothing else perhaps it might even bring to light differences in how ply's are evaluated between softwares and perhaps show future ways of improvement, who knows I am not blessed to be a programmer.

I just think it is interesting to play games between the different platforms.

All the best

Nick

Here's the basic issues. There is old/new hardware, and old/new software. Nothing says old software on new hardware needs any sort of "handicap" for comparison. If both programs use equal hardware, what you are doing is getting a good measure of how much software progress has been made since the old software version you are testing was written. You have upgraded it's hardware, so all that is left is the programming.

I don't think that there is any reasonable way to handicap further, since all you can really do is artificially weaken the newer program until you make it play at the level of the old program. This would tell you that the new software is equivalent to a Nx hardware speedup. Say you have to give the old program a 20:1 time handicap advantage to make the old and new play equally on the same hardware. Then the software improvements would be worth about 20x. This is not quite a valid comparison, because most likely new software on old hardware would really play badly since the search depth would be so limited the reductions and null-move would cause grave tactical issues or else be completely ineffectual.

[hgm]

I think it is also unreasonable perhaps if for example the C64 1MHz gets say 1800 seconds to move and the the engine 1 second as an example because the differences in speed would amount to something like this.

Most programs have no difficulty playing at 0.1 sec/move, so even with the extreme factor you mention you might be able to get into the realm of reasonable times/move.

It is very easy to try this; WinBoard allows you to enter time-odds factors for each engine separately in the time-control dialog. Of course when you enter the moves by hand, it will consider it an engine vs Human game, but in that case the time-odds given for the second engine is used for the Human (irrespective of which color you play).

[Rolf]

Hi Everyone,

Recently I started tinkering with some chess engines, letting them play 5 ply matches against some old Commodore 64 Software. (Yes I know this is a manual input process .

I used my Turion 1.8 GHz Laptop with Fritz 9. Setting up the engines without ponder and Hash down to about 1 MB which I think was the barest minimum. Endgame tablebases etc were also all turned off.

What I noticed was that most engines playing 5 ply on my laptop take about 30 seconds for 100 moves ie Stockfish 1.5.1, whereas Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit takes about half this time and almost gives me the feeling that Rybka continues to Ponder even though it is turned off. This also seems inconsistent with other engines that I tested. It actually feels way stronger then other engines with these settings.

Of course Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit may be a lot more efficient at these settings but perhaps there are some other explanations or perhaps I am missing something in the settings.

If anyone knows more about setting Rybka 2.3.2a 32-bit to play ply games without Ponder then please let me know.

Hi Nick and many greetings to you across the Atlantic from Germany. I hope we two can become chessfriends in future because we have so many similarities except the only difference of our origine of culture. But psychologically we are twin brothers in a way. Because when I wrote my first messages back in 1996 I started with a similar attack against a real top number one at the time (Ed Schroder NL), topic was business tricks, while he was at the same time active in questions against another number one guy (Marty Hirsch USA) for hidden opening tricks that brought him allegedly unfair advantages. Now you entered with your researches directly into the middle of the top debate if a "Rybka", the actual top winner program, with questioning if it "cheated".

The problem is this. After the battle with hidden hardware mega irons is over the USA, who was practically leader in that competition, lost all top places/ranks IMO because in your region different to Europe you follow a principle that you somehow underestimate or disrespect the software ideas because similar to what China does, you dismantle every interesting producht in chess software and publish the secrets as if there were no personal ownership for the inventor.

In Europe we have different copyright laws. Look, for me it would be a no go to take Stockfish which is already a clone of Rybka IMO. More, it is absolutely inexplainable how you could dare to ask if a software cheated, while it's your private business to research such details whereas we in urope enjoy Rybka as the actually top program. World Champion.

With Deep Blue we in Europe were not allowed to question the integrity of the IBM team at the time. Even today it's judged as unfriendly at least. And the machine was hidden after its last move so that no control experiments were possible.

Nick, do you really think that a software cheated if your chosen setting of technical details brings you to unexpected results in a statistical sense? Isnt a software designed to play the best chess it can? Where is the cheat, please tell me, as researcher.

What do you think about the apparent lack of commercial engines in the USA? And why is it that all top progs reside in Europe? Nick, do you see the poissible reason in the open publication of all the secrets a software could have? Isnt it also telling that you didnt present your astonishing results on the Rybkaforum?

Ok, let's talk about Free Speech and freedom to research anything you want. What is the reason for you (in the USA) to destilate in public the details of commercial software that runs under European copyright laws?

Why then it's not allowed to debate the science violations in the DB2 vs Kasparov match in 1997? Why the double standard?

Are you game in a new friendship based on hard debates?