CCRL update (15th February 2008)

[Graham Banks]

The February 15th update of the CCRL Rating Lists and Statistics is now available for viewing at:
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/

The list gets updated periodically during the week and these updates can be viewed here:
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040.live/
Please be aware that no game downloads are available from this live link.

The links to the various rating lists can be found just beneath the default Best Versions list.
For example there is a 32-bit Single CPU list.

Our standard testing is at 40 moves in 40 minutes repeating while our current blitz testing is at both 40 moves in 4 minutes repeating and 40 moves in 12 minutes repeating, all adjusted to the AMD64 X2 4600+ (2.4GHz).

Currently active testers in our team are:
Graham Banks, Ray Banks, Shaun Brewer, Kirill Kryukov, Dom Leste, Tom Logan, Charles Smith, George Speight, Chris Taylor, Chuck Wilson, Gabor Szots and Martin Thoresen.


40/40 Notes

There are currently 104,841 games in our 40/40 database.

Many engines on our list have few games and in many cases their ratings are likely to fluctuate (markedly for some) until a lot more games are played. Therefore no conclusions should be drawn about their strength yet.
To illustrate this point, when an engine has 200 games played, the error margin is still approximately +-40 ELO, after 500 games +-25 ELO, after 1000 games +-17 ELO and even after 2000 games there is a +-13 ELO error margin!
This of course highlights the importance of looking at other rating lists that are also available in order to draw comparisons and get a more accurate overall picture.


4CPU 64-bit Engines

Rybka 2.3.2a remains the strongest engine by over 50+ ELO.
Both Naum 3 and Zappa Mexico II require many more games, but it seems likely that the gap will remain.

Deep Shredder 11 lies 40+ points further back, ahead of Deep Fritz 10.1.

The remaining well tested engines in order of strength are Toga II 1.4 beta5c, Hiarcs 11.2, Loop M1-T, Glaurung 2.0.1, Deep Junior 10, Bright 0.2c, Deep Sjeng 2.7 and Scorpio 2.0.


2CPU Engines

With the emphasis of our multi-cpu testing on 4CPU as opposed to 2CPU, there are gaps in this category and some of the engines also require further games.
However, the order of strength is almost identical to the 4CPU list with regard to the engines that have been well tested.
Our resources can only be spread so far unfortunately and further testers of 2CPU engines would be useful.


Single CPU Engines

Rybka 2.3.2a has an impressive 120+ ELO lead over Fritz 11, Shredder 11 and Zappa Mexico II.
We are in the early stages of testing Naum 3, so no accurate conclusions can yet be drawn as to how much improvement has been made.

Toga II 3.1.2SE is only 20 ELO further back, currently clearly ahead of Loop 13.6, Fruit 2.3.1 and Hiarcs 11.2.

Not too far behind, Deep Sjeng 2.7, Spike 1.2 Turin and Glaurung 2.0.1are very closely grouped.

Junior 10.1 is sandwiched on its own between the group just mentioned above it and the group of engines below that includes Ktulu 8.0, Chess Tiger 2007.1, SmarThink 1.00 and Bright 0.2c.

Chessmaster 11, Movei 00.8.438 (10 10 10), Booot 4.14.0, Alaric 707 and Scorpio 2.0 comprise the next group of engines ahead of Frenzee Dec07, SlowChess Blitz WV2.1, E.T Chess 13.01.08, Delfi 5.2, Ruffian 2.1.0 and WildCat 7.

We are still in the early stages of testing Sloppy 0.2.0 and Alfil 8.1.1 amongst others.


Free Single CPU Engines

Rybka 1.0 64-bit is finally under threat as the top dog in this category with Toga II 3.1.2SE performing strongly to date!

Fruit 2.3.1 comes in third ahead of Spike 1.2 Turin and Glaurung 2.0.1.

Naum 2.0 and Bright 0.2c are 40+ ELO further back.

Movei 00.8.438 (10 10 10), Booot 4.14.0, Alaric 707, Scorpio 2.0 and Frenzee Dec07 come in next, ahead of SlowChess Blitz WV2.1, E.T Chess 13.01.08, Delfi 5.2, Zappa 1.1 and WildCat 7.

We test a very extensive range of amateur engines (currently ranging down to the 2000 ELO level) through a range of tournaments, all of which can be followed in our public forum.
Our aim is of course to ensure that all engines lower on our lists get 200+ games.


Blitz Notes

There are currently 247,235 games in our 40/4 database.

The 40/4 update is usually done separately to our 40/40 update.
The latest ratings can be found at one of the following links:
http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/
http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404.live/

An enormous amount of work goes into the blitz list and it is well worth a visit.

Of special interest to some will be the best free 1CPU engines list which is being constructed through a systematic testing approach as mentioned here:
http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19206


FRC Notes

There are currently 26,200 games in the FRC 40/4 database.

Ray tests only those engines that can play FRC through the Shredder Classic GUI.
If engine authors have a new and stable version of their engine that will run under this GUI, they should contact Ray if they wish to see it tested.

Ray has just finished testing Naum 3 and it has established itself as the second best publicly available FRC engine behind Shredder 11 (remembering of course that Rybka 2.3.2 FRC has remained private).

For FRC the best list to look at is the pure list.
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/


Stats/Presentation Notes

The LOS (likelihood of superiority) stats to the right hand side of each rating list tell you the likelihood in percentage terms of each engine being superior to the engine directly below them.

A list of games played this week per engine can be found in the update thread in the CCRL public forum.

All games are available for download by engine, by month or by ECO code.
ELO ratings are now saved in all game databases for those engines that have 200 games or more.

Clicking on an engine name will give details as to opponents played plus homepage links where applicable.

Custom lists of engines can be selected for comparison.

An openings report page lists the number of games played by ECO codes with draw percentage and White win percentage. Clicking on a column heading will sort the list by that column.

[Uri Blass]

I was looking at the regular list to see results of Naum3 against rybka and I found 1.5-0.5 for Naum
I looked later in the live list to find the 20-10 that rybka beat Naum but again I could not find even single game from that match and the result in the live list is even 2.5-0.5 for Naum

http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/40 ... m_3_32-bit

I also wonder what is the difference that caused Naum to score 2 wins out of 3 in your games when it could score only 1 win out of 30 in another match against the same opponent.

Different book?
Different tablebase using(I noticed that the programs seemed not to use tablebases based on the fact that they used significant time in KRB vs KR position in game 28 or in KRP vs KR position in game 26)

Uri

[Graham Banks]

I also wonder what is the difference that caused Naum to score 2 wins out of 3 in your games when it could score only 1 win out of 30 in another match against the same opponent.
Uri

In 3 games between engines with a difference of 70-80 ELO, such things can happen. There is no doubt that Rybka 2.3.2a is the stronger engine though.

Regards, Graham.