Critter 0.90 1cpu tests

[bob]

no not confusing
i understood your disgust to be directed at the post and not at moderation
I just think its in bad form for you to mention that you reported a post and it was not acted upon ..or disagreed with by the moderators
personally i would send in the complaint(as you did) and leave it at that

I see your point. However, this forum has been discussing/complaining/criticizing/screaming/bitching about moderation policies for ever. In this environment I did not think that just mentioning that I reported it was a big deal. In fact, I see one member that every time he reports a post, he announce it. If the secrecy of the procedure is important for a better moderation, I will abide by it, but I did not get the impression this has been a common policy. I do agree, though, that moderation decisions are final and should NOT be discussed. We should accept them and move on. If has not been my intention to bring a discussion on how to moderate.

however that's just my opinion which i am entitled to just as i grant you are entitled to think the post is one that ought to be removed even though it seems the issue did not erupt into anything larger

for all i know the other mods will agree with your view here and out vote me
we do not always agree on each issue and a 2/3 majority rule has been employed this term (and in my previous terms as mod as well )

Best Regards
Steve

That is ok, Steve. For the record, as I have said many times, I appreciate what you and other moderators do.

Miguel

We don't try to operate in secrecy. We are doing our best to be _very_ "light-handed" in moderation, tolerating a bit of off-topic discussion here and there, and so forth, while trying to prevent the all-out flame wars that do erupt from time to time.

The best moderation team is the team that remains nearly invisible for the most part. Believe me, when we get a complaint, Steve, Fern (and Ted, the alternate) all discuss what is going on. Sometimes we will react quickly and then discuss, if necessary, but most of the time we try to come up with an approach to a specific problem that is as unobtrusive as possible. Notice how few threads have been deleted, for example.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Engin,

one of your latest versions is improved with around 85 ELO.
3.6.7 to 4.2.5!

Congratulation, nice engine and now after my list at the moment on place 25 from all available programs. Very, very nice work you do here since so many years.

Believe me ...
More and more persons will like Tornado and will use your engine!

And to Critter:
Seems that Richard do the right things

In each of my SWCR statistics I can't see that the programs comes with same statistics to the playing style compare to Stockfish, IvanHoe or others.

Great strength in pawn-structur-range.
Such a strong statistic comes from Fritz only.
And now you can say ...
Critter is a copy of Fritz
Which person will believe that?

Fact is:
I don't know what Richard do here but Richard and the programmers of Fritz seems to work on the same topic

Fritz plays the most remis games, not easy to beat this engine, not easy to win vs. Fritz in endgames. One of the reasons are the strength in pawn-structur. Critter plays more aggressive with pawns as Fritz but booth programs comes here with gigantic statistics. And all other statistics "Critter - Fritz" are completly different.

Stockfish is in tactic clearly stronger as Critter. Rybka is in the late middlegame stronger as Critter. Critter is playing very nice positional computer chess, without big mistakes from opening up to endgame. Since Critter 0.80 I saw more danger attacks in the early middlegame. Critter is more aggressive since version 0.80!

For me is clear that the programmer add his own ideas and he have success. Can't see anything that give me the info ... could be a copy of ... in the case of Critter ... NONSENS!

I am not a programmer but I have enough games and saw enough.

Furthermore, if Richard try out ideas by others and add such things in his engine ... this one is absolutley OK, why not? But I am sure he do that without copy and paste.

All ideas in chess programming are well known. I believe that what Mark Costalba wrote in the Stockfish interview. Very logical for myself.

Best
Frank

[Frank Quisinsky]

read it ...

Stockfish Interview:
http://www.schach-welt.de/interviews/ro ... talba-engl

Critter Interview:
http://www.schach-welt.de/interviews/richard-vida

Much others interviews can be found on:
http://www.schach-welt.de

Best
Frank

[Engin]

hmmm.... i am interested too what you making different for the huge strength up, or you can tell us here in the forum what you changed that is so strong.

but i do you not prefer to make the source public again, that is a risk again that other people will clone your ideas too like stockfish, ivanhoe

at this time i am demotivated because some people are thinking they can copy from like stockfish or ivanhoe, and change only the name and the outputs of nps or something, and claim they doing write this engine self.

i meaning like Houdini is, these engine come for the first time with an elo over 3200 elo, for a beginner is that very high and strange or ?

[Engin]

do you know that i had begin with EnginMax about a strength of 1500 elo or something ?

and then grow up until 2100 elo , i think improvements over 100 elo each version is possible but this improvements are step by step, and not for the first time comes with 3000 elo engine, like houdini, gull, fruit, rybka, with those engine are i think is something wrong.

then i continue with Tornado but use the same ideas at the begining what i do know from EnginMax allready done, and Tornado 1.0 had only some elo points more then EnginMax like 2200 elo or something, then i working very hard on Tornado and make it until now with a strength of 2700 elo, but this take over 6 years of my life.

do you understand what i mean ?

[Engin]

yes i know that is possible making improvements over 80-100 elo from older version to the new one.

what i dont understand is the quickly step what critter grows up in a very short time. who other programmers need over many years.

and i ask me what they doing different work ?

its ok that he reading and understanding other sources, that i am doing too, but how he know that what is a good idea and what is not, he must try this first before implement it in his programm too.

[OliverUwira]

hmmm.... i am interested too what you making different for the huge strength up, or you can tell us here in the forum what you changed that is so strong.

He already did that here: http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 492#378492

ah, I almost forgot - it scores around 60% against Critter 0.80

Wow, congrats, only with these changes?

Code: Select all

- decreased some bonuses related to pawn structure
- revised "bad trade" evaluation - now it is more willing to go into exchange sacrifices
- LMR in pv nodes 

Miguel

Of course not These were only the biggest contributors to the strength increase. Besides these I touched almost every aspect of the engine - there are some speed optimizations, tightened up pruning margins, tweaked static eval, even the opening book was updated. Most of the changes alone are barely measurable, unless playing a huge number of games, but they add up.

Richard

at this time i am demotivated because some people are thinking they can copy from like stockfish or ivanhoe, and change only the name and the outputs of nps or something, and claim they doing write this engine self.

I don't know Critter well, but as far as I recall it has a history and has improved quite regularly. I don't think the above description applies here.

As for learning from published source code, where's the harm in that? I think a lot of engine programmers have also learned a lot from the Programming and Technical Discussions forum. You would not suggest we close that subforum, would you?

Copy/Paste and subsequent violation of the GPL is another cup of tea. But the paranoia around here that every strength increase must be because of verbatim copying instead of say, good coding and algorithmic skill, is very annoying.

Instead, the default stance should be: This strength increase is the result of work well done.

i meaning like Houdini is, these engine come for the first time with an elo over 3200 elo, for a beginner is that very high and strange or ?

Houdini did not appear as the work of a beginner. R. Houdart said that he had written a couple of private engines before and provided the closed source of one of them to somebody who asked for it (on open-chess.org, I believe). He is also quite a strong chess player and a professional developer (now please don't tell me that all of the above must have been lies).

I find it reasonable that this mix, along with the new techniques like material imbalance and statistical pruning, can result in a world class engine like Houdini.

Now, where did those new techniques come from? From a disassembled Rybka? Well, does this now mean that nobody is allowed to use them? Do you use them in Tornado?

The whole issue is getting almost as overheated as the eternal battle between vi and emacs users

[Engin]

i grow up step by step with around +50 and +80 elos every version, sometimes nothing improvements, but this take many years for me and not in a very short time, that is a little strange for me that i am telling here.

[Engin]

i dont mean improvements from 0.90 to the 0.80 only, meaning from start to now, what time this needed ?

[OliverUwira]

i grow up step by step with around +50 and +80 elos every version, sometimes nothing improvements, but this take many years for me and not in a very short time, that is a little strange for me that i am telling here.

At least for Critter, it also leaped up with steps like that.

And let's be honest, we don't know how strong Houdini 0.3 or 0.5 have been, since the first public version happened to be 1.0. Maybe its author only wanted to release it after becoming competetive. I believe it's always worth to consider alternative explanations.