Dragon by Komodo Chess

[lkaufman]

In anycase, do you think you ll propose knight handicap at 1+1 to Penguin ? He is slighty below Hikaru at bullet.

This afternoon about 4 pm eastern standard time I'm planning to have Dragon play four games against my son IM Raymond Kaufman ("Mimsychess") on chess.com at knight odds at the same time limit as the Hikaru match, to test everything out. With that experience and then the Hikaru match we'll have a better idea of what is reasonable. I see no reason we can't propose a bullet match with Penguin after this; I don't know him but I can send him a message.

[Mars]

(snip) With that experience and then the Hikaru match we'll have a better idea of what is reasonable. I see no reason we can't propose a bullet match with Penguin after this; I don't know him but I can send him a message.

He seems to be a nice young guy, saw him recently on chess.com playing many bullet games against Farujia from Iran. Probably easier to convince him to play such a match first.

Although the following enounter over 117 games between him and Hikaru is already some time ago

I believe the latter is still 200-300 bullet points stronger than Tang (penguin).

[Nordlandia]

Slightly deviate from the current discussion. Just asking whether dynamic contemt can be made adjustable as an parameter. Default contemt is static and both effect each other both ways.

[Nordlandia]

This is how it currently look like in latest Cfish.

[Cornfed]

Question about the NNUE training. Does Komodo....err, Dragon, train on standard (not simple to calculate) endings?
If I could post a diagram I would (just don't know how to) but basically this...and asking because I won an ending like this today.

White (me) is a pawn up in a rook and pawn ending.
I foresee a way to get an outside passer on the queenside (f file).
White/Blacks kingside pawns are mirrors on h3/g2/f2 vs h6j/g7/f7

I know the stronger side will not want to let Black get in h5, so I play g4 and a few moves later the queenside pawns clarify to a c3 pawn and my rook on c5 with his on b3.

Question, would it pay to train 'standard winning attempts' via the NNUE....seems like there are a number of positions in early/mid-endgames where a search would find those positions and steer the engine toward the win which might be hard to find by mere calculation.

[lkaufman]

Question about the NNUE training. Does Komodo....err, Dragon, train on standard (not simple to calculate) endings?
If I could post a diagram I would (just don't know how to) but basically this...and asking because I won an ending like this today.

White (me) is a pawn up in a rook and pawn ending.
I foresee a way to get an outside passer on the queenside (f file).
White/Blacks kingside pawns are mirrors on h3/g2/f2 vs h6j/g7/f7

I know the stronger side will not want to let Black get in h5, so I play g4 and a few moves later the queenside pawns clarify to a c3 pawn and my rook on c5 with his on b3.

Question, would it pay to train 'standard winning attempts' via the NNUE....seems like there are a number of positions in early/mid-endgames where a search would find those positions and steer the engine toward the win which might be hard to find by mere calculation.

Well, it trains on games. I suppose one could have Komodo (or Dragon) play out thousands of games from specified endgame positions and then train on those games, but coming up with a suitable collection of endgame positions is a lot of work unless one already exists (?).

[JohnW]

Just wanted to say that I am really impressed how well Dragon has been playing against other engines I have installed on my PC. I really feel like I got my moneys worth in this purchase. Great job!

[bastiball]

How much the contempt affect Dragon? or it doesn't affect at all?

[cc2150dx]

How much the contempt affect Dragon? or it doesn't affect at all?

From Dragon readme file:

"A positive Contempt is used by the computer’s evaluation to discourage (or encourage if negative) piece trades, blocked pawn structures, and repetition draws early in the game."

"The default value 8 should help against weaker opponents. Against near-equal opponents e.g. (Stockfish 12/dev or Lc0) set Contempt to 0 for best results."

P.S. The second quote has been slightly modified.

[bastiball]

How much the contempt affect Dragon? or it doesn't affect at all?

From Dragon readme file:

"A positive Contempt is used by the computer’s evaluation to discourage (or encourage if negative) piece trades, blocked pawn structures, and repetition draws early in the game."

"The default value 8 should help against weaker opponents. Against near-equal opponents e.g. (Stockfish 12/dev or Lc0) set Contempt to 0 for best results."

P.S. The second quote has been slightly modified.

Thanks for the info, appreciate it