Correspondence ICCF Champion Vs Top Engine ?

[Raphexon]

In fact, we beat more often humans blunders ( moves inversed or forgotten etc ) than engines in CC today !
@ MonteCarlo
A Book is now integrated in SF NNUE and so, you cannot play wihout book i guess ?
No TB can be indeed an advantage but engines had also many endings integrated before and i don't know if they removed them now ?
Regards
Jacques

There's no book in SF.

[Chessqueen]

In fact, we beat more often humans blunders ( moves inversed or forgotten etc ) than engines in CC today !
@ MonteCarlo
A Book is now integrated in SF NNUE and so, you cannot play wihout book i guess ?
No TB can be indeed an advantage but engines had also many endings integrated before and i don't know if they removed them now ?
Regards
Jacques

There's no book in SF.

Since when a Book is integrated in Stockfish13 NNUE ?

[jr66]

However, we speak here about engines wihout Book and, as i underlined above, such engine tend to play Always 1.e4 e6 ( perhaps disable NNUE for a little test )
Seem engines have now a little Book integrated with some moves of Berlin, Italian, Sicilian, QGD etc
Not enormous but enough for start in a solide way !!!

You are totally misinformed. Please go and check CerebellumMerged. You'll be surprised that it's actually stronger than a book one can make from high level ICCF games. And there you can see the clear preference for both SF-NNUE and Lc0 is Spanish.

[jr66]

A last note : you are off course right about Spanish preference for SF NNUE but i made a little test by disabling NNUE and i found again the French on mono PV!
Can you check for confirm please ?

Correct, SF classical still prefers French, simply because SF classical didn't change almost at all since NNUE was included. But NNUE is a huge improvement particularly on the opening. With SF classic one would probably need some small book to avoid some rare losses due to bad play in the opening. With SF NNUE that is not the case any more.

[jr66]

Anyway, if it is not a Book , it is now the basis of opening theory SF NNUE handle.
Same thing for endings because i never saw in an uptade some integrated fondamental endings removed ?
Just for say we cannot play against a really handicaped engine for openings or endings ?

[Cornfed]

but I suspect that beating "engine slaves" is just extraordinarily difficult these days, and maybe requires luck and sheer number of attempts more than anything else.

Reminds me a bit of a new self-driving automobile vs a human with 2 natural legs....it's apples and oranges really and you have to spot the human all sorts of advantages (or neuter the automobile) to even make it bearable to watch.

[jr66]

I don't understand !
Leto is ready to play and i can sacrify some little time for a game too ?
So, perhaps let's talk the facts and not the words !
If engines kill us easely, we will have the proof very great depth calculation give a strong advantage to the engine alone compared to ICCF player who have other things to do than waiting 24h passively for a move, no ?

[MonteCarlo]

The use of the phrase "kill us" makes me think I've missed something.

I didn't think anybody was claiming that unassisted engines would win against a strong ICCF player (human+engine centaur), which is what the "kill us" suggests to me.

I thought the claim was that unlike the before-times, unassisted top engines can't be regularly beaten by strong centaurs at correspondence.

Cheers!

[Cornfed]

The only really important thought is that a human...say with a 2000 elo (probably less come to think of it, maybe a lot less) can take engines and 'be' a really highly rated "correspondence" player. It has bastardized the game to the point that 'human'(unassisted) vs engine 'unassisted' is really irrelevant.

[Leto]

The only really important thought is that a human...say with a 2000 elo (probably less come to think of it, maybe a lot less) can take engines and 'be' a really highly rated "correspondence" player. It has bastardized the game to the point that 'human'(unassisted) vs engine 'unassisted' is really irrelevant.

It's not that simple. ICCF tournaments typically have over 10 matches each. Unless you have a large room full of computers each one focused on each match you're going to have to figure out how much computer time to assign to each match, assuming you're going to go with the unassisted engine strategy. Requires a lot of patience as well, each tournament can last a couple years. This rating period (March 1 to May 31) I completed 17 games and only gained 16 elo.