SlowChess Blitz Classic 2.0

Discussion of anything and everything relating to chess playing software and machines.

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Carlos777
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Joined: Sun Dec 13, 2009 6:09 pm

Re: SlowChess Blitz Classic 2.0

Post by Carlos777 »

Unfortunately, it does not work either. :(
jonkr wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 8:26 pm I updated the download for 2.5 here.
https://www.3dkingdoms.com/chess/slow.htm

The exes should be almost exactly the same, and strength was the same in my overnight test. (Actually was a bit better, but nps bit slower, assume both were random noise.)

I don't have any older computers to test on, but if 2.4 worked for you, then hopefully the "slow64-sse" should now work fine.

(I also fixed an unrelated check evade move ordering bug where it sometimes accessed a static array slightly out of bounds, which was confusing to track down because the initial issue I noticed was sometimes commenting out completely unused code would change node count.)
jonkr
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Full name: Jonathan Kreuzer

Re: SlowChess Blitz Classic 2.0

Post by jonkr »

Carlos777 wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 10:44 pm Unfortunately, it does not work either. :(
I've just now updated the zip file download again (slow64-sse.exe should be a newer modified time).
I found the max 32-bit instruction is SSE4 also, while max 16-bit is SSE2. So it seems likely this is the remaining issue, but if it still doesn't work I'll probably have to wait and see if I can find a way to test on an older machine.
jonkr
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Full name: Jonathan Kreuzer

Re: SlowChess Blitz Classic 2.0

Post by jonkr »

Frank Quisinsky wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 10:16 pm I added your v2.5 in my still running FCP Tourney-2021 and changed to v2.5 from today after round 4 out of 50.

Now after 160 games place 3 / 41 with 116 / 160 points, 1.5 points more as Ethereal.
Seems to be the same strength as Ethereal, but I haven't enough games.
Thanks for updating it, glad to see Slow 2.5 in 3rd place so far. It does beat Ethereal 12.75 on my own computer in 2-moves book, 15s+.15 2000 game matches (by various small amounts of elo.) But never sure if those results that will generalize, especially with neural nets. I assume will be some mixed results depending on list and conditions.
Carlos777
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Joined: Sun Dec 13, 2009 6:09 pm

Re: SlowChess Blitz Classic 2.0

Post by Carlos777 »

This one works! Thank you Jonathan.
jonkr wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:56 pm I've just now updated the zip file download again (slow64-sse.exe should be a newer modified time).
I found the max 32-bit instruction is SSE4 also, while max 16-bit is SSE2. So it seems likely this is the remaining issue, but if it still doesn't work I'll probably have to wait and see if I can find a way to test on an older machine.
jonkr
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Joined: Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:36 am
Full name: Jonathan Kreuzer

Re: SlowChess Blitz Classic 2.6

Post by jonkr »

At long last I've managed to put together another real release.

You can download Slow Chess 2.6 from
https://www.3dkingdoms.com/chess/slow.htm

It scores +60 elo to 2.5 in bullet self-play games. (2-moves book, 8-moves book, herz book)
The main feature is a new network structure detailed in this forum thread, which combined with consistently running more training games overnight when my computer is free has resulted in a good increase in strength.

While I was pretty excited to see clear improvement, I still have a long Todo list. I'm hoping to eventually release at least a couple more version before calling it good. Some of the weaknesses I noticed
  • It is becoming very slow with the larger evaluation. I just measure Elo so this is fine by me, but I think on some other computers especially older ones the current structure probably isn't the best. (I may never get around to trying to sort this out, but maybe can make some general optimization and try testing on an older computer.)
  • FRC is still very bad compared to standard. I think this structure will be better for FRC, but I will need to start training FRC at some point and make sure it doesn't hurt standard.
  • The own book just doesn't cut it at this level. I tried running more book gen, but my book gen doesn't remove losing lines, and there are a lot of the lines are left from around the 2800 elo range where a greater variety is playable.
  • The net still doesn't seem big enough to detect things like totally trapped pieces. I was surprised how often I saw this in losing games against the strongest opponents like SF11.
  • I've stubbornly never even looked at NNUE except getting a general sense of it during the initial hype, so again the only net compatible with 2.6 is the one that ships with it. I'm not sure if I will add support, given the progress of NNUE engines especially stockfish, I can only assume using the nnue-ecosystem would quickly improve over my current efforts. Then I'd be left with the dilemma of whether or not to do the experiments that seem interesting to me (it's nice not to be too strong... there's a much higher chance of clear success trying something new. To be clear I think SF has at this point changed or replaced most of the original NNUE from what I read? But I'm unlikely to improve current best on my own.)
Despite these caveats, Slow's general positional board sense looks clearly improved to me and the +60 self-play suggests that the improvement is real.
connor_mcmonigle
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Re: SlowChess Blitz Classic 2.6

Post by connor_mcmonigle »

jonkr wrote: Sun Jun 20, 2021 7:34 pm At long last I've managed to put together another real release.

You can download Slow Chess 2.6 from
https://www.3dkingdoms.com/chess/slow.htm

It scores +60 elo to 2.5 in bullet self-play games. (2-moves book, 8-moves book, herz book)
The main feature is a new network structure detailed in this forum thread, which combined with consistently running more training games overnight when my computer is free has resulted in a good increase in strength.

While I was pretty excited to see clear improvement, I still have a long Todo list. I'm hoping to eventually release at least a couple more version before calling it good. Some of the weaknesses I noticed
  • It is becoming very slow with the larger evaluation. I just measure Elo so this is fine by me, but I think on some other computers especially older ones the current structure probably isn't the best. (I may never get around to trying to sort this out, but maybe can make some general optimization and try testing on an older computer.)
  • FRC is still very bad compared to standard. I think this structure will be better for FRC, but I will need to start training FRC at some point and make sure it doesn't hurt standard.
  • The own book just doesn't cut it at this level. I tried running more book gen, but my book gen doesn't remove losing lines, and there are a lot of the lines are left from around the 2800 elo range where a greater variety is playable.
  • The net still doesn't seem big enough to detect things like totally trapped pieces. I was surprised how often I saw this in losing games against the strongest opponents like SF11.
  • I've stubbornly never even looked at NNUE except getting a general sense of it during the initial hype, so again the only net compatible with 2.6 is the one that ships with it. I'm not sure if I will add support, given the progress of NNUE engines especially stockfish, I can only assume using the nnue-ecosystem would quickly improve over my current efforts. Then I'd be left with the dilemma of whether or not to do the experiments that seem interesting to me (it's nice not to be too strong... there's a much higher chance of clear success trying something new. To be clear I think SF has at this point changed or replaced most of the original NNUE from what I read? But I'm unlikely to improve current best on my own.)
Despite these caveats, Slow's general positional board sense looks clearly improved to me and the +60 self-play suggests that the improvement is real.
Very impressive progress!
... it's nice not to be too strong... there's a much higher chance of clear success trying something new.
+1
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Thomas Lagershausen
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Re: SlowChess Blitz Classic 2.0

Post by Thomas Lagershausen »

Very strong in the testpositions of my own games.

Cant wait to see SlowChess 2.7. :P

Big thx that you still support older computer. :!:
TL
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Rebel
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Re: SlowChess Blitz Classic 2.0

Post by Rebel »

Have it running for the GRL 40/2 - 600 games.

http://rebel13.nl/a/grl.htm

Page automatically refreshes each 30 seconds.
90% of coding is debugging, the other 10% is writing bugs.
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Thomas Lagershausen
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Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:59 pm

Re: SlowChess Blitz Classic 2.0

Post by Thomas Lagershausen »

You spoke about trapped pieces.

Even Magnus Carlsen got trapped his queen in 2017.

[d]r1br2k1/1p1nqppp/p1p1pn2/3p4/1bPP4/PPN1PN2/2BB1PPP/R2Q1RK1 b - - 0 11

SlowChess 2.6:
34/52- 33:17 1.960.316.480 981.355 -0,70 Lb4xa3 Ta1xa3
34/52+ 35:50 2.101.038.581 977.118 -0,69 Lb4xc3
34/52+ 58:20 3.308.620.818 945.258 -0,69 Lb4-d6
34/52 59:04 3.350.497.257 945.189 -0,56 Lb4-d6 e3-e4 d5xe4 Sc3xe4 Sf6xe4 Lc2xe4 Sd7-f6 Dd1-c2 Sf6xe4 Dc2xe4 Ld6-c7 Ld2-f4 Lc7xf4 De4xf4 b7-b6 Tf1-d1 f7-f6 b3-b4 a6-a5 h2-h3 Lc8-a6 c4-c5 Ta8-b8 c5xb6 Tb8xb6 b4xa5 Tb6-b5 Df4-d2 Td8-d5 Td1-e1 Tb5xa5 Dd2-c3 La6-b7 a3-a4 Ta5-a8 a4-a5 c6-c5 Ta1-c1


[pgn][Event "5th Norway Chess 2017"]
[Site "Stavanger NOR"]
[Date "2017.06.10"]
[Round "4.2"]
[White "Aronian, Levon"]
[Black "Carlsen, Magnus"]
[Result "1-0"]
[BlackElo "2832"]
[ECO "D45"]
[Opening "Damengambit (Halbslawisch)"]
[Variation "Accelerated Meran (Aljechin Variante)"]
[WhiteElo "2793"]
[TimeControl "3600"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "69"]
[WhiteType "human"]
[BlackType "human"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 a6 6. b3 Bb4 7. Bd2 Nbd7 8.
Bd3 O-O 9. O-O Qe7 10. Bc2 Rd8 11. a3 Bxa3 12. Rxa3 Qxa3 13. c5 b6 14. b4
Ne4 15. Nxe4 dxe4 16. Bxe4 Rb8 17. Bxh7+ Kxh7 18. Ng5+ Kg8 19. Qh5 Nf6 20.
Qxf7+ Kh8 21. Qc7 Bd7 22. Nf7+ Kh7 23. Nxd8 Rc8 24. Qxb6 Nd5 25. Qa7 Rxd8
26. e4 Qd3 27. exd5 Qxd2 28. Qc7 Qg5 29. dxc6 Bc8 30. h3 Qd5 31. Rd1 e5 32.
Rd3 exd4 33. Qe7 Bf5 34. Rg3 Bg6 35. Qh4+ 1-0
[/pgn]
TL
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Rebel
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Re: SlowChess Blitz Classic 2.0

Post by Rebel »

Code: Select all

Gambit Rating List
Running      : Gauntlet Slowchess 2.6
Time Control : 40 moves in 2 minutes repeating
Games        : 600

Results from file gauntlet-slowchess.pgn:

No. Name             Win Draw Loss Unf.  Score Games       %
------------------------------------------------------------
  1 SlowChess 2.6   +143 =282 -175   *0  284.0   600   47.3%
  2 sf13             +63  =35   -2   *0   80.5   100   80.5%
  3 Komodo-Dragon 2  +43  =50   -7   *0   68.0   100   68.0%
  4 RubiChess 2.1    +16  =57  -27   *0   44.5   100   44.5%
  5 Ethereal 12.75   +16  =53  -31   *0   42.5   100   42.5%
  6 Igel 3.0.5       +19  =44  -37   *0   41.0   100   41.0%
  7 Pedone 3.1       +18  =43  -39   *0   39.5   100   39.5%

Total Games:     600
White Wins:      142 (23.7%)
Black Wins:      176 (29.3%)
Draws:           282 (47.0%)
Unfinished:        0 (0.0%)

Estimated elo gain for SlowChess 2.6 
Elo pool      : 3450
SlowChess 2.5 : 3361.0
SlowChess 2.6 : 3428.5
Progress      : 67.5
Progress +67 elo.
90% of coding is debugging, the other 10% is writing bugs.