Komodo Dragon 2.6 released

[Chessqueen]

I have observed at ICC (thanks for letting me running it there) that players play alot faster against Dragon than they normaly do, in classical game (90 + 30) they could have 90 min. left when the game is finnish. This is also true for 15+10 games an in a less extend for 5+3 games.
I was thinking of creating an (easy move) engine to only add some timedeley with a configuration like: fast, normal, slow and letting the timedelay be depended on ho easy the move is ex. with only one possible recapture it should still do it fast. This easymove engine could sit between Dragon and the gui (like InBetween). I personally like an engine to move fast, not so fast as Dragon do, but more like a fast human.
If you could add something like this into Dragon in LimitedStrength mode It would even be better.

Did you keep track of the percentage of wins and losses playing Komodo Dragon 2.6 versus humans at ICC using different UCI Elo Settings? Was it about 55% to 45% in favor of Komodo Dragon 2.6 or the other way around ?

[Graham Banks]

Thanks, Mark and Larry.

Looking forward to testing it.

[criko]

so far I get about +18 elo

Code: Select all

    Program              Elo    +    -   Games   Score   Av.Op.  Draws

   1 Zeus 21.0          : 3792    6    6  9000    73.5 %   3564   51.0 %
   2 Stockfish 14.1     : 3780    6    6  8768    72.7 %   3560   52.8 %
   3 SugaR AI 2.50      : 3779    7    7  6268    65.2 %   3658   66.4 %
   4 BrainLearn 15.1    : 3762    6    6  8768    70.8 %   3561   54.8 %
   5 ShashChess 20.1    : 3754    6    6  8767    69.9 %   3561   55.2 %
   6 Dragon 2.6         : 3743   11   11  1839    46.1 %   3770   85.3 %
   7 Stockfish 13       : 3734    6    6  8768    67.7 %   3563   55.2 %
   8 Dragon 2.5.1       : 3725    6    6  8500    67.2 %   3557   52.6 %
   9 Fire 8.NN.MC.3     : 3610    6    6  8000    55.4 %   3551   54.3 %
  10 Revenge 2.0        : 3571    6    6  8000    48.3 %   3572   49.1 %
  11 Slow Chess 2.8     : 3570    6    6  8500    49.0 %   3567   51.5 %
  12 Berserk 8 NN       : 3565    6    6  8500    48.5 %   3567   49.2 %
  13 Koivisto 7.9       : 3563    5    5  8500    48.2 %   3567   49.9 %
  14 Ethereal 13.25     : 3555    6    6  8500    47.2 %   3567   48.1 %
  15 Revenge 1.0        : 3483    6    6  8000    39.1 %   3572   41.2 %
  16 Wasp 5.00          : 3285    8    8  8000    21.0 %   3571   27.4 %
  17 Fritz 18           : 3280    8    8  8000    20.6 %   3571   25.3 %
  18 Chiron 5           : 3226    8    8  8000    16.4 %   3575   21.1 %
  19 Critter v1.6a      : 3165    8    8  8000    12.3 %   3579   16.9 %

[Odd Gunnar Malin]

Did you keep track of the percentage of wins and losses playing Komodo Dragon 2.6 versus humans at ICC using different UCI Elo Settings? Was it about 55% to 45% in favor of Komodo Dragon 2.6 or the other way around ?

Just started using Dragon 2.6 today. Have been running earlier version on skill 16 default and human personality. I have all the games but haven't had time to look at them and sort them out in different timecontrol etc. If anybody want to play against it I put a fingernote in it so you can see which level and personality that are running at the moment. I don't know if games from ICC are accessible from Web but you can see the stat here: https://app.chessclub.com/Profile/PolarChess

[cc2150dx]

Mark, did you happen to receive any of my emails over the last month?

Thanks

[carldaman]

I do not recall if I have seen anyone ask this before, but can you kind of indicate how you arrive at the engine playing at a general UCI elo (Skill Levels)?

I mean...how does the engine get to those - is it set to make say 4 positionally dubious moves when the rating is set to 2400 and 5 when set to 2200...or are there random tactical mistakes thrown in...or some combination or does it randomly pick 3 or 4 moves a game and opt for the 4th or 5th 'best' pv as long as the difference is not too far out of some set tolerance?

One other thought (and it may not even apply to Dragon) is when playing in one of these lesser modes, does the engine throw out it's move after day a 5-10 sec think? I ask because it is always disconcerting when one is trying to play a G/30 and you move only to have the engine move instantly...kind of detracts from the whole experience if you know what I mean.

In the past we used a combination of search depth limitation and applying some randomness to the eval to get to playing levels to match a needed elo. We do something a little better now (an idea from Larry) which I do not want to reveal until someone figures it out. But anyway, the depth change is kind of the big knob, and the randomness the smaller tuning know. Since Komodo is one of the engines on chess.com we have looked at hsitroical results of our old Skill levels to help tune these things.

As for the "instant moving", if enough people want a time delay added, I can do that. The bots on chess.com do add in a little time for this reason, so if we change Dragon, we would need to get that server side feature removed. But adding a delay does complicate things a little. Anyway, opinions? We could do something like take 1/3 the allocated time or something, so it does not slow down games too much.

Mark

The lack of a time delay, aka moving instantly, can be very disconcerting and seriously takes away from the experience. It's been an age-old gripe, and it would be nice to finally see someone deal with it.

[Chessqueen]

Komodo Dragon 2.6 Released

KomodoChess has released Dragon 2.6 at komodochess.com. It is a significant upgrade from Dragon 2.5.1 (or 2.5). Estimated elo gains from 2.5.1 on one thread in blitz (2' + 1") using a normal opening book in standard mode are 18 elo (based on 20,000 direct games), in Monte Carlo mode 24 elo, and in standard mode playing Fischerandom (chess960) 26 elo (based on about 5500 direct games in those cases). Elo gains for similar tests against Dragon 2 showed +83 Elo for a normal opening book in standard mode, +113 elo in MCTS mode, and a remarkable +126 elo in FRC (standard mode). Compared to the final Komodo version before NNUE (Dragon), Komodo 14.1, the gains in direct matches were 300 elo in standard chess and 351 elo in FRC. Note that all gains in standard chess will be significantly larger with unbalanced opening books, but with normal books should be smaller with longer time controls or more threads. The elo gains from 2.5.1 are due to newer nets, small speedups, and some search improvements.
One new feature added this time is UCI Elo, which replaces the Skill levels. To activate it set UCI LimitStrength to true. There is no real difference between setting Elo to 1800 or setting Skill to 18 in older versions (for example), but the advantage is that you can use intermediate values like 1725 Elo for example. The strength of the Elo levels is not much different than the previous Skill levels except in or near the grandmaster range where they are stricter now. The intent is that the Elo ratings should be about fair against humans with similar FIDE ratings at Rapid (15' + 10") time control, although Dragon will move instantly with any Elo set in the human range. Elo levels should be used with just one thread; using more raises the strength by varying amounts, but there is no reason to do this. We would appreciate any feedback on the accuracy of the Elo levels in human terms.
As usual Dragon 2.6 is free for subscribers, is priced the same as 2.5, and is eligible for a 20% discount if you bought Komodo 14 or any later version.

Does the Komodo Dragon 2.6 engine for Android offer UCI Elo Settings ? Do you also offer a version that works with Iphone ?

[BrendanJNorman]

I do not recall if I have seen anyone ask this before, but can you kind of indicate how you arrive at the engine playing at a general UCI elo (Skill Levels)?

I mean...how does the engine get to those - is it set to make say 4 positionally dubious moves when the rating is set to 2400 and 5 when set to 2200...or are there random tactical mistakes thrown in...or some combination or does it randomly pick 3 or 4 moves a game and opt for the 4th or 5th 'best' pv as long as the difference is not too far out of some set tolerance?

One other thought (and it may not even apply to Dragon) is when playing in one of these lesser modes, does the engine throw out it's move after day a 5-10 sec think? I ask because it is always disconcerting when one is trying to play a G/30 and you move only to have the engine move instantly...kind of detracts from the whole experience if you know what I mean.

In the past we used a combination of search depth limitation and applying some randomness to the eval to get to playing levels to match a needed elo. We do something a little better now (an idea from Larry) which I do not want to reveal until someone figures it out. But anyway, the depth change is kind of the big knob, and the randomness the smaller tuning know. Since Komodo is one of the engines on chess.com we have looked at hsitroical results of our old Skill levels to help tune these things.

As for the "instant moving", if enough people want a time delay added, I can do that. The bots on chess.com do add in a little time for this reason, so if we change Dragon, we would need to get that server side feature removed. But adding a delay does complicate things a little. Anyway, opinions? We could do something like take 1/3 the allocated time or something, so it does not slow down games too much.

Mark

The lack of a time delay, aka moving instantly, can be very disconcerting and seriously takes away from the experience. It's been an age-old gripe, and it would be nice to finally see someone deal with it.

+1

Won't upgrade until time usage on lower levels is at least realistic for training games.

[Damir]

Dragon 2.5.1 has CPU bug in where it shows that only 64-65% of CPU processing power is beeing used. Even though I have set Dragon 2.5.1 to 126 Threads from 128 Threads on my machine, only 64-65% of CPU is beeing used.. I don't know if this still is issue with Dragon 2.6.

[Damir]

If one hit Ctrl+Alt+Del at once and than check processing power one will notice that Dragon is only using 64-65% of CPU..