I'm disappointed with Stockfish dev.

[Uri Blass]

The most common variant/clone of Stockfish that I've heard of is Crystal, which is Stockfish but designed to be better at solving fortresses, difficult tactical problems, and generally the type of anti-engine problems that people are always trying to fool top engines with. And it is undoubtedly better in that regard.

However, when it comes to actual playing strength, Crystal is weaker, because it prunes less and considers moves that 99.99% of the time are an absolute waste of nodes, and thus doesn't search as deep. Stockfish isn't built for the edge cases, it's built to be the best at the middle of the road normal positions, the ones that come up in our games that we analyze and the games that it plays against top engines.

Engines think Black is better in this position even though in reality White wins easily.

[fen]rrrrkrrr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BBBQKBBB b kq - 0 1[/fen]


Does that mean that bishops are worth more than rooks? Of course not! Some positions are simply the exceptions to the rule, but catering to them would make the engine handle the rule worse. It's a bit of a dilemma, and I personally think Stockfish does the best it can.

Many engines including stockfish evaluate white as better.

[syzygy]

Does that mean that bishops are worth more than rooks? Of course not! Some positions are simply the exceptions to the rule, but catering to them would make the engine handle the rule worse. It's a bit of a dilemma, and I personally think Stockfish does the best it can.

I agree with what you write, but I wonder if it is the position that is an exception to the rule, or if the rule simply does not apply to these numbers of bishops and rooks. For example, according to HGM (I believe) 7 knights easily beat 3 queens (even though 7*3 < 3*9)

Of course this only proves your point. Realistically such positions will never occur.

[syzygy]

...
It is possible that their way cause stockfish to improve faster relative to the alternative and I do not know if it is the case or not but the fact that stockfish is leading does not prove that their way cause stockfish to improve faster and it is possible that the only reason that stockfish is number 1 is the fact that they use more computer time relative to other people.

I can add that from my point of view understanding is more important and interesting than fast improvement.
It is better to get only 5 elo improvement and understand why you get the improvement and not to get 6 elo improvement without understanding why.

I prefer to see programmers not only of stockfish give positions that the engine does better relative to previous version when they release a new engine and not let users to try to play games and find out in what type of positions the engine play better moves.

Uri, as i understand not for all SF developers Stockfish project is to build free available strongest chess engine.
Some of them its a platform show off programming skills, for some to be in first place in some list etc.
After all SF devs also are humans.
Deal with that, that makes your life easier.

But Uri is not asking for the strongest chess engine. He is asking for the SF team to adopt practices that are certain to slow down Elo progress.

[syzygy]

As experiment take off two black pawns ...

OK, so I guess it is the position here more than a wrongly evaluated material imbalance.

[Whiskers]

As experiment take off two black pawns ...

OK, so I guess it is the position here more than a wrongly evaluated material imbalance.

Yeah probably. I didn't think my example through enough

[syzygy]

As experiment take off two black pawns ...

OK, so I guess it is the position here more than a wrongly evaluated material imbalance.

Yeah probably. I didn't think my example through enough

Let's take this position:
[d]q2qk2q/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/NNNNKNNN w - - 0 1

[CornfedForever]

...
It is possible that their way cause stockfish to improve faster relative to the alternative and I do not know if it is the case or not but the fact that stockfish is leading does not prove that their way cause stockfish to improve faster and it is possible that the only reason that stockfish is number 1 is the fact that they use more computer time relative to other people.

I can add that from my point of view understanding is more important and interesting than fast improvement.
It is better to get only 5 elo improvement and understand why you get the improvement and not to get 6 elo improvement without understanding why.

I prefer to see programmers not only of stockfish give positions that the engine does better relative to previous version when they release a new engine and not let users to try to play games and find out in what type of positions the engine play better moves.

Uri, as i understand not for all SF developers Stockfish project is to build free available strongest chess engine.
Some of them its a platform show off programming skills, for some to be in first place in some list etc.
After all SF devs also are humans.
Deal with that, that makes your life easier.

But Uri is not asking for the strongest chess engine. He is asking for the SF team to adopt practices that are certain to slow down Elo progress.

I don't think that is much of an argument these days. It opens wide the counter-argument that since Elo gain has slowed to such an extent post-NNUE, other options should be given some serious consideration.

[syzygy]

But Uri is not asking for the strongest chess engine. He is asking for the SF team to adopt practices that are certain to slow down Elo progress.

I don't think that is much of an argument these days. It opens wide the counter-argument that since Elo gain has slowed to such an extent post-NNUE, other options should be given some serious consideration.

Well, if the point is that some patches have harmed SF, then you or Uri can submit patches to fishtest that revert dubious changes.

[Lazy_Frank]

But Uri is not asking for the strongest chess engine. He is asking for the SF team to adopt practices that are certain to slow down Elo progress.

I don't think that is much of an argument these days. It opens wide the counter-argument that since Elo gain has slowed to such an extent post-NNUE, other options should be given some serious consideration.

Well, if the point is that some patches have harmed SF, then you or Uri can submit patches to fishtest that revert dubious changes.

Well ... and what to do if with current fishtest methodology can't pass patch that gives better game play? (first that comes to mind is fortress detection for example)?

[Lazy_Frank]

SuFi 23 game 14 - missed win

[fen]2b2r2/p2p1k2/2p1p2q/3rR3/3P4/6N1/P1Q2PP1/1R4K1 w - - 1 29[/fen]

SuFi 23 game 68 - borderline win/draw

[fen]r1bqk2r/4bp2/p2p1npp/1ppPp3/4P1PP/2B2PN1/PPP1B2Q/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 16[/fen]

Imagine SF tied SuFi 23 ... These two games will be put under microscope.