Super Tournament XXXVII

[lkaufman]

I have no inclination or desire to start, or to be involved with, a new rating list.

If/when I stop my CCRL testing, I'll happily continue to run my Amateur Series tournaments for those still interested, although probably with an incremental time control.

I run engine v engine testing because I enjoy it - the tournaments in particular.
I like watching some of the games, which is why bullet or blitz hold no interest for me whatsoever.

No one was suggesting blitz games to replace Rapid. My suggestion was to retain the current pace of your 40/15 games for the first 60 moves or so, then use increment to speed up the long endgames (which are usually drawn) a bit, especially if the adjudication rules are tightened. Maybe it wouldn't even need a new list, perhaps the change would be deemed minor enough to combine them. I would think that would make them more enjoyable to watch with no loss in average quality.

Do you think that 30 minutes with 10 second increments would be on a par with 40/15 games, which on average take 50 minutes to complete (if using 40/16)?
On my 5950x, I use 40/11 repeating, with the average games taking around 35 minutes, so I'm guessing that would be about 20 minutes with 7 second increments?

I could also drop the draw adjudication from 10 consecutive moves past move 60 with less than 80, to less than 30.

I do draw the line at using what I perceive to be unfair opening lines though.

I think you meant to say 15 minutes (per player) plus 10 second increment would be equal to 40/16, since 15 min plus 10 sec games would take fifty minutes for sixty moves with all time used. For your machine, you mean to say 10 minutes per player plus 7 seconds, which would take 34 minutes for sixty moves with all time used. Probably without adjudication (or with minimal adjudication) the average would be somewhat more than sixty moves, so I would recommend 12 minutes plus 8 seconds on your 5950x as the most equivalent to your current time control. I can assure you that the quality of play will in general be higher with 12 minutes plus 8 seconds, though of course it will be slightly lower when playing out very long endgames.

Adjudication at 30 cp is of course much better than at 80 cp, but as far as I know no one else uses adjudications at any double-digit centipawn value. I agree with Chris than zero would be best (with increment to make it practical), but any single-digit value is okay from my perspective.

Regarding "unfair" opening lines, I suppose you mean lines that are likely winning, or perhaps very close to winning, for one side (presumably White). I think that we all agree that winning lines should be excluded; it's just a question of where to draw the line for likely or nearly winning. I would specify a maximum White score, definitely below 75% since above that indicates a likely won position; 70% seems a good value to me. Setting it too low would mean almost all draws when the top engines meet.

[chrisw]

I have no inclination or desire to start, or to be involved with, a new rating list.

If/when I stop my CCRL testing, I'll happily continue to run my Amateur Series tournaments for those still interested, although probably with an incremental time control.

I run engine v engine testing because I enjoy it - the tournaments in particular.
I like watching some of the games, which is why bullet or blitz hold no interest for me whatsoever.

No one was suggesting blitz games to replace Rapid. My suggestion was to retain the current pace of your 40/15 games for the first 60 moves or so, then use increment to speed up the long endgames (which are usually drawn) a bit, especially if the adjudication rules are tightened. Maybe it wouldn't even need a new list, perhaps the change would be deemed minor enough to combine them. I would think that would make them more enjoyable to watch with no loss in average quality.

Do you think that 30 minutes with 10 second increments would be on a par with 40/15 games, which on average take 50 minutes to complete (if using 40/16)?
On my 5950x, I use 40/11 repeating, with the average games taking around 35 minutes, so I'm guessing that would be about 20 minutes with 7 second increments?

I could also drop the draw adjudication from 10 consecutive moves past move 60 with less than 80, to less than 30.

I do draw the line at using what I perceive to be unfair opening lines though.

I think you meant to say 15 minutes (per player) plus 10 second increment would be equal to 40/16, since 15 min plus 10 sec games would take fifty minutes for sixty moves with all time used. For your machine, you mean to say 10 minutes per player plus 7 seconds, which would take 34 minutes for sixty moves with all time used. Probably without adjudication (or with minimal adjudication) the average would be somewhat more than sixty moves, so I would recommend 12 minutes plus 8 seconds on your 5950x as the most equivalent to your current time control. I can assure you that the quality of play will in general be higher with 12 minutes plus 8 seconds, though of course it will be slightly lower when playing out very long endgames.

Adjudication at 30 cp is of course much better than at 80 cp, but as far as I know no one else uses adjudications at any double-digit centipawn value. I agree with Chris than zero would be best (with increment to make it practical), but any single-digit value is okay from my perspective.

Regarding "unfair" opening lines, I suppose you mean lines that are likely winning, or perhaps very close to winning, for one side (presumably White). I think that we all agree that winning lines should be excluded; it's just a question of where to draw the line for likely or nearly winning. I would specify a maximum White score, definitely below 75% since above that indicates a likely won position; 70% seems a good value to me. Setting it too low would mean almost all draws when the top engines meet.

It's very arguable that high book exit evals could just be left in. First they're actually quite rare, the book lines are extracted from the rating list games, and rating list games will naturally be culled for high eval lines as the years pass; so, not too many such lines anyway. If they're left in then at least that has the effect that some engines get wins against SF16, and this is a measure of their Elo strength, no? Also takes account of the massive lead that SF keeps showing - we need some games that SF loses, why not? As long as the test procedure is back to back, then I don't see any good reason to even cull high evals. Ie, it's not the high values that are important to cull, it's the low values.

[carldaman]

I have no inclination or desire to start, or to be involved with, a new rating list.

If/when I stop my CCRL testing, I'll happily continue to run my Amateur Series tournaments for those still interested, although probably with an incremental time control.

I run engine v engine testing because I enjoy it - the tournaments in particular.
I like watching some of the games, which is why bullet or blitz hold no interest for me whatsoever.

No one was suggesting blitz games to replace Rapid. My suggestion was to retain the current pace of your 40/15 games for the first 60 moves or so, then use increment to speed up the long endgames (which are usually drawn) a bit, especially if the adjudication rules are tightened. Maybe it wouldn't even need a new list, perhaps the change would be deemed minor enough to combine them. I would think that would make them more enjoyable to watch with no loss in average quality.

Do you think that 30 minutes with 10 second increments would be on a par with 40/15 games, which on average take 50 minutes to complete (if using 40/16)?
On my 5950x, I use 40/11 repeating, with the average games taking around 35 minutes, so I'm guessing that would be about 20 minutes with 7 second increments?

I could also drop the draw adjudication from 10 consecutive moves past move 60 with less than 80, to less than 30.

I do draw the line at using what I perceive to be unfair opening lines though.

I think you meant to say 15 minutes (per player) plus 10 second increment would be equal to 40/16, since 15 min plus 10 sec games would take fifty minutes for sixty moves with all time used. For your machine, you mean to say 10 minutes per player plus 7 seconds, which would take 34 minutes for sixty moves with all time used. Probably without adjudication (or with minimal adjudication) the average would be somewhat more than sixty moves, so I would recommend 12 minutes plus 8 seconds on your 5950x as the most equivalent to your current time control. I can assure you that the quality of play will in general be higher with 12 minutes plus 8 seconds, though of course it will be slightly lower when playing out very long endgames.

Adjudication at 30 cp is of course much better than at 80 cp, but as far as I know no one else uses adjudications at any double-digit centipawn value. I agree with Chris than zero would be best (with increment to make it practical), but any single-digit value is okay from my perspective.

Regarding "unfair" opening lines, I suppose you mean lines that are likely winning, or perhaps very close to winning, for one side (presumably White). I think that we all agree that winning lines should be excluded; it's just a question of where to draw the line for likely or nearly winning. I would specify a maximum White score, definitely below 75% since above that indicates a likely won position; 70% seems a good value to me. Setting it too low would mean almost all draws when the top engines meet.

I would argue that 70% is a bit low, since it would leave out a bunch of King's Indians and Benonis, which are too big a part of the common chess heritage. While White gets a sizable advantage in theory, I would not say they're automatic losses for Black, and nowhere near "grotesquely unbalanced lines", as Chris put it.

[lkaufman]

I have no inclination or desire to start, or to be involved with, a new rating list.

If/when I stop my CCRL testing, I'll happily continue to run my Amateur Series tournaments for those still interested, although probably with an incremental time control.

I run engine v engine testing because I enjoy it - the tournaments in particular.
I like watching some of the games, which is why bullet or blitz hold no interest for me whatsoever.

No one was suggesting blitz games to replace Rapid. My suggestion was to retain the current pace of your 40/15 games for the first 60 moves or so, then use increment to speed up the long endgames (which are usually drawn) a bit, especially if the adjudication rules are tightened. Maybe it wouldn't even need a new list, perhaps the change would be deemed minor enough to combine them. I would think that would make them more enjoyable to watch with no loss in average quality.

Do you think that 30 minutes with 10 second increments would be on a par with 40/15 games, which on average take 50 minutes to complete (if using 40/16)?
On my 5950x, I use 40/11 repeating, with the average games taking around 35 minutes, so I'm guessing that would be about 20 minutes with 7 second increments?

I could also drop the draw adjudication from 10 consecutive moves past move 60 with less than 80, to less than 30.

I do draw the line at using what I perceive to be unfair opening lines though.

I think you meant to say 15 minutes (per player) plus 10 second increment would be equal to 40/16, since 15 min plus 10 sec games would take fifty minutes for sixty moves with all time used. For your machine, you mean to say 10 minutes per player plus 7 seconds, which would take 34 minutes for sixty moves with all time used. Probably without adjudication (or with minimal adjudication) the average would be somewhat more than sixty moves, so I would recommend 12 minutes plus 8 seconds on your 5950x as the most equivalent to your current time control. I can assure you that the quality of play will in general be higher with 12 minutes plus 8 seconds, though of course it will be slightly lower when playing out very long endgames.

Adjudication at 30 cp is of course much better than at 80 cp, but as far as I know no one else uses adjudications at any double-digit centipawn value. I agree with Chris than zero would be best (with increment to make it practical), but any single-digit value is okay from my perspective.

Regarding "unfair" opening lines, I suppose you mean lines that are likely winning, or perhaps very close to winning, for one side (presumably White). I think that we all agree that winning lines should be excluded; it's just a question of where to draw the line for likely or nearly winning. I would specify a maximum White score, definitely below 75% since above that indicates a likely won position; 70% seems a good value to me. Setting it too low would mean almost all draws when the top engines meet.

I would argue that 70% is a bit low, since it would leave out a bunch of King's Indians and Benonis, which are too big a part of the common chess heritage. While White gets a sizable advantage in theory, I would not say they're automatic losses for Black, and nowhere near "grotesquely unbalanced lines", as Chris put it.

Checking the HIarcs database, which I believe is mostly strong engine games now, the mar del plata king's indian after 8...Ne7, presumably the main line, is only showing 55.5% for White. The main line Benoni with 8.h3 and 9.Bd3 shows 61.3% for White, still far below 70%. Of course you can find some minor sidelines that exceed 70%, but no need for such lines in a book, the lines actually played by grandmasters with any frequency are almost always below 70% score for White. Probably it would be best to use stats from a book such as Hiarcs book, which has 1.8+ million games and an average Elo showing over 2900. With samples and quality like this, no need to even consider engine evals, just set a maximum White score like 70% and a maximum total draw percentage, perhaps 55 to 60% (the draw % in the Hiarcs book is in the 68-69% range), and a minimum number of total games from the position, whatever value produces the desired number of total games.

[lkaufman]

I have no inclination or desire to start, or to be involved with, a new rating list.

If/when I stop my CCRL testing, I'll happily continue to run my Amateur Series tournaments for those still interested, although probably with an incremental time control.

I run engine v engine testing because I enjoy it - the tournaments in particular.
I like watching some of the games, which is why bullet or blitz hold no interest for me whatsoever.

No one was suggesting blitz games to replace Rapid. My suggestion was to retain the current pace of your 40/15 games for the first 60 moves or so, then use increment to speed up the long endgames (which are usually drawn) a bit, especially if the adjudication rules are tightened. Maybe it wouldn't even need a new list, perhaps the change would be deemed minor enough to combine them. I would think that would make them more enjoyable to watch with no loss in average quality.

Do you think that 30 minutes with 10 second increments would be on a par with 40/15 games, which on average take 50 minutes to complete (if using 40/16)?
On my 5950x, I use 40/11 repeating, with the average games taking around 35 minutes, so I'm guessing that would be about 20 minutes with 7 second increments?

I could also drop the draw adjudication from 10 consecutive moves past move 60 with less than 80, to less than 30.

I do draw the line at using what I perceive to be unfair opening lines though.

I think you meant to say 15 minutes (per player) plus 10 second increment would be equal to 40/16, since 15 min plus 10 sec games would take fifty minutes for sixty moves with all time used. For your machine, you mean to say 10 minutes per player plus 7 seconds, which would take 34 minutes for sixty moves with all time used. Probably without adjudication (or with minimal adjudication) the average would be somewhat more than sixty moves, so I would recommend 12 minutes plus 8 seconds on your 5950x as the most equivalent to your current time control. I can assure you that the quality of play will in general be higher with 12 minutes plus 8 seconds, though of course it will be slightly lower when playing out very long endgames.

Adjudication at 30 cp is of course much better than at 80 cp, but as far as I know no one else uses adjudications at any double-digit centipawn value. I agree with Chris than zero would be best (with increment to make it practical), but any single-digit value is okay from my perspective.

Regarding "unfair" opening lines, I suppose you mean lines that are likely winning, or perhaps very close to winning, for one side (presumably White). I think that we all agree that winning lines should be excluded; it's just a question of where to draw the line for likely or nearly winning. I would specify a maximum White score, definitely below 75% since above that indicates a likely won position; 70% seems a good value to me. Setting it too low would mean almost all draws when the top engines meet.

It's very arguable that high book exit evals could just be left in. First they're actually quite rare, the book lines are extracted from the rating list games, and rating list games will naturally be culled for high eval lines as the years pass; so, not too many such lines anyway. If they're left in then at least that has the effect that some engines get wins against SF16, and this is a measure of their Elo strength, no? Also takes account of the massive lead that SF keeps showing - we need some games that SF loses, why not? As long as the test procedure is back to back, then I don't see any good reason to even cull high evals. Ie, it's not the high values that are important to cull, it's the low values.

If you include positions that are actually won for one side, then once the engines are good enough to win them, they will just score 50% against each other, making it harder to see any progress that may occur. It's not necessary for Stockfish to lose any games to weaker engines to measure its strength, as long as it draws enough games, which it will likely do sometimes playing Black from bad but not quite lost positions. Of course we don't in general know which borderline positions are won or lost, but a 75% practical score is a red flag that the position may very well be won.

[carldaman]

I have no inclination or desire to start, or to be involved with, a new rating list.

If/when I stop my CCRL testing, I'll happily continue to run my Amateur Series tournaments for those still interested, although probably with an incremental time control.

I run engine v engine testing because I enjoy it - the tournaments in particular.
I like watching some of the games, which is why bullet or blitz hold no interest for me whatsoever.

No one was suggesting blitz games to replace Rapid. My suggestion was to retain the current pace of your 40/15 games for the first 60 moves or so, then use increment to speed up the long endgames (which are usually drawn) a bit, especially if the adjudication rules are tightened. Maybe it wouldn't even need a new list, perhaps the change would be deemed minor enough to combine them. I would think that would make them more enjoyable to watch with no loss in average quality.

Do you think that 30 minutes with 10 second increments would be on a par with 40/15 games, which on average take 50 minutes to complete (if using 40/16)?
On my 5950x, I use 40/11 repeating, with the average games taking around 35 minutes, so I'm guessing that would be about 20 minutes with 7 second increments?

I could also drop the draw adjudication from 10 consecutive moves past move 60 with less than 80, to less than 30.

I do draw the line at using what I perceive to be unfair opening lines though.

I think you meant to say 15 minutes (per player) plus 10 second increment would be equal to 40/16, since 15 min plus 10 sec games would take fifty minutes for sixty moves with all time used. For your machine, you mean to say 10 minutes per player plus 7 seconds, which would take 34 minutes for sixty moves with all time used. Probably without adjudication (or with minimal adjudication) the average would be somewhat more than sixty moves, so I would recommend 12 minutes plus 8 seconds on your 5950x as the most equivalent to your current time control. I can assure you that the quality of play will in general be higher with 12 minutes plus 8 seconds, though of course it will be slightly lower when playing out very long endgames.

Adjudication at 30 cp is of course much better than at 80 cp, but as far as I know no one else uses adjudications at any double-digit centipawn value. I agree with Chris than zero would be best (with increment to make it practical), but any single-digit value is okay from my perspective.

Regarding "unfair" opening lines, I suppose you mean lines that are likely winning, or perhaps very close to winning, for one side (presumably White). I think that we all agree that winning lines should be excluded; it's just a question of where to draw the line for likely or nearly winning. I would specify a maximum White score, definitely below 75% since above that indicates a likely won position; 70% seems a good value to me. Setting it too low would mean almost all draws when the top engines meet.

I would argue that 70% is a bit low, since it would leave out a bunch of King's Indians and Benonis, which are too big a part of the common chess heritage. While White gets a sizable advantage in theory, I would not say they're automatic losses for Black, and nowhere near "grotesquely unbalanced lines", as Chris put it.

Checking the HIarcs database, which I believe is mostly strong engine games now, the mar del plata king's indian after 8...Ne7, presumably the main line, is only showing 55.5% for White. The main line Benoni with 8.h3 and 9.Bd3 shows 61.3% for White, still far below 70%. Of course you can find some minor sidelines that exceed 70%, but no need for such lines in a book, the lines actually played by grandmasters with any frequency are almost always below 70% score for White. Probably it would be best to use stats from a book such as Hiarcs book, which has 1.8+ million games and an average Elo showing over 2900. With samples and quality like this, no need to even consider engine evals, just set a maximum White score like 70% and a maximum total draw percentage, perhaps 55 to 60% (the draw % in the Hiarcs book is in the 68-69% range), and a minimum number of total games from the position, whatever value produces the desired number of total games.

I would indeed stay away from using engine evals when choosing a book, unless of course they reveal an obvious book bust, or a dead draw by repetition.

[Graham Banks]

If my memory serves me correctly, TCEC aim for a draw rate below 70%.

I think that is reasonable.

[Graham Banks]

SUPER TOURNAMENT XXXVII

Intel i7-4770k Quad
ChessGUI
256mb hash each where possible
3-4-5 piece tablebases
Ponder off
LowDraw100.cgb book
40 moves in 16 minutes repeating (adapted for CCRL)
6 cycles 54 rounds

New opening book that is fair, but expected to produce a lowish draw rate.

Standings after Round 27

17.5 - Stockfish 16 64-bit
16.5 - Dragon 3.2 by Komodo 64-bit
13.5 - RubiChess 20230410 64-bit
13.5 - Ethereal 14.00 64-bit
13.5 - Berserk 11.1 64-bit
13.0 - CS Tal 2.00 64-bit
12.5 - Igel 3.5.0 64-bit
12.5 - Clover 6.0 64-bit
11.5 - Revenge 3.0 64-bit
11.0 - Koivisto 9.0 64-bit


Web based link for live viewing (courtesy of Jay - Berserk author).
https://ccrl.live/16092

Alternatively, if you install TLCV (Tom's Live Chess Viewer) on your computer, you can watch the games live move by move. You'll also be able to chat to others following the tournament in the chatroom there.
http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discuss ... p?id=42959
Host - GrahamCCRL.dyndns.org Port - 16092

Linux users can use Livius:
https://github.com/kmar/livius

There is also a Livius windows version.
It has live pv boards as a nice addition.
http://www.crabaware.com/livius/

[Rebel]

Why was this game declared a draw? They were shuffling, but the "winning" side was going to make a pawn move and change everything sooner or later.

Hi Chris,

I've probably mentioned this before, but I've always used the default ChessGUI adjudication settings:



98% of the time, they're pretty much right.

I don't even fully understand the ChessGUI picture, but lemme give it a try.

1. Looks like you rewrote the 50 move rule to 30 moves with an abs(score<80) for last 10 moves.

2. To declare a win when the last 4 moves are within 4.75 is strange with nowadays high scores, I use 9.99 and never decide a game when the losing engine still has a queen.

3. No idea what Max Game Length = 50 means. Probably don't do any adjudication before move 50? Please enlighten me.

For testing to avoid long silly draws I use a game length of at least 160 moves when the mutual scores have remained under one pawn, for serious rating games 160 is a bit too low, I would suggest 200.

[Graham Banks]

Why was this game declared a draw? They were shuffling, but the "winning" side was going to make a pawn move and change everything sooner or later.

Hi Chris,

I've probably mentioned this before, but I've always used the default ChessGUI adjudication settings:



98% of the time, they're pretty much right.

I don't even fully understand the ChessGUI picture, but lemme give it a try.

1. Looks like you rewrote the 50 move rule to 30 moves with an abs(score<80) for last 10 moves.

Haven't changed anything yet.

2. To declare a win when the last 4 moves are within 4.75 is strange with nowadays high scores, I use 9.99 and never decide a game when the losing engine still has a queen.

3. No idea what Max Game Length = 50 means. Probably don't do any adjudication before move 50? Please enlighten me.

For testing to avoid long silly draws I use a game length of at least 160 moves when the mutual scores have remained under one pawn, for serious rating games 160 is a bit too low, I would suggest 200.

I don't set a move limit.