Leela vs Stockfish nnue style

[lkaufman]

Is there a significant difference in playing style between the two?
It's black Friday and I was going to either get a laptop with high end processor and low-mid gaming chip
Or one with medium-high processors with mid-high gaming chip. All the same price.
Or a desktop with max specs lol.

I know stockfish is stronger but Leela revolutionized chess with some radical new ideas in the opening and with strategy.

I know the nnue allows stockfish to operate similar to Leela. But how close? Do we need to invest in a high end graphics card to be able to get some good ideas for chess (through Leela)
Or can I just have a strong processor and use cfish (or a version that allows nnue only evaluation) to get similar results in ideas?

Leela with a good GPU does have a couple advantages over Stockfish. First advantage is that if you like to look at the top 3 lines (for exaple) rather than just the best line of play, Leela is stronger since it gets the alternative lines "for free". Second, because Stockfish assumes best play while Leela only assumes "good" play, Leela evaluations are more closely correlated with the probability of winning an over the board game, at least if we assume the two players are grandmasters or close to that level. This particularly shows up when Stockfish will tend to show 0.00 after a very deep search of a complicated but defensible position while Leela will show a negative score for the side with more chances to err. So I generally prefer to use Leela these days for preparation for OTB chess. Komodo Dragon MCTS has these advantages too for someone with no good GPU.

[Chessqueen]

Is there a significant difference in playing style between the two?
It's black Friday and I was going to either get a laptop with high end processor and low-mid gaming chip
Or one with medium-high processors with mid-high gaming chip. All the same price.
Or a desktop with max specs lol.

I know stockfish is stronger but Leela revolutionized chess with some radical new ideas in the opening and with strategy.

I know the nnue allows stockfish to operate similar to Leela. But how close? Do we need to invest in a high end graphics card to be able to get some good ideas for chess (through Leela)
Or can I just have a strong processor and use cfish (or a version that allows nnue only evaluation) to get similar results in ideas?

Leela with a good GPU does have a couple advantages over Stockfish. First advantage is that if you like to look at the top 3 lines (for exaple) rather than just the best line of play, Leela is stronger since it gets the alternative lines "for free". Second, because Stockfish assumes best play while Leela only assumes "good" play, Leela evaluations are more closely correlated with the probability of winning an over the board game, at least if we assume the two players are grandmasters or close to that level. This particularly shows up when Stockfish will tend to show 0.00 after a very deep search of a complicated but defensible position while Leela will show a negative score for the side with more chances to err. So I generally prefer to use Leela these days for preparation for OTB chess. Komodo Dragon MCTS has these advantages too for someone with no good GPU.

Is the GPU on this Laptop Powerful enough [/size]? https://xoticpc.com/products/msi-titan- ... 20Warranty

[lkaufman]

Is there a significant difference in playing style between the two?
It's black Friday and I was going to either get a laptop with high end processor and low-mid gaming chip
Or one with medium-high processors with mid-high gaming chip. All the same price.
Or a desktop with max specs lol.

I know stockfish is stronger but Leela revolutionized chess with some radical new ideas in the opening and with strategy.

I know the nnue allows stockfish to operate similar to Leela. But how close? Do we need to invest in a high end graphics card to be able to get some good ideas for chess (through Leela)
Or can I just have a strong processor and use cfish (or a version that allows nnue only evaluation) to get similar results in ideas?

Leela with a good GPU does have a couple advantages over Stockfish. First advantage is that if you like to look at the top 3 lines (for exaple) rather than just the best line of play, Leela is stronger since it gets the alternative lines "for free". Second, because Stockfish assumes best play while Leela only assumes "good" play, Leela evaluations are more closely correlated with the probability of winning an over the board game, at least if we assume the two players are grandmasters or close to that level. This particularly shows up when Stockfish will tend to show 0.00 after a very deep search of a complicated but defensible position while Leela will show a negative score for the side with more chances to err. So I generally prefer to use Leela these days for preparation for OTB chess. Komodo Dragon MCTS has these advantages too for someone with no good GPU.

Is the GPU on this Laptop Powerful enough [/size]? https://xoticpc.com/products/msi-titan- ... 20Warranty

Yes, that rtx 4090 is what I got in my laptop, pretty much the top of the line GPU.

[h1a8]

I don't know how strong or well informed a chess enthusiast you are, but I believe that you are a AlphaZero fan who read papers about it and try to simulate one. You did your research, found out about lc0 trying to simulate it, and then naturally want to use it. I'm coming this conclusion because all those things I said and the only thing interested you is Dragon using MCTS. You seem to informed only about mcts/nn and differences between cpu/gpu and still believe mcts is better than minimax or gpu engines are better than cpu or lc0 plays better "positional" chess like it's 2019.

Lc0 went on different roads from alphazero a long ago, like stockfish went different ways from it's past long ago. There are no clear superiority between them in equal normal opening/midgame positions, but we can say Stockfish is superior a little in biased openings & following positions and endgames due to it's search. Lc0 is a little superior in some themes like fortressy positions and trapped pieces. Not positional/tactical nor their elos, not that simple. Some themes. Overall, these differences make Stockfish a little better generally, noone is trying to mimic anyone. Both are so strong on a good hardware that you cannot compare them very good. And... both are stronger than the 2017-18 AlphaZero.

Coming to your question, DragonMCTS uses CPU not GPU. Good alternative engine for discovering different ideas.

If you want my suggestion on the topic, I say go fish or go home. The only top level engine you can use which uses gpu is Leela, while every other one is only affected by how strong your cpu's are. Buying a whole computer only to use leela is... pointless.

I can't understand Stockfish moves most of the time. There are heavily based in tactics (far above human level). my tactical ability will never be above 2200level so most of the moves are over my head. leela (or mcts engines i assume), on the other hand, moves are primarily based on static evaluation. this is easy for me to learn from and get better at chess. the goal isn't to have the strongest engine but the engine EASIEST to learn from (where tactical ability is at a minimum). Ill try to get the laptop that has better cpu (weaker gpu) and try dragon mcts. that will save me some money. just hoping the moves are not heavily based on deep tactical search.

Watching stockfish-lc0 games in tced I see that
Stockfish's moves and lc0's moves are often the same moves and often the pv is the same for a lot of plies so I see no importance for the question if they are based on tactical calculations or positional evaluation.

If you are interested only in lc0's move at low number of nodes per move so it has not a good search then
Lc0 has no simple evaluation so I see no reason what is the reason to think that you can learn from the evaluation and improve in chess.

The importance of the question was to help decide to buy either a laptop with strong GPU and mid processor or a laptop with a mid GPU (or non at all) with high end processor. Both are the same price and on sale for black Friday.

If playing style are similar enough then I'll go with the high processor (use stockfish) since I don't play games (don't need GPU). If playing styles are significantly different then ill go with high GPU laptop and stick with Leela.

So now you see the importance of the question?

But im deciding to go with the high processor and try Dragon MCTS

[h1a8]

Is there a significant difference in playing style between the two?
It's black Friday and I was going to either get a laptop with high end processor and low-mid gaming chip
Or one with medium-high processors with mid-high gaming chip. All the same price.
Or a desktop with max specs lol.

I know stockfish is stronger but Leela revolutionized chess with some radical new ideas in the opening and with strategy.

I know the nnue allows stockfish to operate similar to Leela. But how close? Do we need to invest in a high end graphics card to be able to get some good ideas for chess (through Leela)
Or can I just have a strong processor and use cfish (or a version that allows nnue only evaluation) to get similar results in ideas?

Leela with a good GPU does have a couple advantages over Stockfish. First advantage is that if you like to look at the top 3 lines (for exaple) rather than just the best line of play, Leela is stronger since it gets the alternative lines "for free". Second, because Stockfish assumes best play while Leela only assumes "good" play, Leela evaluations are more closely correlated with the probability of winning an over the board game, at least if we assume the two players are grandmasters or close to that level. This particularly shows up when Stockfish will tend to show 0.00 after a very deep search of a complicated but defensible position while Leela will show a negative score for the side with more chances to err. So I generally prefer to use Leela these days for preparation for OTB chess. Komodo Dragon MCTS has these advantages too for someone with no good GPU.

Thanks. This is what I needed. I'm definitely not necessarily looking for the best move but rather a good understandable move that's rooted in static evaluation and not a long search of deep tactics.

[syzygy]

If you are interested only in lc0's move at low number of nodes per move so it has not a good search then
Lc0 has no simple evaluation so I see no reason what is the reason to think that you can learn from the evaluation and improve in chess.

Lc0's evaluation is indeed far from simple, but I would not immediately dismiss the possibility that a human can learn something from a set of positions and Lc0's static or low-node evaluation of them. But probably not as much as from a book (or teacher) that gives explanations about positions and patterns.

If the goal is to run Lc0 with a low number of nodes per move, then running Lc0 on a CPU should probably be fine?

[Ciekce]

If you are interested only in lc0's move at low number of nodes per move so it has not a good search then

what in the world does this mean

[h1a8]

If you are interested only in lc0's move at low number of nodes per move so it has not a good search then
Lc0 has no simple evaluation so I see no reason what is the reason to think that you can learn from the evaluation and improve in chess.

Lc0's evaluation is indeed far from simple, but I would not immediately dismiss the possibility that a human can learn something from a set of positions and Lc0's static or low-node evaluation of them. But probably not as much as from a book (or teacher) that gives explanations about positions and patterns.

If the goal is to run Lc0 with a low number of nodes per move, then running Lc0 on a CPU should probably be fine?

I saw many Leela games on YouTube analyzed. The moves were far more clearer than stockfish moves.

People use engines to improve their chess. That's the main point of them.

Like I said. Wanted a laptop for black Friday. I don't have one.
Only going to use it for chess. If I needed it for anything else then I would have purchased one a long time ago. But I don't.

There were 2 on sale for the same price.
One with a better GPU and worse processor and another with a worse GPU but better processor.

My question was very simple. If both play 95% of the time the same moves then I'm going with the weaker GPU laptop. If Leela plays significantly different then I'm going with the stronger GPU laptop.
But since dragon MCTS uses cpu and uses mostly strong static evaluation then I'll probably just go with the stronger cpu laptop.

[CornfedForever]

I got the fastest AMD laptop processor with a Invidia 4800 GPU and fired up Lc0 today for the first time. I have to say the laptop got REALLY hot, more than I had expected...and the CPU as well. Which is odd given that I can run Stockfish on 30 threads (don't think I've ever tried 32) and it does not seem to get anywhere near as hot. Of course, I haven't tampered with any of the settings and only tried Lc0 for a bit earlier today. Anyway, those laptop GPU's are weakened sisters compared to desktop GPU's, where you can easily cool them.

You only say you "want it for chess" and don't say 'how' you would use it for chess...or did I miss that somewhere?

[Magnum]

Is there a significant difference in playing style between the two?
It's black Friday and I was going to either get a laptop with high end processor and low-mid gaming chip
Or one with medium-high processors with mid-high gaming chip. All the same price.
Or a desktop with max specs lol.

I know stockfish is stronger but Leela revolutionized chess with some radical new ideas in the opening and with strategy.

I know the nnue allows stockfish to operate similar to Leela. But how close? Do we need to invest in a high end graphics card to be able to get some good ideas for chess (through Leela)
Or can I just have a strong processor and use cfish (or a version that allows nnue only evaluation) to get similar results in ideas?

Buy a MacBook Pro 16-inch M3 MAX maxed out. It's as easy as that.
It's better than a 13980HX.
It's better than a 14900KS.
It's better than a 7945X3D.
No crazy heat.
No noise.
No thermal throttling down to 10% after some seconds.
No other well know disadvantages.
Best display you have ever seen, which you are looking at 100% of the time.
128 GB shared RAM, so you can use a lot RAM for Stockfish and LC0 and other stuff in the same time, and not a 8 GB GPU RAM joke.