Komodo 4 on long time control

[h1a8]

I think that Komodo 4 on tournament time control is going to overtake Houdini. That is my opinion looking at the different rating related at different time controls (http://www.amateurschach.de/)

Regards

It'll be close

Lonnie

I don't think close will cut it. If Komodo 4 is only close to Houdini 2. Then Komodo 4 is nothing more then a also-ran. And Komodo's sales will suffer.

I read from the Komodo team that Houdini does not scale well at long time controls. I have not seen this in my testing. And I now think that was wishful thinking. Since they said at one point that Komodo was shooting for an October or November release.

This tells me Komodo is having trouble overtaking Houdini. If Komodo 4 does not make the release for the Christmas buying season, it will be most telling.

And I find it funny for people to assume that Houdini is some how a static target....

The versions of Komodo we have now are the same strength or stronger than Houdini. If you look at CCRL 40/40 you will see that Komodo is in second place, 27 ELO behind Houdini. We have gained over 30 ELO so we have caught Houdini 2.0 and probably even the slightly stronger Houdini 1.5. This is 64 bit single CPU engines. Rybka 4 is only slightly behind and in general there are 4 programs in a close pack for second place with Stockfish lagging a bit behind but after than almost 100 ELO gap.

The primary wait is that we want to get the SMP version working well and we would like to come out with a program that is significantly stronger than Houdini, not just slightly stronger. But we are not going to delay a long time just to do this as we can do it with a later release. Houdini and Rybka will no doubt respond, but we will follow up with something substantially stronger. Komodo is ripe for many optimization's that are already in other programs and we have never focused as much on that as we have been able to achieve ELO by smarter algorithms.

(drooling). I love you guys, can't wait.

[SchachProfi]

Don,

one "weakness" of Komodo 3 (Arena 3.0 GUI) running Multi-PV-analysis is that it updates its results just when a complete depth-level is finished, while other engines already update with every completed PV-line... would be nice to see this also in Komodo 4 (could save a lot of time in deep levels when one just want to see the new scores for the first few moves).

Thanks,

Alex

[MM]

I think that Komodo 4 on tournament time control is going to overtake Houdini. That is my opinion looking at the different rating related at different time controls (http://www.amateurschach.de/)

Regards

It'll be close

Lonnie

I don't think close will cut it. If Komodo 4 is only close to Houdini 2. Then Komodo 4 is nothing more then a also-ran. And Komodo's sales will suffer.

I read from the Komodo team that Houdini does not scale well at long time controls. I have not seen this in my testing. And I now think that was wishful thinking. Since they said at one point that Komodo was shooting for an October or November release.

This tells me Komodo is having trouble overtaking Houdini. If Komodo 4 does not make the release for the Christmas buying season, it will be most telling.

And I find it funny for people to assume that Houdini is some how a static target....

We will almost surely release before mid-Dec. The delay has been in getting MP working, as Don gets sidetracked making program improvements. Today we made a nice gain that should put us too close to call with Houdini at 40/40 based on CCRL ratings, though we will probably not catch Houdini at blitz levels with this release. The CCRL and CEGT tests show us scaling much better than Houdini, and also show Houdini 2.0 scaling much worse than Houdini 1.5. In fact we may pass Houdini 2.0 on some lists without passing Houdini 1.5! This lower rating of 2.0 vs. 1.5 is why people assume that Houdini is static.

Hi Larry,

will next release add chess 960 support? I am very interested about the ability of your creature to play in unusual positions and without book. It would be also very funny.

Regards

[MM]

I think that Komodo 4 on tournament time control is going to overtake Houdini. That is my opinion looking at the different rating related at different time controls (http://www.amateurschach.de/)

Regards

It'll be close

Lonnie

I don't think close will cut it. If Komodo 4 is only close to Houdini 2. Then Komodo 4 is nothing more then a also-ran. And Komodo's sales will suffer.

I read from the Komodo team that Houdini does not scale well at long time controls. I have not seen this in my testing. And I now think that was wishful thinking. Since they said at one point that Komodo was shooting for an October or November release.

This tells me Komodo is having trouble overtaking Houdini. If Komodo 4 does not make the release for the Christmas buying season, it will be most telling.

And I find it funny for people to assume that Houdini is some how a static target....

The versions of Komodo we have now are the same strength or stronger than Houdini. If you look at CCRL 40/40 you will see that Komodo is in second place, 27 ELO behind Houdini. We have gained over 30 ELO so we have caught Houdini 2.0 and probably even the slightly stronger Houdini 1.5. This is 64 bit single CPU engines. Rybka 4 is only slightly behind and in general there are 4 programs in a close pack for second place with Stockfish lagging a bit behind but after than almost 100 ELO gap.

The primary wait is that we want to get the SMP version working well and we would like to come out with a program that is significantly stronger than Houdini, not just slightly stronger. But we are not going to delay a long time just to do this as we can do it with a later release. Houdini and Rybka will no doubt respond, but we will follow up with something substantially stronger. Komodo is ripe for many optimization's that are already in other programs and we have never focused as much on that as we have been able to achieve ELO by smarter algorithms.

Hi Don,

just a little effort and you can overtake Houdini both in blitz and long TC. I think you can do it, especially when you say that you find so often improvements of elo. You still have some days, i'm pretty confident about an historical surpass.

Regards

[Werewolf]

Hi Don,

How many cores will Komodo MP support?

Regards,

Carl

[lkaufman]

I think that Komodo 4 on tournament time control is going to overtake Houdini. That is my opinion looking at the different rating related at different time controls (http://www.amateurschach.de/)

Regards

It'll be close

Lonnie

I don't think close will cut it. If Komodo 4 is only close to Houdini 2. Then Komodo 4 is nothing more then a also-ran. And Komodo's sales will suffer.

I read from the Komodo team that Houdini does not scale well at long time controls. I have not seen this in my testing. And I now think that was wishful thinking. Since they said at one point that Komodo was shooting for an October or November release.

This tells me Komodo is having trouble overtaking Houdini. If Komodo 4 does not make the release for the Christmas buying season, it will be most telling.

And I find it funny for people to assume that Houdini is some how a static target....

We will almost surely release before mid-Dec. The delay has been in getting MP working, as Don gets sidetracked making program improvements. Today we made a nice gain that should put us too close to call with Houdini at 40/40 based on CCRL ratings, though we will probably not catch Houdini at blitz levels with this release. The CCRL and CEGT tests show us scaling much better than Houdini, and also show Houdini 2.0 scaling much worse than Houdini 1.5. In fact we may pass Houdini 2.0 on some lists without passing Houdini 1.5! This lower rating of 2.0 vs. 1.5 is why people assume that Houdini is static.

Hi Larry,

will next release add chess 960 support? I am very interested about the ability of your creature to play in unusual positions and without book. It would be also very funny.

Regards

No new features for this release except MP. We should add 960 support some time next year. After all, I was US Open 960 champion last year, I should promote the version!

[Don]

Hi Don,

How many cores will Komodo MP support?

Regards,

Carl

At least 32 - probably 64 or more. No guarantee's yet on how well it will scale but that will be an ongoing effort.

[Werewolf]

That's music to my ears. The work you two are doing is fantastic.

The last time I was this excited about chess was when I got to test Hydra on some test positions I composed 6 years ago. Now my P.C with a top engine is even stronger than Chrilly's creation.

[Houdini]

We will almost surely release before mid-Dec. The delay has been in getting MP working, as Don gets sidetracked making program improvements. Today we made a nice gain that should put us too close to call with Houdini at 40/40 based on CCRL ratings, though we will probably not catch Houdini at blitz levels with this release. The CCRL and CEGT tests show us scaling much better than Houdini, and also show Houdini 2.0 scaling much worse than Houdini 1.5. In fact we may pass Houdini 2.0 on some lists without passing Houdini 1.5! This lower rating of 2.0 vs. 1.5 is why people assume that Houdini is static.

Most (in fact all except 2) rating lists show a definite improvement for Houdini 2, from single-core to 6 CPU, typically about 20 Elo points.
For example, take a look at the most recent result: the SWCR rating that was published today for Houdini. Houdini 2.0c shows +24 Elo and is 60 Elo ahead of Komodo 3.

SWCR is played at 40/10 with Ponder ON. This is not miles away from the 40/40 with ponder off. On the average the difference in search depth must be a single ply, there is no reason to expect any fundamental difference in performance. Why do you pretend that this would be the case?

The bottom-line is that you cherry-pick one or two rating list results - while dismissing all the other results as "blitz" - to make claims about the strength or scaling of Houdini - about which you know very little (as you admit yourself). Please stop the nonsense.

Robert

[Don]

We will almost surely release before mid-Dec. The delay has been in getting MP working, as Don gets sidetracked making program improvements. Today we made a nice gain that should put us too close to call with Houdini at 40/40 based on CCRL ratings, though we will probably not catch Houdini at blitz levels with this release. The CCRL and CEGT tests show us scaling much better than Houdini, and also show Houdini 2.0 scaling much worse than Houdini 1.5. In fact we may pass Houdini 2.0 on some lists without passing Houdini 1.5! This lower rating of 2.0 vs. 1.5 is why people assume that Houdini is static.

Most (in fact all except 2) rating lists show a definite improvement for Houdini 2, from single-core to 6 CPU, typically about 20 Elo points.
For example, take a look at the most recent result: the SWCR rating that was published today for Houdini. Houdini 2.0c shows +24 Elo and is 60 Elo ahead of Komodo 3.

SWCR is played at 40/10 with Ponder ON. This is not miles away from the 40/40 with ponder off. On the average the difference in search depth must be a single ply, there is no reason to expect any fundamental difference in performance. Why do you pretend that this would be the case?

The bottom-line is that you cherry-pick one or two rating list results - while dismissing all the other results as "blitz" - to make claims about the strength or scaling of Houdini - about which you know very little (as you admit yourself). Please stop the nonsense.

Robert

It has come to our attention that Komodo benefit's much more from the SSE instructions that other programs, and that in the SWCR testing Frank uses the lowest common denominator, which is the komodo binary with SSE off. Houdini automatically switches it on so it is not a fair test at all. For this reason and others I don't fully trust the SWCR and I mean no disrespect to the honorable Frank who is a good guy and I consider a friend, but I don't believe his test is run scientifically. In fact I don't know if there are many who have the background to understand what a fair test is, even though they do their best you can often see their own superstitions and biases affecting the results, usually unintended.

We are not cherry picking any more than you are, this is the second time that you picked the most favorable list for your advertising campaign.

However you slice and dice it, there is no longer much difference between Houdini and other programs and Houdini will be overtaken soon unless you get off your butt and start making some more improvements to Ivanhoe. We have already closed much if not all the gap and we continue to make progress and we do it mostly with our own ideas and always with our own code, not someone else's. So what users will get with Komodo is a program that is substantially different that all the other Ippo's such as Houdini.

There IS a huge discrepancy based on time whether you refuse to acknowledge it or not. Screaming loudly doesn't change anything. We have run a lot of tests with Houdini which shows without any doubt that Houdini has major superiority at really fast time controls and this superiority continues to drop sharply with longer time controls. It's also the same exact behavior see with the Ippo programs which Houdini is based on. It's possible that Houdini suddenly starts going back up at 40/2 hours for some bizarre reason we don't understand, but there is absolutely no question that is true with time controls less than 40/10.

You seem to think that making aggressive denials and strong statements is something that will make people back off or think that you are honorable but that doesn't work for most of us. You used this same tactic with your vehement denials that Houdini has anything to do with Ivanhoe (other than just some ideas, a statement that you think "covers" your lie) which any idiot can see is not true. In the early days of Houdini you had promised to "release the sources at some time in the future" and we all had to laugh knowing that you could NEVER do that, funny how that has never happened and now you are trying to peddle it off as an original work.