A new website for Shredder ...

[Alayan]

I'm not denying past achievements. Shredder was at some points the strongest engine in existence, it was competitive for many years, and the UCI protocol was a great thing.

But it's now almost 10 years since Shredder lost relevance.

The titles thing is deceptive. From CPW:

1996 World Micro Computer Chess Champion in Jakarta
1999 World Micro Computer Chess Champion in Paderborn
1999 World Computer Chess Champion in Paderborn
2000 World Micro Computer Chess Champion in London
2001 World Micro Computer Chess Champion Single CPU in Maastricht
2002 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Maastricht
2003 World Computer Chess Champion in Graz
2003 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Graz
2004 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Ramat Gan
2005 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Reykjavik
2006 World Computer Chess960 Champion in Mainz
2007 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Amsterdam
2009 World Computer Chess Champion in Pamplona
2009 Computer Olympiad (no hardware limit) in Pamplona
2009 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Pamplona
2010 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Kanazawa
2010 World Computer Chess Software Champion in Kanazawa
2013 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Yokohama
2015 World Computer Chess Software Champion in Leiden
2017 World Computer Chess Software Champion in Leiden

There are 8 blitz champion titles, 4 micro-computer titles, 3 WCC, 2 miscs and 3 WCC software titles. At least one of those in the 2007-2010 period was actually won by Rybka. Some of these titles have been won while multiple stronger engines didn't participate. A lot of mini-titles inflating the count.

If WCC had also organized rapid tournaments, they could claim a few more titles, that wouldn't make the engine's historical relevance higher. I'm not going to bring up Stockfish's TCEC and CCC titles because they suffer from a lot of issues too and are not comparable with past engines.

What's relevant as to being the "most successful chess program" ? I'd say (1) period of relevance/domination (2) margin of domination (3) widespread use. Being more recent is also an advantage. I wouldn't call Ethereal more successful than Shredder despite being stronger, but Stockfish smashing Shredder and being the strongest when the level is higher has to count for something.

For Shredder, the rough outline seems to be :
- 1995-2007 : strong, at times best, but never dominating significantly (regularly behind others like Fritz, Zappa, Chess Tiger, Junior). Good data for this time period is hard to get, maybe some SSDF analysis could shed lights. The tiny sample sizes of the WCC events are not sufficient to know which engine was stronger and by how much.
- 2007-2008 : outpaced by Rybka
- 2009-2011 : made completely obsolete by Rybka
- 2011-2012 : made obsolete by Houdini
- 2012 onwards : made obsolete by Stockfish

Also helped introduce UCI.

For Stockfish, we have :
- 2010-2011 : strong, not far from the top but not the strongest
- 2012-2017 : close fight for the crown with Houdini (not counting the scam versions) and then Komodo.
- 2017-2019 : domination not seen since Rybka's entrance
- 2019-2020 : close fight for the crown with Leela, the rest of the field is hopelessly behind
- 2020 : a huge jump in strength making it undisputed best again, though balanced positions have become extremely drawish.

Shredder does have a longer period not far from the top, but it's unclear if it was actually #1 longer, and it's clearly behind when it comes to being a strong #1.

As for widespread use, Stockfish being strong and open source as made it the engine of choice for online analysis and the most popular engine for home analysis. No commercial engine even comes close to Stockfish's influence in this regard. This makes Stockfish's influence overwhelmingly higher.

No serious unbiased analysis would put Shredder as more influential than Stockfish. I'm not even sure it would edge Fritz, which grabbed less WCC related titles but also has a long period close to the top or at the top, some titles, and some matches against the human world champ.

Pray tell, please do let us know when you feel you have achieved in your lifetime what Mr. Stefan Meyer-Kahlen has achieved.

For one thing, I've never tried to scam anybody. I don't believe that past achievements, however great they may be, give a voucher to deceive people into wasting money, for profit.

And if you have a problem with my criticism, then address my points. If the best you can do is ask me for my achievements, then you've nothing.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Alayan,

thanks for your message!

But it is not important alone to be World Champion or to have other titles.

Much more important are other things.

One example more:
Chess Tutor is here very popular.
A nice learn software for kids.

I goes 2-3 years in schools and find out that children have no problems to learn very easy with the Chess Tutor program by Stefan. I know all the available chess GUI. CuteChess, Nibler or Banksia are really very nice works. Shredder GUI is very easy and runs very stable with all of the available chess engines without that Stefan made one update in the last years.

http://www.nk-qy.info/bericht-chess-tutor.htm
180.000x reads after server stats (German review).

With an interview with Kurt Lellinger (got the Federal Cross of Merit in Germany)
Founder of "Deutsche Jugendschachstiftung".
That are persons do really nice things!

And the kids from today are the TOP-programmers from tomorrow.
That's much more important ... to thinking on such things!!

And so on ...

I am thinking that most are looking for ...
Strongest available engines and forgot the history around it.

Elo is most boring in computer chess!
The TOP-50 of chess programs are stronger as Magnus Carlsen.

Again, not important that Shredder is on place 1 in rating systems.
Much more important is his innovation for our hobby.
What Stefan do and all the ideas he gave us!!

Shredder have nothing to do with Stockfish.
Stockfish is a complete other topic!

Best
Frank

To get money for a professional work is normaly!
Sure that you will get for your professional work money too? Isn't it?
Open source is a complete other topic!
Or what we do with Arena in the past ... a complete other topic.

Please try to understand and please set your Stockfish messages not in such a thread!
Sure, the Stockfish team don't need it and ...
Sure, the Stockfish team respect the work others do in computer chess history!

[MikeB]

I'm not denying past achievements. Shredder was at some points the strongest engine in existence, it was competitive for many years, and the UCI protocol was a great thing.

But it's now almost 10 years since Shredder lost relevance.

The titles thing is deceptive. From CPW:

1996 World Micro Computer Chess Champion in Jakarta
1999 World Micro Computer Chess Champion in Paderborn
1999 World Computer Chess Champion in Paderborn
2000 World Micro Computer Chess Champion in London
2001 World Micro Computer Chess Champion Single CPU in Maastricht
2002 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Maastricht
2003 World Computer Chess Champion in Graz
2003 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Graz
2004 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Ramat Gan
2005 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Reykjavik
2006 World Computer Chess960 Champion in Mainz
2007 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Amsterdam
2009 World Computer Chess Champion in Pamplona
2009 Computer Olympiad (no hardware limit) in Pamplona
2009 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Pamplona
2010 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Kanazawa
2010 World Computer Chess Software Champion in Kanazawa
2013 World Computer Chess Blitz Champion in Yokohama
2015 World Computer Chess Software Champion in Leiden
2017 World Computer Chess Software Champion in Leiden

There are 8 blitz champion titles, 4 micro-computer titles, 3 WCC, 2 miscs and 3 WCC software titles. At least one of those in the 2007-2010 period was actually won by Rybka. Some of these titles have been won while multiple stronger engines didn't participate. A lot of mini-titles inflating the count.

If WCC had also organized rapid tournaments, they could claim a few more titles, that wouldn't make the engine's historical relevance higher. I'm not going to bring up Stockfish's TCEC and CCC titles because they suffer from a lot of issues too and are not comparable with past engines.

What's relevant as to being the "most successful chess program" ? I'd say (1) period of relevance/domination (2) margin of domination (3) widespread use. Being more recent is also an advantage. I wouldn't call Ethereal more successful than Shredder despite being stronger, but Stockfish smashing Shredder and being the strongest when the level is higher has to count for something.

For Shredder, the rough outline seems to be :
- 1995-2007 : strong, at times best, but never dominating significantly (regularly behind others like Fritz, Zappa, Chess Tiger, Junior). Good data for this time period is hard to get, maybe some SSDF analysis could shed lights. The tiny sample sizes of the WCC events are not sufficient to know which engine was stronger and by how much.
- 2007-2008 : outpaced by Rybka
- 2009-2011 : made completely obsolete by Rybka
- 2011-2012 : made obsolete by Houdini
- 2012 onwards : made obsolete by Stockfish

Also helped introduce UCI.

For Stockfish, we have :
- 2010-2011 : strong, not far from the top but not the strongest
- 2012-2017 : close fight for the crown with Houdini (not counting the scam versions) and then Komodo.
- 2017-2019 : domination not seen since Rybka's entrance
- 2019-2020 : close fight for the crown with Leela, the rest of the field is hopelessly behind
- 2020 : a huge jump in strength making it undisputed best again, though balanced positions have become extremely drawish.

Shredder does have a longer period not far from the top, but it's unclear if it was actually #1 longer, and it's clearly behind when it comes to being a strong #1.

As for widespread use, Stockfish being strong and open source as made it the engine of choice for online analysis and the most popular engine for home analysis. No commercial engine even comes close to Stockfish's influence in this regard. This makes Stockfish's influence overwhelmingly higher.

No serious unbiased analysis would put Shredder as more influential than Stockfish. I'm not even sure it would edge Fritz, which grabbed less WCC related titles but also has a long period close to the top or at the top, some titles, and some matches against the human world champ.

Pray tell, please do let us know when you feel you have achieved in your lifetime what Mr. Stefan Meyer-Kahlen has achieved.

For one thing, I've never tried to scam anybody. I don't believe that past achievements, however great they may be, give a voucher to deceive people into wasting money, for profit.

And if you have a problem with my criticism, then address my points. If the best you can do is ask me for my achievements, then you've nothing.

Ok well then , I am nothing and I'm fine with that. Which is better than being rude or disrespectful. Look, I love Stockfish , Stockfish has an army of contributors and came much later than Shredder's heyday which was an essentially a one man shop. There is honor in showing respect for those that came before you. You may think he contributed nothing, that is your right , but in every discipline, those are always those holding the torch leading the way. Stefan Meyer-Kahlen was one of those holding the torch, end of story. Those who were around then, recognize and appreciate that. One can alway tell what is in a man's heart by what he says. So feel free to broadcast your opinions loud and clear. That will help all of us to understand who you are. Look, I know you are not a bad person - but there is no reason to spew out so much venom on this one person. He is not a Robert Houdart or a Vasik Rajlich — not even close. He is one, that I believe, has earned his respect.

Have a good day.

[Frank Quisinsky]

I have no problem with critism.
All the time I have no problems with it.

But your message around Stockfish is out of place!

On the other hand ...
Nice that you have a favorite engine.
I like Stockfish (not one of my favorite programs but I like it to use for analyzes), much more I like Wasp, Hakkapeliitta, Spark, Phalanx, AnMon and new ... SlowChess, the work around Ethereal is great. For me is Andy Grant the hero at this time! Andy must have a lot of knowledge after with people told me by mail.

And ...
I don't like the playing style from Shredder engine all the years.
Shredder 12 and before: To many holes in king safty with many pieces on board.
Shredder 13: To passive in middelgames for the strength the program have.

To create a tactical monster isn't the strength from Stefan I believe!

But fact is:
The reason for the success Shredder engine have is the endgame.
Shredder are the first really good chess engine in endgames ... the reason that Shredder was so many years the number 1 in the World. From Shredder GUI I am a big fan. Nice to play round-robin or tourneys. Ideas from Shredder.sto tourney configuration comes from Martin Blume (Arena). And here I made nothing, this idea is from Martin alone.

I dislike a lot that after Arena added FCR / Chess 960 (first available GUI for Fischer Random Chess) Stefan do the same with other rules for castlings. The standad set Martin Blume and Stefan changed that. Martin never changed a standard, comes before. FRC for Arena was an idea from the DGT Albert. A very nice guy ... Albert from DGT projects.

I made some interviews with Stefan Meyer-Kahlen in the past and I know him personally. I had not all the time the same opinion Stefan have to different things but I respect him. For me is Stefan Meyer-Kahlen one of the greatest chess programmers is computer chess history.

Sorry, I am a freak ...
His GUI is fantastic!!

Not version 13 ... Shredder 13 GUI have many problems to hold saved grafic settings.
Often v13 crashed after I try to set my wish settings.
v12 works fine without any problems!

Best
Frank

[Frank Quisinsky]

And to Rybka:

Rybka is only based on Fruit with the knowledge from Larry Kaufmann for endgames after all I know from persons with a lot of knowledge in chess programming.

Not more and not less ...
For the commercials interesting for create a new hype around Rybka ?!?

Same bad style Fruit / Senpai have in the earlier middlegames and king safty but much stronger in endgames.

From the still running FCP Tourney-2020 ...
107x lost (mate below 60 moves).
For an engine with 3.000 Elo after 1.800 games.

King safty from Wasp is 10 times better for an example.
Engine with the same playing strength.

Code: Select all

                                  won59 lost59 draw39        won59w won59b lost59w lost59b
30. Fritz 16 (Rybka) x64             18    107     62            11      7      30      77
31. Protector 1.9.0 x64              17     66     73            11      6      21      45
32. iCE 4.0 v853 Modern x64          17     73     61            14      3      24      49
33. Nirvanachess 2.4 POP x64         15     62     77             9      6      20      42
34. Equinox 3.30 x64                 14     84     54             9      5      26      58
35. Senpai 2.0 BMI2 x64              10    126     59             6      4      51      75
36. SmarThink 1.98 AVX2 x64          10    193     44             5      5      58     135
37. Hannibal 1.7 x64                  9     82     50             6      3      29      53
38. Minic 2.33 x64                    8    135     60             5      3      34     101
39. Combusken 1.2.0 x64               8    168     50             4      4      55     113
40. Rodent IV 0.22 POP x64            6     75     67             6      0      25      50
41. Monolith 2 PEXT x64               4    118     66             3      1      51      67

The reason that Rybka is on place 1 after Shredder ... again the reason the endgame!

And a little bit better as Stockfish is Komodo in pur endgames.
Can be see in FCP Tourney 2020 stats.

Thats allways the same all the years around Stockfish / Komodo.

Stockfish 11 is 75 Elo stronger as Komodo 14.
But 125 Elo stronger in middlegames and 100 Elo stronger in transposition into endgame.
The goal from Stockfish but better in endgames is Komodo.

Best
Frank

Hm, the topic is the new design from Stefan's new web presentation!

[Alayan]

Hi Alayan,

thanks for your message!

But it is not important alone to be World Champion or to have other titles.

Much more important are other things.

One example more:
Chess Tutor is here very popular.
A nice learn software for kids.

I goes 2-3 years in schools and find out that children have no problems to learn very easy with the Chess Tutor program by Stefan. I know all the available chess GUI. CuteChess, Nibler or Banksia are really very nice works. Shredder GUI is very easy and runs very stable with all of the available chess engines without that Stefan made one update in the last years.

http://www.nk-qy.info/bericht-chess-tutor.htm
180.000x reads after server stats (German review).

With an interview with Kurt Lellinger (got the Federal Cross of Merit in Germany)
Founder of "Deutsche Jugendschachstiftung".
That are persons do really nice things!

And the kids from today are the TOP-programmers from tomorrow.
That's much more important ... to thinking on such things!!

And so on ...

I am thinking that most are looking for ...
Strongest available engines and forgot the history around it.

Elo is most boring in computer chess!
The TOP-50 of chess programs are stronger as Magnus Carlsen.

Again, not important that Shredder is on place 1 in rating systems.
Much more important is his innovation for our hobby.
What Stefan do and all the ideas he gave us!!

Shredder have nothing to do with Stockfish.
Stockfish is a complete other topic!

Best
Frank

Hello Frank,

I trust you on Chess Tutor's usefulness. I've not been trying to say Shredder didn't have a historic influence.

I'm taking issue with two main things:
- The misrepresentation of the Shredder's engine strength today. The claims about its success and WSC titles, among others, are willful deception when the engine is not even top 10 and is hundreds of elo weaker than the top. This marketing is focused on playing strength, not any other options that might make the engine special.
- The 50€ upsell to enable a feature as basic as SMP while the Shredder engine even with SMP on is obsolete. The basic packages with the GUI and the opening book are maybe 99% of the true value of the software bundle. But this 50€ upsell is billed as "Made for the demanding customer who wants nothing but the best.".

To get money for a professional work is normaly!
Sure that you will get for your professional work money too? Isn't it?
Open source is a complete other topic!
Or what we do with Arena in the past ... a complete other topic.

Please try to understand and please set your Stockfish messages not in such a thread!
Sure, the Stockfish team don't need it and ...
Sure, the Stockfish team respect the work others do in computer chess history!

I agree, making money from original work on a chess software is nothing wrong !

My beef is with deceptive marketing preying on the ignorance of potential customers. I do have some skepticism about Shredder 13 too, because years with nothing then a huge jump is highly abnormal for an actively developed commercial engine. I have no proof and hope to be wrong in this regard.

I was not trying to turn this into a Shredder vs Stockfish thread, I wanted to show why I believe the "most successful" claim is not only deceptive but incorrect. If I claim something, I should support it with data.

And if you have a problem with my criticism, then address my points. If the best you can do is ask me for my achievements, then you've nothing.

Ok well then , I am nothing and I'm fine with that. Which is better than being rude or disrespectful. Look, I love Stockfish , Stockfish has an army of contributors and came much later than Shredder's heyday which was an essentially a one man shop. There is honor in showing respect for those that came before you. You may think he contributed nothing, that is your right , but in every discipline, those are always those holding the torch leading the way. Stefan Meyer-Kahlen was one of those holding the torch, end of story. Those who were around then, recognize and appreciate that. One can alway tell what is in a man's heart by what he says. So feel free to broadcast your opinions loud and clear. That will help all of us to understand who you are. Look, I know you are not a bad person - but there is no reason to spew out so much venom on this one person. He is not a Robert Houdart or a Vasik Rajlich — not even close. He is one, that I believe, has earned his respect.

Have a good day.

I wrote "you've nothing", not "you're nothing". Important difference!

I don't really want to pick a fight with you. We disagree sometimes, but that doesn't mean we should exchange harsh words. I know you mean well.

Concerning Shredder, I don't believe that past achievements and deeds give a right to be above criticism when doing something wrong. I believe one should attempt to do what is right no matter past deeds. My criticism is not an attempt to judge SMK's life.

As for the rest, see what I said to Frank above.

Have a nice day.

[MikeB]

<snip>
Have a nice day.

Fair enough.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Mike,

enough is enough.



I must go to bed.
But tomorrow ... part 2 ... no, no!



Best
Frank

[Nordlandia]

This is wonderful news. I've been waiting in excitement for anything from Shredder now since i was in contact with Stefan Meyer-Kahlen. I requested UCI protocol to be modified to support hourglass time control, which he eagerly responded he'll do it but it was on to-do-list.

In the start of the year. Coincidentally, I started talking about Shredder status in TCEC chat. Suddenly there is a guy who says he is a Shredder beta tester. He confirms there is an option for hourglass time control. So I'm waiting in excitement.

UCI protocol had to be modified to let engines comprehend the time format. Stephan is capable to modify UCI.

[Andrew]

If you're ever searching for a mate score from a position, Shredder 13 is a great program to have
in your toolkit. Sometimes it will perform much worse than other recent engines, but quite often it will perform much
better. Not sure why this is, if there is something its search code that is digging deeper into some endgame positions?
I'm using it with the larger of the two shredderbase files, not sure if this is a part of it.

I've also found Crystal 220819 can give good resuls

Andrew