Komodo 5 release now available!

[Uri Blass]

Some people may view the opening as irrelevant since it is possible to obtain comprehensive opening books (which can be considered part of the game playing system) and that is a legitimate point of view - however it's easy to get a program out of the opening with a few non-standard but not ridiculous moves in which case the program will be on it's own and will need to be able to play the opening well.

I think that if you get the program out of book by non standard moves you do not lose the game but you clearly get relatively worse position in most cases so testing with very short opening books does not give a good estimate what the program can practically do in tournaments when both sides use books(if you choose to give komodo a book with non standard moves then maybe komodo is going to play the opening relatively better than the opponent but it also is going to start from slightly worse position).

I am also not sure if komodo is better with very short book at long time control.
Being relatively better in evaluating the opening stage does not help much at long time control when the program already search middle game positions even in the early opening stage.

[WuShock]

i7 / 940 @ 2.93 , Ponder On , 512 mb , W7 , F11 , 1 thread ea , klo_150\






[/code]

Code: Select all

Different result from ponder off , maybe random ?

I DL the Perfect 2012 book , but it is .ctg . When I get the klo openings to work , they are in .pgn format . Do I need to put the .ctg file in a diff location , or change it somehow to a .pgn database ?

Thanks for the help...... not all of us are geniuses

Tom

[peter]

If you are measuring overall strength,

Sorry, Don, I know what you mean, but probably you didn't take my long posting for quite serious, I really meant it literally:
You cannot measure overall strength, in now way, by no means, never ever.

That's not my stubborness, it has a simple and undisputable reason for me: there isn't such a thing as overall strength as for playing chess.
Not as for human players and not as for engines: every man and every engine has its strengthes as for the one position of opening, middlegame and endgame more for the other less, as well as compared to the one opponent more as to the other.

You can make agreements as for the opening positions and as for the opponents to test with and against, but the more similiar the engines' "overall" strengthes get, as for these certain opening positions and the sample of opponents of your agreement, the more games you need to play to get any statistical meanings out of your tests.
Here we are at the point where no more progress can be expected by going on an on testing in these old ways of agreement of positions and opponents only, Elo in the range comparable to human players have no more statistical power as for the outcomings, as you know better then most others do, by amounts of games that can be played against a representative sample of opening positions and opponents.

The more engines there are of more and more similiarities, not only but especially in this meaning, to deal with short books of broad distribution but one very clear similarity, to be of about -0.20 to +0.20 eval (engine's eval of course ), and not to far away from the one and only starting position, the more games you have to play to get statistical significance at all, and the more the choice of the opponents to test against get important and determinant as for the outcome.

By the way thanks for your great engine to be bought by a fair price, I'm one of your very confident customers, as well as I am such of Mr. Houdart too, Komodo and Houdini are good opponents to me over the board and I am quite sure this will get even more so, when SMP version of K5 will be there!

All the best

[Don]

Some people may view the opening as irrelevant since it is possible to obtain comprehensive opening books (which can be considered part of the game playing system) and that is a legitimate point of view - however it's easy to get a program out of the opening with a few non-standard but not ridiculous moves in which case the program will be on it's own and will need to be able to play the opening well.

I think that if you get the program out of book by non standard moves you do not lose the game but you clearly get relatively worse position in most cases so testing with very short opening books does not give a good estimate what the program can practically do in tournaments when both sides use books(if you choose to give komodo a book with non standard moves then maybe komodo is going to play the opening relatively better than the opponent but it also is going to start from slightly worse position).

If you start from non-standard positions it does not have to be inferior positions but even if it is slightly inferior, that is easily compensated for by the fact that your program is superior in the opening and you can force him into using clock time to do what YOU do better. It's stupid to let him cruise into the part of the game he does best without even taking a time hit.

I am also not sure if komodo is better with very short book at long time control.

I'm not sure either. That is a working hypothesis and I don't believe until I can prove with some experiment. However I do think it's very likely and Larry has a huge amount of experience with Komodo at very long thinking time in his opening book analysis projects and strongly believes Komodo is superior to every other program for this purpose. (which address you next point since this is not short time control stuff.)

Being relatively better in evaluating the opening stage does not help much at long time control when the program already search middle game positions even in the early opening stage.

But I'm talking only about long time controls. I don't know how Komodo does at short time controls with the opening. Maybe it's superior there too?

Mathematically however you have fallen prey to a common fallacy which is that at long time controls the program is thinking 10 times deeper. No, it doesn't work that way. It may be thinking 10 times LONGER but it's not searching 10 times deeper. In the first couple of seconds of search Komodo and any other program has completely most of the depth it's going to unless you are playing correspondence chess, and even then it probably is searching at least half the depth in the first 2 or 3 seconds.

[Don]

Maybe I missed it, but what is the time control? What is F11?

i7 / 940 @ 2.93 , Ponder On , 512 mb , W7 , F11 , 1 thread ea , klo_150\






[/code]

Code: Select all

Different result from ponder off , maybe random ?

I DL the Perfect 2012 book , but it is .ctg . When I get the klo openings to work , they are in .pgn format . Do I need to put the .ctg file in a diff location , or change it somehow to a .pgn database ?

Thanks for the help...... not all of us are geniuses

Tom

[MM]

Maybe I missed it, but what is the time control? What is F11?

i7 / 940 @ 2.93 , Ponder On , 512 mb , W7 , F11 , 1 thread ea , klo_150\






[/code]

Code: Select all

Different result from ponder off , maybe random ?

I DL the Perfect 2012 book , but it is .ctg . When I get the klo openings to work , they are in .pgn format . Do I need to put the .ctg file in a diff location , or change it somehow to a .pgn database ?

Thanks for the help...... not all of us are geniuses

Tom

F11 should be Fritz 11 gui..time control don't know...possibly 10 seconds per game (?)

[velmarin]

W7, F11

Windows 7, Fritz 11
in vague plan, I guess

[WuShock]

[/code]

Code: Select all

  Time Control was  1 min + 1 sec  ,  like previous

Tom

[rvida]

Is Komodo particularly good compared to other programs (such as Houdini?) Right now it's just a hypothesis - at least for me. I will construct some tests to prove or disprove this. I think Larry believes it is true since he has spent an enormous amount of time getting familiar with Komodo for the book he published and he believes Komodo is the best program of all for opening book preparation.

Why not implement ches960 support then? It would surely help to prove or disprove your hypothesis. Btw. looking at CCRL 40/4 FRC list, I might start spreading a hypothesis too ... Also note the 100 elo gap between #2 and #3 (and between #4 - #5). It would be nice if more strong engines supported FRC.

Code: Select all

CCRL 404FRC Rating List - All engines, best versions only

Rank           Engine            ELO   +    -   Score  AvOp  Games
 1 Critter 1.6 64-bit         3289  +22  -22  76.7% -212.8   900
 2 Houdini 2.0 64-bit         3280  +18  -18  69.4% -156.8  1200
 3 Stockfish 2.2.2 64-bit     3182  +17  -17  60.2%  -81.7  1300
 4 Rybka 4 64-bit             3170  +14  -14  61.4%  -87.0  1800
 5 Naum 4.2 64-bit            3029  +12  -11  48.8%   +6.8  3100
 6 Shredder 12                3020  +12  -12  45.3%  +32.3  2900

[Hood]

Testing K5 v. H2 only may give biased results. i would say even shall.