Engines with limited strength

[jefk]

ok thx for comment tapio (but i already know the awesome Lucaschess program),

the 'normalize time' feature only works i think if you play a (practice) game against it
(cq an engine); but i like to play rated games (just to improve my focus) the 'compete' feature
then you can play for 'lucas-elo', and then (certainly in my range) these engines play
instantly not even during the opening phase (after a while you get used to it, and just as
human take your time). You also can play 'tourney elo' (more difficult for average players)
and then the engines take a normal time to respond.

Lucaschess apparently has some 58 engines included (apparently not Madchess for whatever
reason, maybe mr lucas just missed this, and it can be (imo should be) added)

PS In real (internet) life, if you play on chess.com or lichess against an arbitrary
human (instead of bot) , you don't know what sort of style your opponent
is going to play; it can vary a *lot* in my experience (of last 2/3 yrs).
The bots on chess.com are interesting, but it are not rated games and (one
of) my weak point(s) is then going to zap to other tabs (although not adhd).
PS2 years ago i didn't like to play against humans (eg on fics or icc) lots
of shit insults or whatever attempts in the chat(s), now that i'm in the top
5 pct (at least in classic/ rapid, i remain modest) the (human) opponents
usually are polite (no chats, just chess); to improve beyond that
(if you're like me) requires study (*), patience and (more) practice. Meanwhile,
it's only a game, you know, unless you're a super GM you win/lose about
50 pct in your own rating category , which can make most of us more modest;
but it still can be a useful and interesting game (and not destroyed at all
by comps, as some people predicted a decade ago)
https://www.fide.com/news/3233
For the even more (super)social variant, see
https://sourceforge.net/projects/fairchess/

(*) and you need to find useful tips to identify and improve your main weaknesses,
just playing against a bot wont tell you that (not going further into this topic,
this would be more for the chess players (sub)forum (best way to improve
for human players (maybe also for programmers) is to find a good 'coach',
otherwise you might (usually) get stuck at some level and find it
hard to improve on yourself.

[Odd Gunnar Malin]

Hi.
I tried Lucas Chess and it seems like a nice program. Had a little problem to get my DGT board to work correct, both with the DGT driver and the alternative (Graham) driver. I replaced dgtebdll.dll with the latest version from DGT and the board and clock seems to work well. It don't display the pieces correct in the driver, some font issue, but I don't need to look at the driver dialog while playing.
While testing I used the first selection of engine, Irina, which rating do it have? It played quite normal but of a low strength (1200?), but it didn't do "old computer" moves, so it could be good for practice at lower Elo. Maybe even for me on shorter timecontrol, I played 15+10 when testing. Since I play with an e-board I need to have time to move the opponents pieces too.

One missing feature could be that Lucas Chess don't let you set the increment for human bonus time. I use bonus time when I practice endgame. There I set full strength of the engine and use a timecontrol like 1+30 or 5+30 to simulate normal tournament condition. I usually have little time left when I reach these endgames in normal play. What I would like to set is 5+30 for me and 5+10 or even 5+5 for the engine, Stockfish and his friends still will play at 3000+ level, but I will get in more sparring games.

I have played a little with Patricia and the NoomenGambit book. It is a bit overrated, 1800 feels more like 12-1300, and the book is a bit short. Her sacrifices was easy to refute, but it will most probably be better when I reach a higher Elo. Is there any other books that fits the engine?

[jefk]

Is there any other books that fits the engine?

somewhere in the Patricia thread i mentioned a much bigger 'gambits.bin'
book which i made over the years. more fun games compared with a
conventional book (good for training defensive skills against the P4 beast

[Odd Gunnar Malin]

Is there any other books that fits the engine?

somewhere in the Patricia thread i mentioned a much bigger 'gambits.bin'
book which i made over the years. more fun games compared with a
conventional book (good for training defensive skills against the P4 beast

Thanks. I think I found it (gambits.bin). It will play a lot of Qh4 against my Scotch, so I guess I will play some Ruy Lopez against it.

[Rowen]

Hi,
I ran a large swiss tournament (64 competitors, 10 rounds); you might be interested in reading the outcome here.

Thanks, this is useful information.
I will put Wasp on my list. I played a lot with Zarkov in the early 90'. Had it even working together with the (dos) Bookup.

I couldn't find the web-site of Chiron, the link I found didn't seem to work. I had this program on my phone some years ago (ver. 4 I think).

I have played a little with the Maia engine, and tried to make personalities alá Chessmaster ( https://github.com/OGMalin/Binaries ).
I also ran many games to see the difference in strength, statistics here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... id=0#gid=0
Now, I only use use Maia on my Chessnut EVO.

Thanks for sharing your Maia personalities, I see you have found a way to use reduced elo option with Lc0 , I will try to use your ini files/ Methods as a template to get Lc0 to use reduced elo option under fritz so I can play against Lc0 using other nets, Lco can be slowed using NPS but it is still quite strong for me. (my OTB fide classical is just 1670)

I'm working my way up your personalities I m competitive against 'violet' which you have tested as 1700 elo. So quite close to my human FIDE rating.

I find it Seems difficult to play against engines with reduced strength that also demonstrate realistic play. So I try to find weak engines so I dont have to reduce its elo or at least not much. Sargon 1978 V1.01 plays about my level (elo 1670) , at least on a weak laptop. Not easy to find weak engines, although sometimes initial versions of new engines can be beaten.

[Odd Gunnar Malin]

Thanks for sharing your Maia personalities, I see you have found a way to use reduced elo option with Lc0 , I will try to use your ini files/ Methods as a template to get Lc0 to use reduced elo option under fritz so I can play against Lc0 using other nets, Lco can be slowed using NPS but it is still quite strong for me. (my OTB fide classical is just 1670)

I'm working my way up your personalities I m competitive against 'violet' which you have tested as 1700 elo. So quite close to my human FIDE rating.

I find it Seems difficult to play against engines with reduced strength that also demonstrate realistic play. So I try to find weak engines so I dont have to reduce its elo or at least not much. Sargon 1978 V1.01 plays about my level (elo 1670) , at least on a weak laptop. Not easy to find weak engines, although sometimes initial versions of new engines can be beaten.

This was my thought on how Chessnut did it with the EVO board (before I got one myself).
They do the same when you create your own weight file on their site based on games you upload to give the engine different strength when you run it on the EVO.