Robodini

[geots]

(my guess for biggest improvement: space eval...missing entirely in Ippolit source code, just see Stockfish for a good one)

Bingo!

Well, to be honest, I don't believe it is the biggest improvement (except for Chess960)... Just that it is in there. And it is computed exactly the same way as in Stockfish btw.

Which version of Houdini added space eval? We tried a version of it quite a while ago in Komodo but could detect no benefit. Perhaps it's worth re-visiting.

In your opinion, is the big jump in Houdini 3 due to anything really original and significant (i.e. double-digit elo gains) or just to Stockfish ideas, parameter tuning, and a few small items here and there?

Larry, you are way too smart to be asking a question like this. "Parameter tuning and a few small items here and there"............... And the same with Robbo ideas= Houdini. If that is all there was to it, do you not think we would have had Houdini's multiplying faster than rabbits. In a discussion back in 2012 right here that 5 or 6 programmers were involved in, Robert gave away his "secret/secrets". And they were all too busy talking to even listen. Which did not even surprise me. Which prompted me a short time later to put up an offer right here- 5000 dollars against 1000 of theirs. To any programmer who could gut RobboLito and any other Ippolits- take some- take all. And in a decided reasonable period of time- catch Houdini 2. Of course that shut the talk up- no takers. Are you shocked?

You told me in 2011 in a thread on the Rybka forum that little or no strength > was gained by Vas from anything he took from Fruit. You said that came from his "unbelievable ability." (I believe "unbelievable" was the word you used- meant the same thing.) You said what he took basically just cut corners and saved him some time. And that bears out- because after he studied Fruit- his first effort after was over 220 elo stronger than Fruit. His next was over 300 elo stronger! If Fruit held those kinds of secrets, why weren't other programmers all over it?! Answer: they were. That was when they got the rude awakening. Vas was on a different planet from them. You know the planet- the same one Robert has joined him on- where the 2 programmers now reside. It is s_i_m_p_l_e: There are no other programmers out there with anything close to the talents that Vas and Robert possess. Not even remotely close.



Best, with all due repect to you,

george

[geots]

Which version of Houdini added space eval? We tried a version of it quite a while ago in Komodo but could detect no benefit. Perhaps it's worth re-visiting.

In your opinion, is the big jump in Houdini 3 due to anything really original and significant (i.e. double-digit elo gains) or just to Stockfish ideas, parameter tuning, and a few small items here and there?

And here it is an example of someone of the party of those that insist that what Robert did is "easy" trying to desperately understand how he did it, some way, to make that connection that's "not important".

A little hint, for God's sake!

Oh well... whatever you want.

You are 100% correct about most of them- but to Larry's credit- as far as I know he has never said it was "easy". He is one who has been fair to Robert.


Best,

george

[Lavir]

The sad thing is he and his creation are not safe anymore after releasing Robbodini 1.1......
Dr.D

Robbodini source has not been published so level of safety has remained intact.

Do you think Richard will not use that code and share it with others that have the mutual and "noble" (as it has been called) passion of surpassing the"copier"? And naturally all of this to the benefit of humanity and originality.

Sure.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

The sad thing is he and his creation are not safe anymore after releasing Robbodini 1.1......
Dr.D

Robbodini source has not been published so level of safety has remained intact.

There is always a possibility of a sudden,unintended leak of information

[lkaufman]

Which version of Houdini added space eval? We tried a version of it quite a while ago in Komodo but could detect no benefit. Perhaps it's worth re-visiting.

In your opinion, is the big jump in Houdini 3 due to anything really original and significant (i.e. double-digit elo gains) or just to Stockfish ideas, parameter tuning, and a few small items here and there?

And here it is an example of someone of the party of those that insist that what Robert did is "easy" trying to desperately understand how he did it, some way, to make that connection that's "not important".

A little hint, for God's sake!

Oh well... whatever you want.

I'm just trying to determine whether Houdart has made an original contribution of importance or just combined the best of Stockfish and Robo plus some tuning. I don't pretend to know the answer myself.

[h1a8]

Exactly.
I don't have anything against Houdart. He is a talented guy. I am just stating the facts.

What I learned reading posts about Rybka and now Houdini is that most fanboys believe what they want to believe. They don't care about the actual facts and there is no point in arguing with them. So I will stop here.

The problem is "What are the facts?"

Calling something a fact doesn't make it one.

I think we are mixing up facts with opinions. We probably mostly agree on the facts but we disagree about things that are legal/moral/ethical or just simply a matter of opinion.

For example what we know is a fact is that Houdini IS a modified version of Robbolito. But what we disagree on is whether he innovated, or simply made incremental improvements to this base. But that is a pretty silly thing to even argue about because that is a matter of definition and opinion and is mostly hidden anyway. We disagree on how easy/hard it is to make improvements to an existing strong program but again, that is a pretty silly argument because for some that would be easy and for others it will be difficult.

One forum poster on this thread thinks that "everybody" would be doing it if it were easy but that must be his opinion because how can he know that? That's not a fact, it's an opinion. Did he take a survey to see how many people tried and failed? As far as I know very very few people tried to improve it and the ones that we are aware of DID make significant improvements. So there are hardly any facts being reported here at all, just speculation and opinion.

Richard Vida make a post about Robodini which verifies what we already know - probably the only fact we agree on, that Houdini came from Robbo sources:

Q: How you did it?

A: I took the Robbolito sources and backported all the changes Robert made.

I don't think that fact is in question is it? So what else is there to talk about? Whether Robert Houdart is smart? Did he improve Robbolito significantly? We all agree on the answers to those questions so enough is enough.

When I made my statement I wasn't referring to Houdini being made from robolito. Ludi was saying that it's a fact that Houdini has no innovation in it. It could be a fact but it must be proven. Simply saying it's a fact doesn't make it one. But that is irrelevant anyway.

No matter how credible someone is, then what they say doesn't make it a fact. I'm not defending Houdini, just want to engage in a philosophical discussion.

We can believe in the facts (but not know if they are truly facts).
Believing in the truth and knowing the truth are two different things.

Know- to ascertain through the senses and or mind the truth of something.

Whatever you know must be the truth. But how can we know the truth?
Through direct proof only!

A great example is mathematical proofs.

[lkaufman]

(my guess for biggest improvement: space eval...missing entirely in Ippolit source code, just see Stockfish for a good one)

Bingo!

Well, to be honest, I don't believe it is the biggest improvement (except for Chess960)... Just that it is in there. And it is computed exactly the same way as in Stockfish btw.

Which version of Houdini added space eval? We tried a version of it quite a while ago in Komodo but could detect no benefit. Perhaps it's worth re-visiting.

In your opinion, is the big jump in Houdini 3 due to anything really original and significant (i.e. double-digit elo gains) or just to Stockfish ideas, parameter tuning, and a few small items here and there?

Larry, you are way too smart to be asking a question like this. "Parameter tuning and a few small items here and there"............... And the same with Robbo ideas= Houdini. If that is all there was to it, do you not think we would have had Houdini's multiplying faster than rabbits. In a discussion back in 2012 right here that 5 or 6 programmers were involved in, Robert gave away his "secret/secrets". And they were all too busy talking to even listen. Which did not even surprise me. Which prompted me a short time later to put up an offer right here- 5000 dollars against 1000 of theirs. To any programmer who could gut RobboLito and any other Ippolits- take some- take all. And in a decided reasonable period of time- catch Houdini 2. Of course that shut the talk up- no takers. Are you shocked?

You told me in 2011 in a thread on the Rybka forum that little or no strength > was gained by Vas from anything he took from Fruit. You said that came from his "unbelievable ability." (I believe "unbelievable" was the word you used- meant the same thing.) You said what he took basically just cut corners and saved him some time. And that bears out- because after he studied Fruit- his first effort after was over 220 elo stronger than Fruit. His next was over 300 elo stronger! If Fruit held those kinds of secrets, why weren't other programmers all over it?! Answer: they were. That was when they got the rude awakening. Vas was on a different planet from them. You know the planet- the same one Robert has joined him on- where the 2 programmers now reside. It is s_i_m_p_l_e: There are no other programmers out there with anything close to the talents that Vas and Robert possess. Not even remotely close.



Best, with all due repect to you,

george

I don't know how much of Robert's gain over Ivanhoe was due to original ideas, but it seems that Richard Vida does know the answer to this question, at least roughly. If much of it came from adding Stockfish ideas to Ivanhoe, well, that is legitimate, but hardly puts Robert in the same category as Vas. Rybka was full of original ideas.

[Lavir]

I'm just trying to determine whether Houdart has made an original contribution of importance or just combined the best of Stockfish and Robo plus some tuning.

Do you understand that there's no difference at all between the two? The only difference is on "knowledge parameters" for those that could benefit from the same, as chess engines authors in this case; philosophically (and so for ascertain the "revolutionary" status or not) there's no difference at all between the two. Re-read what I wrote about connections.

It doesn't matter at all the way you construct the connection (modus operandi, approach etc.) and how "large" it is, if there's a connection where there was none before by any other in any other way, then it's already a "revolutionary" idea, because before that idea others couldn't do the same and could not achieve the same nor think about a way to fill that gap.

If he combined ideas from Robbo and Stockfish in a certain peculiar way that nobody can understand or if he implemented something more and specific himself or something in between makes no difference at all on the status of the idea; it is in both cases a NEW creation, because it is a connection where before there was none.

[lkaufman]

I'm just trying to determine whether Houdart has made an original contribution of importance or just combined the best of Stockfish and Robo plus some tuning.

Do you understand that there's no difference at all between the two? The only difference is on "knowledge parameters" for those that could benefit from the same, as chess engines authors in this case; philosophically (and so for ascertain the "revolutionary" status or not) there's no difference at all between the two. Re-read what I wrote about connections.

It doesn't matter at all the way you construct the connection (modus operandi, approach etc.) and how "large" it is, if there's a connection where there was none before by any other in any other way, then it's already a "revolutionary" idea, because before that idea others couldn't do the same and could not achieve the same nor think about a way to fill that gap.

If he combined ideas from Robbo and Stockfish in a certain peculiar way that nobody can understand or if he implemented something more and specific himself or something in between makes no difference at all on the status of the idea; it is in both cases a NEW creation, because it is a connection where before there was none.

I disagree. Combining ideas from other engines may be good engineering, but doesn't require any original thinking, just some hard work. Maybe nobody got around to trying some specific Stockfish ideas in Ippo code before Houdart did, either because it's a lot of work and testing or because they didn't judge the likelihood of success to be worth the trouble. He deserves credit for taking the time to find out which Stockfish ideas work in Ippo, but he would deserve a lot more credit if the gains came from some previously unknown idea. I'd like to know which is the case.

[Lavir]

I disagree. Combining ideas from other engines may be good engineering, but doesn't require any original thinking, just some hard work. Maybe nobody got around to trying some specific Stockfish ideas in Ippo code before Houdart did, either because it's a lot of work and testing or because they didn't judge the likelihood of success to be worth the trouble. He deserves credit for taking the time to find out which Stockfish ideas work in Ippo, but he would deserve a lot more credit if the gains came from some previously unknown idea. I'd like to know which is the case.

Naturally the most common are the parameters to work with, the more is improbable that those will be used, elsewhere others would have been able to do the same.

This means that it's highly improbable that Robert just mixed up ideas of Robbo and Stockfish alone, because anybody with a bit of time would have been able to come up with the same much probably.

So what you say is true in this sense, but it still doesn't change anything on the "quality" of the idea even if something at that happens. Even if you mix up already existent ideas to produce something new, the result is always the same as creating something new to begin with: it's still something new. It doesn't exist something "more new" or "less new"; if you can think so it's just because in the way you filter things (unconsciously) you probably give more emphasis to a certain approach in comparison to another, but factually speaking there's indeed no difference.

There's no difference at all between what Soutine has done and what Van Gogh has done when it comes to painting, even if Soutine "just" used ideas already existent and "mixed" them up to create something unique while Van Gogh did the same starting from Millet but then adding something completely his own: the result in both cases is a type of structure that was completely new and not seen before. It's impossible to say that the new of Soutine is worse than the new of Van Gogh, it would not make any sense.