Ethereal & Schooner seems to be "Big Monsters"

[D Sceviour]

1. The 203 move problem. Very often after 203 moves (without resign mode, Shredder GUI, have a look in the tournament rules) the game ended for Schooner and Shredder GUI crashed.
Frank

Might be worth noting that a typical uci string of "position startpos moves ..." followed by 203 moves by both players just barely comes in at > 2048 characters. Too small a buffer size is a good suspect.

I have confirmed that it appears as a UCI problem only. Schooner is primarily an xboard engine. However, I believe Shredder GUI only supports UCI engines. A fix for the UCI move 203 buffer crash is planned for a future release. As a temporary workaround, an xboard->uci adapter might bypass the problem but I do not have Shredder to test this.

[D Sceviour]

And now Schooner.
The game is for humans for sure very complicated.
But Schooner like such things (saw that in other games too, here the perfect example) and it seems the style is very speculative with aggressive knight, rooks and bishop moves. Not sure for the moment but the strength in middlegames seems to produced not with aggressive pawns. That is indeed very interesting! Need more of such games because such a style is new for me.

[pgn][Event "FCP Tourney-2020"]
[Site "Trier"]
[Date "2020.06.28"]
[Round "1.35"]
[White "Schooner 2.2 SSE x64"]
[Black "Igel 2.5.0 BMI2 x64"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B88"]
[PlyCount "87"]
[EventDate "2020.??.??"]
[EventType "tourn"]
[EventRounds "50"]
[EventCountry "GER"]
[SourceTitle "FCP Tourney-2020"]
[Source "Frank Quisinsky"]
[SourceDate "2020.07.02"]
[SourceVersion "2"]
[SourceVersionDate "2020.07.02"]
[SourceQuality "1"]

1. e4 {book 0s} c5 {book 0s} 2. Nf3 {book 0s} e6 {book 0s} 3. d4 {book 0s} cxd4
{book 0s} 4. Nxd4 {book 0s} Nc6 {book 0s} 5. Nc3 {book 0s} d6 {book 0s} 6. Bc4
{book 0s} Nf6 {book 0s} 7. Bb3 {book 0s} a6 {book 0s} 8. f4 {book 0s} Qc7 {
book 0s} 9. Be3 {book 0s} b5 {book 0s} 10. Qf3 {book 0s} Bb7 {book 0s} 11. f5 {
[%eval 37,27] [%emt 0:00:31]} Ne5 {[%eval 1,27] [%emt 0:02:10]} 12. Qf4 {
[%eval 48,29] [%emt 0:02:05] (Qh3)} b4 {[%eval 28,27] [%emt 0:00:55]} 13. Nce2
{[%eval 41,26] [%emt 0:00:28] (Na4)} exf5 {[%eval 0,26] [%emt 0:01:02]} 14.
Ba4+ {[%eval 35,28] [%emt 0:01:27] (Nxf5)} Kd8 {[%eval 0,25] [%emt 0:00:56]}
15. Qxf5 {[%eval 47,28] [%emt 0:01:17]} Bxe4 {[%eval 0,26] [%emt 0:01:43]} 16.
Qg5 {[%eval 57,31] [%emt 0:05:14]} Kc8 {[%eval -42,28] [%emt 0:01:54]} 17. O-O
{[%eval 53,27] [%emt 0:00:15]} Qb7 {[%eval -58,26] [%emt 0:00:57]} 18. c3 {
[%eval 93,26] [%emt 0:00:21] (Bf4)} a5 {[%eval 0,27] [%emt 0:01:24]} 19. cxb4 {
[%eval 81,26] [%emt 0:00:14] (Rac1)} h6 {[%eval -29,24] [%emt 0:00:30]} 20. Qg3
{[%eval 129,28] [%emt 0:00:14]} axb4 {[%eval 0,23] [%emt 0:00:27]} 21. Bb5 {
[%eval 122,27] [%emt 0:00:47] (Bb3)} h5 {[%eval 0,28] [%emt 0:01:05]} 22. h4 {
[%eval 133,29] [%emt 0:00:32] (a4)} Kb8 {[%eval -111,22] [%emt 0:00:56]} 23. a4
{[%eval 98,27] [%emt 0:00:55] (Bd2)} bxa3 {[%eval -49,23] [%emt 0:00:34]} 24.
bxa3 {[%eval 127,25] [%emt 0:00:24]} Nfg4 {[%eval 0,23] [%emt 0:00:47]} 25. Bf4
{[%eval 211,27] [%emt 0:00:15]} Ra5 {[%eval 0,24] [%emt 0:00:32]} 26. Rfb1 {
[%eval 289,28] [%emt 0:00:23] (a4)} Bxb1 {[%eval 0,28] [%emt 0:00:25]} 27. Rxb1
{[%eval 328,30] [%emt 0:00:18]} Kc8 {[%eval 0,28] [%emt 0:00:10]} 28. Qe1 {
[%eval 401,28] [%emt 0:00:11] (Rc1+)} Ra7 {[%eval 0,24] [%emt 0:00:33]} 29. Nc3
{[%eval 342,27] [%emt 0:00:12] (Rc1+)} Ra5 {[%eval 0,24] [%emt 0:00:33]} 30.
Ne4 {[%eval 485,27] [%emt 0:00:10] (Nce2)} Ra7 {[%eval 17,23] [%emt 0:00:31]}
31. Nf2 {[%eval 716,26] [%emt 0:00:19] (Rc1+)} Qd5 {[%eval 166,25] [%emt 0:00:
12]} 32. Rc1+ {[%eval 920,28] [%emt 0:00:11]} Rc7 {[%eval 168,23] [%emt 0:00:
27]} 33. Rxc7+ {[%eval 1140,34] [%emt 0:00:09]} Kxc7 {[%eval 665,26] [%emt 0:
00:14]} 34. Qa5+ {[%eval 1336,38] [%emt 0:00:40]} Kb8 {[%eval 665,28] [%emt 0:
00:24]} 35. Nc6+ {[%eval 1452,39] [%emt 0:00:43]} Nxc6 {[%eval 747,29] [%emt 0:
00:11]} 36. Qb6+ {[%eval 1516,39] [%emt 0:00:21]} Kc8 {[%eval 707,27] [%emt 0:
00:21]} 37. Bxc6 {[%eval 1492,39] [%emt 0:00:11]} Qf5 {[%eval 848,30] [%emt 0:
00:08]} 38. Ne4 {[%emt 0:00:08] +M-1376/28} Ne5 {[%eval 848,31] [%emt 0:00:09]}
39. Nc5 {[%emt 0:00:07] +M-1377/33 (Bxe5)} Nf3+ {[%eval 32756,44] [%emt 0:00:
19]} 40. Kh1 {[%emt 0:00:01] +M-1378/99} Qb1+ {[%eval 32758,45] [%emt 0:00:05]}
41. Qxb1 {[%emt 0:00:00] +M-1379/99} Ne5 {[%eval 32760,50] [%emt 0:00:09]} 42.
Qb7+ {[%emt 0:00:00] +M-1380/99 (Bxe5)} Kd8 {book 0s} 43. Bxe5 {[%emt 0:00:00]
+M-1381/99} dxe5 {[%eval 32764,68] [%emt 0:00:05]} 44. Qd7# {[%emt 0:00:00]
+M-1382/99} 1-0

[/pgn]

Here is an additional programmers note. Schooner has always had an extra wide null move search window. This invites piece sacrifices, and this makes a very aggressive attacking style at just the proper moment in the game. There is no loss (or gain) in overall elo strength for doing this; it only affects the style. With the large additional depths now available, Schooner can often announce mate in less than 30 moves.

The observation that the pawns are less aggressive is interesting. Perhaps I will try a user null move search flag that can change the style to "aggressive with pawns".

Interesting.. What do you mean extra wide null move search window. So you don't search around beta-1, beta, but something wider? I don't get how that would change things to do with piece sacs.

Not beta, but alpha or whatever the best score is. This can be a positional evaluation or a hash score. If the best score is very large, the null move search is ignored. Thus, sacrifices are invited. I remember posting something about this a long time ago when Schooner was about 2500-2600. No one was interested.

[silentshark]

Not beta, but alpha or whatever the best score is. This can be a positional evaluation or a hash score. If the best score is very large, the null move search is ignored. Thus, sacrifices are invited. I remember posting something about this a long time ago when Schooner was about 2500-2600. No one was interested.

lol, maybe they should have been interested, given the great chess your engine plays

I must admit, I don't quite get what you're saying. Forever, the thought behind nullmove has been along the lines of 'if side to move is doing well, and can even give up a move, and is still doing well following a shallow search, the position must be so good, we can cut'.

Hence the generic implementations of only doing null move in a positive position, reducing depth on the nullmove search, minimising search window, looking for that beta cutoff.

What you are saying sounds very different.. 'don't do null move if side to move is well ahead'?

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi there,

not sure, who is "Silentshark".
Tom King

The MChess killer!

Looking on your site and saw the game vs. MChess 1999.
At this time we are playing the Winboard tourneys with Kai Skibbe and Christian Koch.
Kai Skibbe was the operator from Francesca vs. MChess in Paderborn and I saw the game in LIVE mode, made different moves for Francesca. I was in "Winboard Mission" underway in Paderborn. The person sitting on the other site of Francesca is today my neighbor.



Often things will be later interesting (the comment ... no one was interested)
I will try out Schooner in WB mode (I forgot to check that).

Best
Frank

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Denis,

I added the information you gave on the FCP Tourney-2020 site under:
FCP Tourney-2020, logs

Here I collected different interesting information around the tourney.

Thank you again!

Best
Frank