Tablebases in Fritz17

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Patishi
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2020 9:20 pm
Full name: Assaf Patishi

Tablebases in Fritz17

Post by Patishi »

Hi,
In Fritz software you can set Tablebases for "engine" and also for "GUI". If I understand correctly the GUI option is for playing the move right away without the engine even doing anything (if a tablebase move is found), and the "engine" option is for the engine to use during analysis.
Until now I only used the "Engine" option. Do you recommend using also the GUI? I am afraid that it can slow down the engine.

For the record, I have a pretty fast pc: I9 10900k (10 cores @4.9ghz), 32gb- 3600mhz- cl16 ram, samsung 970 evo plus nvme ssd...
But still.. maybe I am off without the GUI using the tablebases.

Also, just a general question: is there any benefit of using the tablebases at all? Do you use it? I didn't notice any actual strength improvement when doing matches between engines.
Thx.
syzygy
Posts: 5866
Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:56 pm

Re: Tablebases in Fritz17

Post by syzygy »

Patishi wrote: Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:35 am In Fritz software you can set Tablebases for "engine" and also for "GUI". If I understand correctly the GUI option is for playing the move right away without the engine even doing anything (if a tablebase move is found), and the "engine" option is for the engine to use during analysis.
Until now I only used the "Engine" option. Do you recommend using also the GUI? I am afraid that it can slow down the engine.
If the engine uses the TBs, I see no reason to let the GUI use them too for playing. In all likelihood, the Fritz TB implementation is not optimal and will fail to play the best move in certain circumstances. The engine TB code may have bugs too, but then it's the engine's own fault it plays a bad move.
Also, just a general question: is there any benefit of using the tablebases at all? Do you use it? I didn't notice any actual strength improvement when doing matches between engines.
If you use 6-piece Syzygy TBs from SSD and the engine's TB code isn't too bad, they make the engine play stronger if you don't allocate all your RAM to the engines' hash tables.
corres
Posts: 3657
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 11:41 am
Location: hungary

Re: Tablebases in Fritz17

Post by corres »

Patishi wrote: Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:35 am In Fritz software you can set Tablebases for "engine" and also for "GUI". If I understand correctly the GUI option is for playing the move right away without the engine even doing anything (if a tablebase move is found), and the "engine" option is for the engine to use during analysis.
Until now I only used the "Engine" option. Do you recommend using also the GUI? I am afraid that it can slow down the engine.
You are right.
If you set for GUI to use TBS it will lessen the time of the games because the GUI will move at once without any thinking time. But GUI can use TBS if the number of figures on the board are <= members of TBS and you need Nalimov TBS for GUI. Using TBS for GUI it will not slow down the search of engine at all.
For engines like Stockfish, Komodo, Houdini, etc. you need syzygy also for analysis purpose.
Using 6 men syzygy the engine may yield ~5 Elo, but there are cases when engine can not find the best move with syzygy but only without syzygy.