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    Entries in Komodo (47)

    Tuesday
    May032016

    TCEC Season 9 is Underway

    Even though no one is actually playing chess in the Top Chess Engines Championship (formerly known as the Thoresen Chess Engines Competition), strictly speaking, it is reasonable on another level to view it as the real world chess championship, as the best engines - currently the latest versions of Komodo and Stockfish - spit out moves at what would be a 3300+ rating clip if they came from the minds of mortal men. As such, the games are of interest, even if they are not always as accessible as battles between humans. (Which are themselves sometimes relatively inaccessible, both because of the strength of the strongest humans, and because their ideas are often the product of a collaboration with chess engines.)

    The event, which will last several months, starts with a field of 32 engines who will be whittled down, step by step, to a final between Komodo and Stockfish the two survivors of the three preliminary stages. (More details here.) As I've already suggested twice, Komodo and Stockfish are significant favorites to reach the final for the fifth time in the last six seasons, but perhaps Houdini will break up the party. The current version of Houdini is quite old - it came out in late 2013 - but its programmer, Robert Houdart, has promised that a new version will come out at some point during the competition. As TCEC rules allow switches to upgraded versions after each stage (assuming the engine in question has qualified for the next stage), Houdart still has a fair amount of time to make his improvements before the start of Stage 3.

    (HT: Howard Sample, for reminding me that the event had started.)

    Wednesday
    Apr062016

    Komodo 9.42, Get It While You Can

    Nearly a year ago I purchased Komodo 9 and a one-year subscription, meaning that whenever a new version came out during that time it could be downloaded for no further cost. I have no complaints about the engine, but their notification policy is less than impressive - there are no notifications. (This despite my requesting to be put on a list, and the representative for the company agreeing to do so!) When a TCEC competition is ongoing it's easier to notice when an upgrade comes out, but nowadays it's easier to miss. Version 9.4 came out March 18, and by accident I discovered that a further mini-upgrade came out March 21 - version 9.42.

    So for those of you who might have bought the one-year subscription when version 9 first came out, be sure to download the latest and greatest version - it is stronger than its predecessor, and the year is coming to an end in about 3 weeks.

    [N.B. The title should not be taken to imply that the Komodo program is disappearing. As far as I know, the company is in good health and they will continue improving their engine indefinitely.]

    Tuesday
    Mar292016

    Komodo vs. Benjamin Odds Match

    The chess engines are at it again. Komodo 9.4 won an odds match against GM Joel Benjamin last week, 2.5-1.5. (HT: Vladimir) Joel Benjamin is a good GM, but not as active as he used to be and not as strong as Hikaru Nakamura, who lost an odds match to Komodo last year, so the odds he received were even greater than those given Nakamura:

    1. Five moves within the first four ranks.
    2. Rook for knight (a8 for b1, Wr moved to b1) and move.
    3. f7 pawn removed and two moves.
    4. Queen for two bishops.

    The computer won the first game and drew the remaining three. Interestingly, Nakamura also did fine in the material odds games, but also lost the "free tempi" game (though he "only" got four moves). The next human sacrifice will be Eugene Perelshteyn in April; hopefully there will be a man-bites-computer story to tell for a change.

    Wednesday
    Jan132016

    Komodo Defeats Nakamura in an Odds Match

    Ah, those pesky chess engines. Once upon a time they were toys, then good tools for warming up, then equal competitors, and then superior opponents with whom we could at least compete. Now? Fuhgedaboutit. Even the best players have no chance against them--worse, they can't even hold the balance when receiving odds.

    But they do come close - at least the best humans do. Hikaru Nakamura braved a four-game odds match against the latest and greatest engine at the top of the heap, Komodo 9.3, and the match came down to the wire.

    In game 1 Nakamura had White, and Komodo played without the pawn on f7. That game was drawn, as was game 2, in which Komodo took White and started without the pawn on f2. In the third game the odds were a bit heftier: Komodo had White and played without the rook on a1, in return for which Nakamura played without the N@b8 and started with the rook on that square. That game was also drawn.

    Finally, Nakamura received no extra material at the start of the final game, but if the old adage that a pawn is worth three tempi is true he received its equivalent. Playing White, he was given the moves e4, d4, and Nf3 for free, and then started the game from that point with the move. The engine managed to gradually extinguish White's advantage in a sort of King's Indian, and went on to win a very impressive game culminating in a fine ending.

    Nakamura was in the match all the way, and I wouldn't be shocked if he managed to draw or even win a rematch. Will there be any further contests? Let's hope so, and let's hope that humanity can keep up and not let the quantity of the odds grow any bigger (or at least not much bigger).

    The games can be replayed here.

    Wednesday
    Dec022015

    Komodo 9.3 Wins TCEC 8; Regan on Rating Limits

    We've already reported on this event several times, but now that it's officially over we can put it to bed: Komodo 9.3 is the winner of the eighth season of the TCEC (Top Chess Engine Championship), winning with surprising ease against Stockfish (021115), 53.5-46.5. There were, as usual, a LOT of draw - 89 of them - which means that in terms of decisive games Komodo beat Stockfish 9-2.

    Komodo's rating (and Stockfish's too, on TCEC) is above 3200. This is obviously well beyond the range of even the finest carbon-based chess players in the world, but how would Komodo fare against, say, a 32-piece tablebase? (I would say "against God", but divine omniscience extends beyond the ability to play "perfect" chess - God could choose among the equally "perfect" options those which would be hardest for Komodo to handle.) One might think that such a question is not only unanswerable with any specificity, but unanswerable period. Not being able to play perfectly ourselves, who knows?

    I'm not sure that Ken Regan knows, but he has offered some of his musing on the topic, and he suspects that the rating of a perfect player may be around 3600. We'll see!

    Thursday
    Nov262015

    Computer Chess News: Komodo Grilling Stockfish; Rybka's Rajlich Returns with Fritz 15

    I'm not sure if the cause is more Komodo's excellence or something wrong with Stockfish, but after 84 of 100 games in the TCEC Superfinal the match is as good as over. Komodo is leading by six points, 45-39, and is succeeding with both colors. Komodo won games 1 and 13 with white, and after a long series of draws Stockfish won game 36 with white to close to within half a point. Surprisingly, Komodo won games 38 and 46 with black, and then after an even longer run of draws Komodo won 72 with black, and then won game 78 (with black) and game 83 (with white).

    Meanwhile, in other computer chess news Vas Rajlich is back. Rajlich achieved great fame several years ago when his program Rybka soared to the top of the rating lists and maintained its lead with an iron grip. His empire collapsed after a few years when a series of Russian-based programs (Ippolit, Fire, etc.) challenged Rybka's supremacy. Rajlich accused those programs of hacking his code, but then accusations came from others that Rajlich had inappropriately taken code from the chess engines Crafty and Fruit. After a storm of controversy, Rybka stopped getting updated and other engines surpassed Rybka - first Houdini and then the duumvirate of Komodo and Stockfish.

    Now Rajlich is back as the programmer of Fritz 15. Fritz 14 was miles and miles behind the top programs, so even if he has made some big improvements to the industry leader of the mid-90s, it remains to be seen whether it has any relevance to the world of elite engines in the mid-2010s. If it does, that would be a good thing for engine consumers, as it will (hopefully) push the Komodo and Stockfish teams to work even harder to remain the industry standards.

    Saturday
    Nov212015

    TCEC Season 8 Update: Komodo Leads by Three Games at the 2/3 Mark

    We'll go on a bit of a blogathon today, and will start with some low-hanging fruit. After 67 (of 100) games in the TCEC Season 8 Superfinal between Komodo (9.3x) and Stockfish (021115), Komodo leads by three games. The games have been interesting, but chess at the 3200 level being what it is a whopping 62 games have been drawn, with Komodo having a 4-1 edge in decisive results, including two wins with the black pieces. (Stockfish is doing pretty well so far in game 68 though, so its fans shouldn't give up all hope just yet.)

    Update: The title had the result backward. Rest assured, reptophiles, it is Komodo that's in the lead.

    Saturday
    Nov142015

    TCEC Superfinal Update: Komodo Leads 20-18; 62 Games Remain

    There have been lots of draws so far in the Season 8 Superfinal of the Top Engines Chess Competition (TCEC), but Komodo has managed to win three games while Stockfish has won but one.

    The last game, game 38, was won by Komodo, and it was an impressive victory. That said, it also revealed one of the things engines still struggle with this, or - perhaps more precisely put - still cannot do: recognize in some conceptual way that a position is drawn. Failing to recognize a fortress as a fortress is the most familiar manifestation of this shortcoming, but not the only one. Pull up the game from the file structure (Season 8-Superfinal-game 38) on the archive page, and look at the position before White's 87th move. The plan with 87.Rf3 followed by 89.h4 is horrible, and practically speaking, it would be horrible even if it somehow turned out to be a draw.

    Before striking on this "opportunity", Stockfish (and Komodo too) seemed to focus on lines where White kept his rook active on the queenside, being sure to be able to defend the d-pawn. In those scenarios Black would almost surely have to play ...R~3 followed by ...Nxh3(+) Bxh3 Rxh3 at some point, and the resulting endgame would be drawn. (If I'm not mistaken, it wouldn't even be a difficult draw.) A human seeing this would just stick to the program, steadfastly ignoring rabbit trails that might in some utterly meaningless sense be - or in this case, merely seem, briefly - one tenth of a pawn better. And the human would be right: there isn't anything to calculate or figure out; the work has been done and the half point is there for the taking.

    This is not some sort of quirk that only pertains to Stockfish; Komodo lost to Jonny in the so-called world computer championship in the same way: it had a positional draw but got attracted to some utterly non-simple option that was microscopically better in its evaluation. The refutation took some time (and was beautiful), but it was there and Jonny went on to win. The important thing to realize is that this wasn't "bad luck". Komodo, like Stockfish in the ongoing TCEC, went from a simple draw - a draw requiring only maintenance - to one (not really, but if it had worked) where the game remained a game and thus more work would be needed to save the game.

    I say this not to criticize any programmers. This sort of problem has been around forever, and perhaps it's simply impossible or too costly (from an efficiency standpoint) to fix, at least at this point in time. (Maybe those of you more familiar with the nuts and bolts of programming chess-playing programs can weigh in on how, whether and when such problems can be fixed.) It's interesting that while so many of the things that chess computers supposedly can't do are now routine, this problem continues without any signs of abating.

    Tuesday
    Nov032015

    TCEC Superfinal Starts Friday

    I had initially thought the TCEC Superfinal was to start today, but in fact it starts on Friday at 1 p.m. ET (= 7 p.m. CET). Here (from the event website) are the rules for the final stage, which will be between Komodo and Stockfish:

    Superfinal
    This match is played with 50 different openings so that each engine plays both black and white of the same position. The match will be presented with opening 1 used in games 1 and 2, then opening 2 used in games 3 and 4 etc. If the match is theoretically won for one side before game 100, the match will still continue until all 100 games have been played. In the case of a drawn match there will be a rapid match of 16 games with a time control of 25' + 10" with random openings selected from earlier in the same Season. In case it is still tied there will be a Blitz match of 8 games with a time control of 3' + 2". When the Superfinal is over, the current Season ends.

    Friday
    Oct302015

    Komodo and Stockfish Qualify For the TCEC Superfinal

    For the fifth straight season (sort of - see below), the TCEC (formerly the "Thoresen Chess Engines Competition", now renamed the "Top Chess Engines Competition") will have a Komodo-Stockfish final. Komodo won seasons five and seven, while Stockfish won season six and a special sub-season six for Fischer-random chess. Who will the superfinal for season 8? The monster match will begin November 3, here.