big fight: 32 chess engines

[jts]

There is a big fight.

No, that's not what I mean. I mean 32 chess engines battling it out in several stages: stage 1, stage 2a, stage 2b, stage 3, stage 4, superfinal.

You can watch it here. http://www.tcec-chess.net/

And here. http://livechess.chessdom.com/site/

Emanuel Lasker, world chess champion 1894-1921, gave a series of lectures about chess. In the first lecture he said:

Gentlemen, It is customary to begin with

definitions, but I am sure that all of you are so well

acquainted with the essential parts of the history,

the rules and the characteristics of Chess, that you

will allow me to jump at once in medias res. Chess

has been represented, or shall I say misrepresented,

as a game that is, a thing which could not well

serve a serious purpose, solely created for the enjoy-

ment of an empty hour. If it were a game only, Chess

would never have survived the serious trials to

which it has, during the long time of its existence,

been often subjected. By some ardent enthusiasts

Chess has been elevated into a science or an art. It

is neither ; but its principal characteristic seems to

be what human nature mostly delights in a fight.

Not a fight, indeed, such as would tickle the nerves

of coarser natures, where blood flows and the blows

delivered leave their visible traces on the bodies of

the combatants, but a fight in which the scientific,

the artistic, the purely intellectual element holds

undivided sway. From this standpoint, a game of

Chess becomes a harmonious whole, the outlines of

which I will endeavor to describe to you in this

course of lectures.

[BaalChatzaf]

Let the Games, begin! We who are about to push wood, salute you!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

Never "got" it. I can push wood, know how the pieces move, have books, even took classes. Basically, ho-hum.

Reminds me of people who scream on roller coasters. When I was a child, I did. Then, I had a class in engineering mechanics. Roller coasters are perfectly contrained. Chess, for all ofi its bazillion possibilities takes place on an 8x8 board. Like a bigger Rubik's Cube but in two dimensions.

[Selene]

Chess is the perfect game, like Go, no luck, no wind,, no dice, just your mind against the other mind and no excuses for losing.

A...

[jts]

So far as I know, skill in chess consists mainly of 2 components: calculation and evaluation. Both are needed to play chess well. Calculation is probably more what is called "left brain" activity. Evaluation is probably more what is called "right brain" activity.

I suspect that neither a nearly pure left brained (logic) person nor a nearly pure right brained (intuition) person could reach the highest level of skill in chess. I suspect that logic and intuition, or calculation and evaluation, work together synergistically, meaning the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That is just my theory and I don't claim to have proof.

Chess engines are holy terrors when it comes to calculation. They can calculate circles around the human mind. For example if you look at the information in the current competition, you will see that they calculate hundreds or even thousands of kilonodes per second. No human mind can do that.

But they are less good at evaluation of position. You can see this if you click off the chat box and it will be replaced with graphs and you will see that it is normal for them to disagree on position evaluation. Programmers have not yet figured out how to tell computers how to evaluate chess positions as accurately as the best human minds do.

When Hydra was making a big splash and no human could beat it, Arno Nickel (world correspondence champion at that time) announced that Hydra was beatable because it sometimes evaluated positions wrongly and no amount of calculation would set it straight. They arranged a 4 game correspondence match and Arno won games 1 and 2, and drew games 3 and 4.

Kasparov made a similar observation about Deep Blue. Kasparov wanted a 3rd match and said he would tear it in pieces in the 3rd match because it sometimes evaluated positions incorrectly, but the 3rd match never happened.

Rybka (or perhaps Fruit) was perhaps the first chess engine to use a method of evaluation better than point count. But it still does not equal the best human intuition for evaluation of position.

Now, in 2013, chess engines are so strong that competing against them is getting to be like competing against a forklift in weight lifting.

[syrakusos]

Chess is the perfect game, like Go, no luck, no wind,, no dice, just your mind against the other mind and no excuses for losing.

So far as I know, skill in chess consists mainly of 2 components: calculation and evaluation. ... Now, in 2013, chess engines are so strong that competing against them is getting to be like competing against a forklift in weight lifting.

So, if we put two and two together to evaluate the position of humanity on Earth, what do we conclude?

[anthony]

Chess is the perfect game, like Go, no luck, no wind,, no dice, just your mind against the other mind and no excuses for losing.

So far as I know, skill in chess consists mainly of 2 components: calculation and evaluation. ... Now, in 2013, chess engines are so strong that competing against them is getting to be like competing against a forklift in weight lifting.

So, if we put two and two together to evaluate the position of humanity on Earth, what do we conclude?

That we are in early- mid game, with a draw the most likely probability.

[BaalChatzaf]

I would like to see the world's best chess playing computer invent an interesting new game without any further intervention from its programmers.

Deep Blue the IBM computer that beat the Russian champion Gary Kasparov could not have created the game of go, or even the game bridge.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)

As some one else has already pointed out, the best weight-lifter cannot compete against a big enough fork lift.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

yeah... but if you want to improve your health, you do not get a forklift to work for you, but lift the weights yourself. So, too, is chess, perhaps one of the mental games that help us stay healthy, whether or not a machine does it better.

And the point above is significant - thanks, Bob! - as I was going to suggest (but deleted) some suggestions for amendments and emendations to chess, which no program would do spontaneously.

[BaalChatzaf]

yeah... but if you want to improve your health, you do not get a forklift to work for you, but lift the weights yourself. So, too, is chess, perhaps one of the mental games that help us stay healthy, whether or not a machine does it better.

And the point above is significant - thanks, Bob! - as I was going to suggest (but deleted) some suggestions for amendments and emendations to chess, which no program would do spontaneously.

You are welcome!

Deep Blue could not have even invented checkers or tic-tac-toe.

Deep Blue could only do one thing, play chess. Its programmers could not have reprogrammed it to play championship Go. The game tree is just too deep even for the silicon wonders in Deep Blue.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[jts]

Chess engines can be stupid even in chess. For example I watched a game between the 2 highest rated chess entities on the planet, Houdini and Komodo, stage 1, round 3. The pawns got locked and both armies were prisoners in their own camp and both sides were reduced to marking time and it was obvious that the game had to be a draw. But the 2 engines couldn't figure that out. The game ended in a draw by the 50 move rule.

[BaalChatzaf]

Chess engines can be stupid even in chess. For example I watched a game between the 2 highest rated chess entities on the planet, Houdini and Komodo, stage 1, round 3. The pawns got locked and both armies were prisoners in their own camp and both sides were reduced to marking time and it was obvious that the game had to be a draw. But the 2 engines couldn't figure that out. The game ended in a draw by the 50 move rule.

That is because these computer programs do not make inductive leaps. They derive their moves from a complicated set of rules and tree searches.

Human brains (thank God) do not work that way. Even Asperger Brains can make a leap.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[jts]

The big fight is still happening.

http://www.tcec-chess.net/live.php

This is the main site.

http://livechess.chessdom.com/site/

You can also follow it here. Click on the latest TCEC tournament.

Stage 1 had 32 engines. It was a 7 round Swiss tournament. They took the top 16 engines and put them in Stage 2.

Stage 2 was divided into 2a and 2b, 8 engines each. These were a double round robin. Chiron dropped out of 2b because of a technical problem. They took the top 4 from 2a and the top 4 from 2b and put all 8 in Stage 3.

Stage 3 was a double round robin. The survivors were: Houdini, Komodo, Stockfish, Rybka.

Houdini: is the current official world computer chess champion. It is going to have a hell of a time retaining its world title.

Komodo: is the only 1 core engine of the 4. The others are 16 core. That means it's the only engine not on steroids. It's doing quite well for a 1 core engine. Perhaps this is because one of the programmers on Komodo is grandmaster Larry Kaufman. He is the author of a fascinating paper on material imbalances.

http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/evaluation_of_material_imbalance.htm

Stockfish: is the only open source engine of the 4. In the interval between Stage 3 and Stage 4 it got an upgrade.

Rybka: has a special new-fangled evaluation function that takes lots of computer time and reduces the depth of the search tree. But the improvement in evaluation is supposed to more than compensate for the reduced depth of search.

These 4 will battle it out in a hexa round robin. The top 2 will have a 48 game match in the Super Final.

[KacyRay]

Never "got" it. I can push wood, know how the pieces move, have books, even took classes. Basically, ho-hum.

Reminds me of people who scream on roller coasters. When I was a child, I did. Then, I had a class in engineering mechanics. Roller coasters are perfectly contrained. Chess, for all ofi its bazillion possibilities takes place on an 8x8 board. Like a bigger Rubik's Cube but in two dimensions.

I think the screaming you hear on rollercoasters are screams of exhilaration, not fear.

I think that an appreciation of chess "clicks" when you begin to realize how many life-metaphores exist within the game. I could go on and on about that realization forever (and I have in the past).

It's truly a metaphor of life on an 8x8 board.

[BaalChatzaf]

Oh de captain, he say to John Henry

I gonna bring a steel drill 'round

Im gonna make de steel to the job

Im gonna whop dat steel on down, Lord Lord

Im gonna whop dat steel on down

John Henry he say to de captain

A man ain't nothing but a man

but before I let that steam drill win

Im gonna die with the hammer in my hand

Lord, Lord,. I'm gonna die with dee hammer in my hand!

So John Henry he pound so hard

It broke his po' heart

and he died with his hammer in hand, Lord Lord

He die with his hammer in his hand

John Henry say to his shaker

Hear dat cold steel ring

I be throwing twelve pounds

from my hips on down

just listen to dat cold steel ring, Lord Lord

Listen to dat cold steel ring!

So dey buried poor John Henry

Dey buried him in dee sand

and every steam locomotive came passing by

Say dere lie a steel driving man, Lord Lord

Dere lie a steel driving man!

[jts]

N Engine Pts Houdin Stockf Rybka Komodo

1 Houdini 11.0 ------ 100=11 ====== =1==11
2 Stockfish 9.5 011=00 ------ ==1=== ==1===
3 Rybka 9.0 ====== ==0=== ------ ====1=
4 Komodo 6.5 =0==00 ==0=== ====0= ------

I tried to line that up right with a font that has all the characters the same width.

Komodo didn't win any games.

Stage 4 is finished. In a few days the Superfinal will begin. Houdini and Stockfish will have a 48 game match. If the match is a draw, they will play another 4 games. If it is still a draw, another 4 games. Etc.

Here is where everything happens.

http://www.tcec-chess.net/

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A discussion on aviation started at this point and got moved to here.

Michael

[jts]

Stockfish got another upgrade. Tomorrow the big match begins. Will Houdini retain its world title?

Both engines play far above human level. Like above Elo 3100. The highest Elo rating ever achieved by a human is 2872 by Magnus Carlsen.

Here is where all the action is.

http://www.tcec-chess.net/

On a slightly different topic, who is the strongest ~human~ chess player of all time? According to Arpad Elo himself, the man who invented the Elo rating system, the Elo rating system is of no value for comparing chess players of different times in history. The Chessmetrics rating system, invented by Jeff Sonas, is really just some improvements on the Elo rating system, and altho he uses it to compare chess players of different times in history, it probably is almost equally useless for comparing chess players of different times in history. Subjective lists are mere opinion. Well now with powerful chess engines, it may be possible to objectively answer the question, who is the greatest human chess player in history.

Read all about it here.

http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/PostId/4009400/the-quality-of-play-at-the-candidates-090413.aspx

[jts]

Houdini and Stockfish are kicking each other's ass. After 31 games the score is Houdini 4, Stockfish 4, draws 23. They will play at least 48 games. If the match is a draw, 4 more, etc. The ultimate winner will be the TCEC (Thoresen Computer Engines Competition) champion until the next season.

http://www.tcec-chess.net/live.php

[jts]

Houdini: 6

Stockfish: 4

draws: 38

Houdini is the winner and remains the champion.