WCCC 2013: Junior wins

[Mike S.]

http://icga.uvt.nl/?page_id=631
(not up to date at the moment, but certainly soon)

Junior 7.5/10, Jonny (2400 Cores ) 7.0/10.

If we look at the rather restrictive (in terms of excluding dozens of Ipponians) IPON list, we find Junior 13.3 on rank 17. To become top-10, the new version needs to have gained 78 elo points. Good luck.

[hgm]

Seems it gained huge compared to any known version. The opponents were completely surprised by this, getting in positions where they thought they had a winning advantage, and then losing. Consensus amongst the participants was that they must have invented some new search improvement.

[Modern Times]

Congratulations to Junior.

[Sven]

Seems it gained huge compared to any known version. The opponents were completely surprised by this, getting in positions where they thought they had a winning advantage, and then losing. Consensus amongst the participants was that they must have invented some new search improvement.

No doubt that Junior was the best program in this tournament, but what else can we conclude from playing 10 games?

Code: Select all

   1 Junior     127   95   90    10   75%   -25   30%
   2 Jonny      100   90   87    10   70%   -20   60%
   3 Pandix      30   89   85    10   55%    -6   50%
   4 Hiarcs      26   91   88    10   55%    -5   30%
   5 Shredder   -17   91   88    10   45%     3   30%
   6 Merlin    -266   99  158    10    0%    53    0%

Sven

[Modern Times]

Yes with 10 games maybe you can't conclude too much, but the "sudden death" nature of the small amount of games can make it exciting.

Of note also, that the hardware of Jonny and Junior probably did not make much difference. We know that scaling beyond 16 cores is not that good, and chances are they are slower cores too beyond that point. But the computer geek side of me loves to see engines running on such hardware.

[Laskos]

Seems it gained huge compared to any known version. The opponents were completely surprised by this, getting in positions where they thought they had a winning advantage, and then losing. Consensus amongst the participants was that they must have invented some new search improvement.

No doubt that Junior was the best program in this tournament, but what else can we conclude from playing 10 games?

Code: Select all

   1 Junior     127   95   90    10   75%   -25   30%
   2 Jonny      100   90   87    10   70%   -20   60%
   3 Pandix      30   89   85    10   55%    -6   50%
   4 Hiarcs      26   91   88    10   55%    -5   30%
   5 Shredder   -17   91   88    10   45%     3   30%
   6 Merlin    -266   99  158    10    0%    53    0%

Sven

What rating program did you use? I used Ordo with the -W switch and got

Code: Select all

   # ENGINE      : RATING    POINTS  PLAYED    (%)

   1 Junior      :  258.0       7.5      10   75.0%
   2 Jonny       :  214.6       7.0      10   70.0%
   3 Hiarcs      :   90.8       5.5      10   55.0%
   4 Pandix      :   90.8       5.5      10   55.0%
   5 Shredder    :    5.7       4.5      10   45.0%
   6 Merlin    < : -565.4       0.0      10    0.0%

So, with errors 2SD of 100 points (or error of difference 140 points), Junior seems superior to Hiarcs, Pandix and Shredder, even with this small sample.

[fern]

BUT I understand that playing in equal hardware, Hiarcs was the winner. Wasn't so?

Fern

[Modern Times]

BUT I understand that playing in equal hardware, Hiarcs was the winner. Wasn't so?

Fern

What was the equal hardware ? On very low-end 32-bit hardware as was the case in the past, Hiarcs's performance was not degraded as much as some other engines. If the equal hardware had been an 8-core 64-bit box, or even a quad 64-bit, Hiarcs would not have stood a chance. Plenty of equal hardware ratings lists out there with hundreds of games (IPON, CEGT. CCRL) that show Hiarcs as barely a top-10 engine. But I don't know what the hardware was this year. Maybe someone can clarify, and that isn't the case this time.

[Mike S.]

In the WCSC, there are still 3 rounds to go which are scheduled for Sunday. Currently, Hiarcs leads with 4.5/7.

http://icga.uvt.nl/?page_id=633

Hiarcs is the defender of this title, having won it in 2011 against the very same opponents, except Merlin.

[Modern Times]

All programs play on the following hardware: laptop with I7-3740, 2.7 GHz and 16 GB RAM.

With a 32-bit or 64-bit operating system ? We know that Hiarcs does not benefit from 64-bit, but some of it's competitors gain 50% + speedup from 64-bit.