Asking for a favor

[Ozymandias]

Is a favor of a few hours or a few days depending on the time limit chosen too big a favor to ask despite my tens of thousands of man hours spent producing an engine that only a few people enjoy?

Not at all, as long as the person willing to do the test, has some fun doing it. From what I read, you plan on using many more engines, which would require including weaker ones in the tournament. I don't make a hobby out of running those, in my computers.

PS: Mark Lefler doesn't refer to himself in the 3rd person, if you catch my drift.

I don't have the energy to solve riddles. Are you hinting at this.

I think it is a 100% possibility that the AlphaZ team is at least aware of RomiChess's learning algorithm. Especially with a quote like the following from the chess programming wiki.

"RomiChess is famous for its learning approach"

And the fact that at least one individual on the AlphaZ team is a member of Talkchess. This is circumstantial evidence albeit strong circumstantial evidence but not quite proof. However, if any prior endeavor helped to show the way it is a very strong probability RomiChess had a part in that. If so it would be nice if Google-Deep-Mind gave an honorary mention to RomiChess AND ITS AUTHOR.

I was talking about this:

Mark Lefler was kind enough to ask me in a pm to error check the above!

For this to be the case, he would've had to refer to himself in the 3rd person when writing the subject of the PM ("Mark Lefler on RomiChess").

[Michael Sherwin]

Is a favor of a few hours or a few days depending on the time limit chosen too big a favor to ask despite my tens of thousands of man hours spent producing an engine that only a few people enjoy?

Not at all, as long as the person willing to do the test, has some fun doing it. From what I read, you plan on using many more engines, which would require including weaker ones in the tournament. I don't make a hobby out of running those, in my computers.

PS: Mark Lefler doesn't refer to himself in the 3rd person, if you catch my drift.

I don't have the energy to solve riddles. Are you hinting at this.

I think it is a 100% possibility that the AlphaZ team is at least aware of RomiChess's learning algorithm. Especially with a quote like the following from the chess programming wiki.

"RomiChess is famous for its learning approach"

And the fact that at least one individual on the AlphaZ team is a member of Talkchess. This is circumstantial evidence albeit strong circumstantial evidence but not quite proof. However, if any prior endeavor helped to show the way it is a very strong probability RomiChess had a part in that. If so it would be nice if Google-Deep-Mind gave an honorary mention to RomiChess AND ITS AUTHOR.

I was talking about this:

Mark Lefler was kind enough to ask me in a pm to error check the above!

For this to be the case, he would've had to refer to himself in the 3rd person when writing the subject of the PM ("Mark Lefler on RomiChess").

Okay sorry, I understand now. You sent me the pm. That is the worst mistake I made all year, lol. I'm old, tired, not in good health and my eyes are not so good. But instead of just being forthright and saying you sent the pm, you challenge me with a riddle instead. But I appreciate the support you were offering. I'm just so used to being attacked that I was in defensive mode. I guess you can understand that about this place and grant me a pass on this one.

[Ozymandias]

Okay sorry, I understand now. You sent me the pm. That is the worst mistake I made all year, lol. I'm old, tired, not in good health and my eyes are not so good. But instead of just being forthright and saying you sent the pm, you challenge me with a riddle instead. But I appreciate the support you were offering. I'm just so used to being attacked that I was in defensive mode. I guess you can understand that about this place and grant me a pass on this one.

Well, I kind of considered it a private thing, but PM having "failed" already, I tried something else; nevertheless I didn't want to give more clues than necessary. In the end, we had to skip to the answers page (so much for that riddle).

Defensive behaviour is understandable, no worries in that department.

[FWCC]

Sherwin, when you start the gauntlet could you please let us know

[tmokonen]

I have thousands of engines here (it seems 90% of them are Stockfish or derivatives). If you give me a little bit of time I can send you a bunch of them in the 2300-2600 range.

[Michael Sherwin]

I have thousands of engines here (it seems 90% of them are Stockfish or derivatives). If you give me a little bit of time I can send you a bunch of them in the 2300-2600 range.

Thanks Tony! No rush. Are you going to supply links or send them by email. If by email I'll send a pm with my email.

[tmokonen]

I was thinking putting them in a big archive and uploading them to a file sharing site. I can PM you when they are uploaded.

[mjlef]

I am willing to donate a copy of Komodo 11.2.2. Just send me a private message. But the free Komodo 9 is available to everyone.

Note that to determine an elo improvement against a range of programs you need more more games than a direct run. You will need to run the original version in a gauntlet, then repeat with the "learned" version. I would be fascinated to see the results.

[Michael Sherwin]

I am willing to donate a copy of Komodo 11.2.2. Just send me a private message. But the free Komodo 9 is available to everyone.

Note that to determine an elo improvement against a range of programs you need more more games than a direct run. You will need to run the original version in a gauntlet, then repeat with the "learned" version. I would be fascinated to see the results.

Yes, that is my plan. Thanks!

[Michael Sherwin]

I was thinking putting them in a big archive and uploading them to a file sharing site. I can PM you when they are uploaded.

Okay got the engines. It will take some time to set them all up and register them in Arena. I will use 100 engines for the test. The first run will be with learning disabled to get a baseline performance. The second run will be with 800 trained games from the initial starting position. Then with 12,000 trained games from Hert500.pgn and mostly from the Nooman 3 move test suite also 500 positions. An Arena opening book will be selected for the gauntlet engines to use in the final test. I could use some suggestions for that book.

That will be 600 games at 5'+1". Then if I get a recent Komodo I will run the test from the beginning to see if there is any difference in the quality of learning as opposed to learning against SF 8.