Chess base engines room full of Houdini 1.5!!! Great new!!!

[Richard Allbert]

Hi Paulo

I think maybe you're a bit more affected by this issue than me!

See you some time on playchess.

Regards

Richard

[Laskos]

"Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist."

Jorge Luis Borges, in The Immortal

I hate you, Miguel.

I keep trying to stop visiting the CCC, but how can I possibly succeed in leaving as long as you keep dropping Borges quotes? Tonight I was hoping to finally try to get up-to-date with my computer chess e-mail, but of course now I'll have to re-read The Immortal instead. And it's all your fault.

More on-topic: There is no point in arguing with Milos, but for the other computer chess fans out there: HGM's MicroMax is a phenomenal achievement, and easily one of the most (if not the most) impressive chess programs I know. It's not just a 2000 rated chess program, it's a 2000 rated program with less than 2000 characters (yes, I do mean characters, not lines) of source code. This is more than 1 Elo point per character. Try to beat that!

There were chess engines back in 1977-78 (?) with less than 960 characters written for Texas Instruments TI59 (I own one as an antiquity). I do not know how they would have performed on modern hardware, but I can say that given a due time for its 10 floating p. ops./sec., they could reach 1100 Elo level on TI59.

Kai

[michiguel]

Well, don't feel embarrassed. Infinity is a difficult concept. And to a zero, evrything seems like infinity. So you cannot expect a zero to appreciate the difference between 150 and 2000.

"Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist."

Jorge Luis Borges, in The Immortal

Miguel

Unlike your tedious gods, I am God, I am philosopher, I am demon and I made your world which means you do not exist. - Charles

Oh Please... do not tell me that you thought Borges' was an anti-religious quote...


Miguel

[michiguel]

"Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist."

Jorge Luis Borges, in The Immortal

I hate you, Miguel.

I keep trying to stop visiting the CCC, but how can I possibly succeed in leaving as long as you keep dropping Borges quotes? Tonight I was hoping to finally try to get up-to-date with my computer chess e-mail, but of course now I'll have to re-read The Immortal instead. And it's all your fault.

Borges said that re-reading was what it mattered.

Miguel

More on-topic: There is no point in arguing with Milos, but for the other computer chess fans out there: HGM's MicroMax is a phenomenal achievement, and easily one of the most (if not the most) impressive chess programs I know. It's not just a 2000 rated chess program, it's a 2000 rated program with less than 2000 characters (yes, I do mean characters, not lines) of source code. This is more than 1 Elo point per character. Try to beat that!

[Father]

[Laskos]

So what is your "achievement"? Downloading Houdini?

I think it is a save bet that this is the point he is missing!

But of course the fact remains that micro-Max has about 10 and 100 times as many Elo per character than Houdini, and that no engine approaches that even remotely. So it might not be as easy as mr no-achievement seems to think.

For large differences Elo rating is logarithmic. If mMax has an Elo of 2000 and Houdini 3300, then Houdini is ~2,000 times stronger as score goes, and is less than 2,000 times larger. We could also compare them as physical cores: Houdini on 1 core is like mMax on 40,000 cores, even larger difference.

One could compare like you do, Elo with decibels, softly, lovely speaking to you at 45 dB for an hour, then subjecting you voluntarily to a noise only 5 times larger in dB for an hour, afterwards calling a legist to record the seen.

Besides that, both Elo and dB have only meaning in differences, not absolute values (dB has some more meaning than Elo).

I actually played with mMax years ago, it's fun and remarkable for its size. But I would not say that it's a 2000 Elo engine the way Chessmaster 3000 was back in '91. First dozen games I struggled, but then I saw some paths to always win same ways, sometimes adapting them. With Chessmaster I had more troubles (I was a kid, but my playing strength was similar to today's). Maybe engine-engine games are different.

Kai

[Adam Hair]

Well, don't feel embarrassed. Infinity is a difficult concept. And to a zero, evrything seems like infinity. So you cannot expect a zero to appreciate the difference between 150 and 2000.

"Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist."

Jorge Luis Borges, in The Immortal

Miguel

I have only read The Library of Babel. I need to get my hands on a copy
of Ficciones.

[frcha]

Well, don't feel embarrassed. Infinity is a difficult concept. And to a zero, evrything seems like infinity. So you cannot expect a zero to appreciate the difference between 150 and 2000.

"Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist."

Jorge Luis Borges, in The Immortal

Miguel

Unlike your tedious gods, I am God, I am philosopher, I am demon and I made your world which means you do not exist. - Charles

Oh Please... do not tell me that you thought Borges' was an anti-religious quote...


Miguel

Does that mean you thought my quote was religious?

Strange ....

The truth only sets a few free -- it drives most quite mad ... and so must be suppressed.

[michiguel]

Well, don't feel embarrassed. Infinity is a difficult concept. And to a zero, evrything seems like infinity. So you cannot expect a zero to appreciate the difference between 150 and 2000.

"Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist."

Jorge Luis Borges, in The Immortal

Miguel

Unlike your tedious gods, I am God, I am philosopher, I am demon and I made your world which means you do not exist. - Charles

Oh Please... do not tell me that you thought Borges' was an anti-religious quote...


Miguel

Does that mean you thought my quote was religious?

No, actually I thought it did not make any sense, but I was trying to find out from the author. Or did you find that phrase in the library of babel?

Miguel

Strange ....

The truth only sets a few free -- it drives most quite mad ... and so must be suppressed.

[hgm]

For large differences Elo rating is logarithmic. If mMax has an Elo of 2000 and Houdini 3300, then Houdini is ~2,000 times stronger as score goes, and is less than 2,000 times larger. We could also compare them as physical cores: Houdini on 1 core is like mMax on 40,000 cores, even larger difference.

What programs can do is in general an exponential function of their size, due to the recursive nature of the programming language. Unlike the time dimension, the space dimension can be intelligently used. So you merely argue that Elo/second would be a meaningless quantity But that doesn't imply anything for Elo/character.