Human killer engine - a cafè-monster

[JBNielsen]

JBNielsen,

An engine without opening books,and parameters where knights has an stronger value than rooks, could produce a dangerous moster.

Nightrider chess must be something for you.
Look here: http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... nightrider

A Nightrider is a knight that makes long moves fx Ng1xd7.

It has a value somewhere between R and Q.

[fern]

My dear friend, your idea is precisely what C. Wittington tried with CSTAL. He has written about that. To créate diffic ults positions, etc, no matter if they are not the best but are threatening and the human side, restricted by the clock and emotions, fall into them.
Etc....

Fern

[carldaman]

My dear friend, your idea is precisely what C. Wittington tried with CSTAL. He has written about that. To créate diffic ults positions, etc, no matter if they are not the best but are threatening and the human side, restricted by the clock and emotions, fall into them.
Etc....

Fern

Of course, CSTAL was a pioneer in this respect. I recently got it to install/run on Win7 in compatibility mode. With the increased speed on a newer system it can often hold its own with engines in the 2450-2600 range. I just wish CW had continued development for a little bit longer. The program really stood out from most contemporaries, but in those days too many people were wrongly fixated on bare strength, which really wasn't there just yet. This led to lack of support ultimately. It's a shame.

Regards,
CL

[fern]

Yes, it was so. CW lost patience with all that, to see his engine disdained because was not the strongest in engines competitions. I considered then and i consider now that this fixation with engine strenght is the summun plus ultra of idiocy.
For me the issue is entertaiment. so give me all the time a CW kind of engine, a gui full of bells and whistles, the full package to get one or two hours of emotion, diversión, fun and happyness.
I am at most a 2100 player in a good day, a 1200 in a bad. . Why should I try to get a 3000 one?

fern the wise guy

[duncan]

Has anyone made a "Human killer engine"?

I mean an engine that not always plays the best move because it will:
1) Have open and complicated positions
2) go for positions where it can perform a surprising combination
3) set a trap for the opponent.
4) more things like that
.

I remember playing an engine which always marched it's pieces straight to your king. after 10 -15 moves I was finished. I found it quite fascinating. cannot remember what it was called. it had a p or t in the name, I think.


duncan

[JBNielsen]

My dear friend, your idea is precisely what C. Wittington tried with CSTAL. He has written about that. To créate diffic ults positions, etc, no matter if they are not the best but are threatening and the human side, restricted by the clock and emotions, fall into them.
Etc....

Fern

Hi Fern

I have been waiting for you to join this thread...

What could this CSTAL?
What did it miss to be complete?
Would it solve some of the positions I have mentioned?

Is there still a real need for such a café-player?
Noone here has expressed "YEAH, we would love an engine that plays moves like those in this thread"

- - -

An old story related to this:

When I made material to prepare the danish players for their meeting with baby deep blue in 1993, I was concerned about the strength of the computer, but also these things (that I have cut from my old website):

"Computers could in short play better against humans in this way:
1) Among almost equal good moves, choose those that lead to open and tactical positions instead of closed and positional positions.
2) Among almost equal good moves, choose those with traps that may lead your opponent to fail. If you are in a lost position anyway, you may even choose a bad move if it gives your opponent a risk to fail. This also applies to a draw position, if the bad move still can hold the draw. See these 3 positions from my ratingtest (pos. 39, 40 and 41) that I used in the above mentioned article.
3) Use the opponents time to prepare an immediate answer to 5 or 6 of his best moves. This means the program will only search one halfmove less ahead and a little weaker, but it will stress the human, make him tired and give him no time to ponder while the computer calculates its move."


When we finally all met at the event, I got confirmed in my worries.
I never heard Bent Larsen wonder about how "she" (he assumed baby deep blue was a female...) calculated the moves.
But I heard him really wonder about how her timedisposition was...

So I found Larsen very emotional about this match, and if she had responded instantly to most moves I think he would have been completely confused.

There was actually another thing I feared:
4) If she moved instantly, you don't know when she or we are out of book.
If she did not move instantly, she could spend some time while she was in the book just to hide when she is out of book.
Why give the opponent this information?

I tried to get some information from the deep blue team about this before the games, but everyone was busy preparing for the show and the games.
Perhaps they did not want to give this information, so I did not ask again for it.
I just hoped it was as I expected and hoped - and it was.

[carldaman]

My dear friend, your idea is precisely what C. Wittington tried with CSTAL. He has written about that. To créate diffic ults positions, etc, no matter if they are not the best but are threatening and the human side, restricted by the clock and emotions, fall into them.
Etc....

Fern

Hi Fern

I have been waiting for you to join this thread...

What could this CSTAL?
What did it miss to be complete?
Would it solve some of the positions I have mentioned?

Is there still a real need for such a café-player?
Noone here has expressed "YEAH, we would love an engine that plays moves like those in this thread"

- - -

OK, here it is : YEAH, we would love an engine that plays moves like those in this thread

This is what we've been saying all day long in these very recent threads/posts (links below):

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 04&t=47102

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 85&t=47169

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 87&t=47169

As to CSTAL, among some drawbacks I noticed were a typical weakness in the endgame (in those days most engines were weak in this respect), and lack of a contempt factor, meaning it was sometimes easy to get a cheap, undeserved draw against it. Overall, it was a great program to have, well ahead of its time.

Regards,
CL

[carldaman]

Yes, it was so. CW lost patience with all that, to see his engine disdained because was not the strongest in engines competitions. I considered then and i consider now that this fixation with engine strenght is the summun plus ultra of idiocy.
For me the issue is entertaiment. so give me all the time a CW kind of engine, a gui full of bells and whistles, the full package to get one or two hours of emotion, diversión, fun and happyness.
I am at most a 2100 player in a good day, a 1200 in a bad. . Why should I try to get a 3000 one?

fern the wise guy

I have a very similar philosophy, Fern, and I think it's good we're letting the engine developers know what we would like to see in an end-product.

Since I get the impression you like to spar against fun/interesting programs, have you tried any of these : Neurosis, TrappyBeowulf, Monarch, Chenard, Taktix, Purplehaze, ChessMind (all of them freeware) ?

The first two are a bit stronger than 2100, the rest I'm sure you can handle

Cheers,
Carl

[chetday]

I'm really a patzer compared to Fern since on a good day I'm happy with a 1200 ELO, but I share his feelings about fun chess games. I love to hoodwink my young grandson with sacrifices, and I love it even more when a chess engine does the same to me.

I've been playing with Neurosis 2.5 and its various settings the past few days and am quite pleased with the games we produce between us. So far I've been beaten every time, but that's surely because I've been playing too late at night when I'm tired and feeling old and dull. One of these early mornings I'll play a quick game and give it a brutal defeat. Well, maybe not. Either way, it'll be fun.

Carl, thanks for the names of the other engines, which I'll also check out.

[carldaman]

I'm really a patzer compared to Fern since on a good day I'm happy with a 1200 ELO, but I share his feelings about fun chess games. I love to hoodwink my young grandson with sacrifices, and I love it even more when a chess engine does the same to me.

I've been playing with Neurosis 2.5 and its various settings the past few days and am quite pleased with the games we produce between us. So far I've been beaten every time, but that's surely because I've been playing too late at night when I'm tired and feeling old and dull. One of these early mornings I'll play a quick game and give it a brutal defeat. Well, maybe not. Either way, it'll be fun.

Carl, thanks for the names of the other engines, which I'll also check out.

Sounds like great fun, I've also tweaked Neurosis to achieve even more pleasing anti-Human play using these parameters in the Nconfig file:

hum 1
spe 2
var 1
ctf 3


Another engine, I forgot to mention is Comet_A90, which is discussed in the other thread about unique styles. Comet_A90 is a must have. Also, look at Capivara as well. Those two belong in that list.

Cheers,
CL