When did chess engines running on common home pc hardware be

[Harvey Williamson]

When did chess engines running on a common home pc hardware became stronger than the strongest human?
Was it around 2006?
By common home pc hardware I mean the kind of hardware people would buy (like Intel core 2 duo E6300 back in 2006). I am excluding server machines.

I am interested in which hardware, which human and which chess engine you consider in your reply.

Thank you!

In 2009 Hiarcs scored 9.5/10 in a human GM tournament on a Pocket PC. A GM norm with a 2900+ rating http://hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2537

[Eelco de Groot]

For me I'd probably pick an earlier date, because in 2001 already Chess Tiger achieved a Sofia Polgar like TPR of 2788, against several human grandmasters, scoring 9½ out of 11 games and 2 GM norms. Well maybe there was some Polgar effect here; GMs not used to playing their best against pretty girl, here it was maybe the case that the GMs were not used to playing a machine. But I think that was a breakthrough, Chess Tiger could probably have won just about any tournament from that point, because it was tactically very strong for its time and humans just make some inevitable tactical mistakes, especially in a longer tournament. See the results of Chess Tiger and Rebel at the time on Ed's pages http://www.rebel.nl/resu.htm


Christophe Théron, the programmer of Chess Tiger

To add maybe, the SSDF data on Rebel's page were corrected for rating inflation in August 2000 (by 100 Elo points downwards) So I assume at that point (and into a few years later) they matched fairly well (at the top of the list/for recent engines, but not really the old harware on the list like the early chess computers) with human ratings. Chess Tiger at 2715 so still below Kasparov as we can also see from Jeff Sonas' data that I also referenced for the rating correction. I feel partly responsible for that correction as I think I was the one suggesting it at the time at least on CCC But back to Jeff Sonas article; the graph suggests a cross over point might have happened somewhere in 2003. I have not investigated the Sean Mintz archives of the time and this forum did not yet exist (going by date of first members joining, in 2006). So I'm not exactly sure by head or from forum messages what was the strongest engine at least on the SSDF rating list of the time. Data from the SSDF can be found here. I said the crossover could have been as early as 2003, but in fact the crossover (to Kasparov's rating) was probably later due to stalling progress of especially Shredder's rating between versions 7.04 and 9. So maybe Shredder 9, but if not Shredder 9, we get to... Rybka 1.0 Beta, that engine first appeared December 2, 2005. It was the first engine clearly stronger than Shredder 9, so...

[carldaman]

When did chess engines running on a common home pc hardware became stronger than the strongest human?
Was it around 2006?
By common home pc hardware I mean the kind of hardware people would buy (like Intel core 2 duo E6300 back in 2006). I am excluding server machines.

I am interested in which hardware, which human and which chess engine you consider in your reply.

Thank you!

Hi,

there used to be a few human vs comp databases floating around. There is one by G. Tsavdaris at Ed's site but I can't reach the site that hosts it.
The link is:
http://www.top-5000.nl/gm-comp/dgt_chesstheatre.htm


Another one is hosted here:
http://privat.bahnhof.se/wb432434/welcome.htm

It would be great if someone could repost the G. Tsavdaris db.
Thanks,
CL

PS. To answer the original question, I think the top engines reached parity [at STC] with the strongest humans in the 2001-2006 period, and went beyond it after 2006 (Rybka being a notch or two stronger).

[Vinvin]

...there used to be a few human vs comp databases floating around. There is one by G. Tsavdaris at Ed's site but I can't reach the site that hosts it.
The link is:
http://www.top-5000.nl/gm-comp/dgt_chesstheatre.htm

This URL works for me.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

When did chess engines running on a common home pc hardware became stronger than the strongest human?
Was it around 2006?
By common home pc hardware I mean the kind of hardware people would buy (like Intel core 2 duo E6300 back in 2006). I am excluding server machines.

I am interested in which hardware, which human and which chess engine you consider in your reply.

Thank you!

Hi,

there used to be a few human vs comp databases floating around. There is one by G. Tsavdaris at Ed's site but I can't reach the site that hosts it.
The link is:
http://www.top-5000.nl/gm-comp/dgt_chesstheatre.htm


Another one is hosted here:
http://privat.bahnhof.se/wb432434/welcome.htm

It would be great if someone could repost the G. Tsavdaris db.
Thanks,
CL

PS. To answer the original question, I think the top engines reached parity [at STC] with the strongest humans in the 2001-2006 period, and went beyond it after 2006 (Rybka being a notch or two stronger).

most importantly, my 1000+ won games against SF will be missing.

not very representative database in this case, I think.

[MikeGL]

and this forum did not yet exist (going by date of first members joining, in 2006)

I could be wrong, but I remember I have posted some difficult positions
on this forum around 2004 or 2005, but due to some strange reasons the
registered usernames on this forum was updated and my old account was
not carried over to the new talkchess site, and I was required to register
again.


I didn't know what really happened on that instance on why the old
account of users were all deleted. Maybe change in management or
admin conflict, but I was out of the scene and have not checked for a
while on what really caused the clean-up of accounts.

Maybe someone in the know could also update me on what really
happened around 2004 or 2005, whether a breach of server or change of
admins.


regards

[Werewolf]

20-30 years more until top engines catch up with best humans in terms of strength

In what sense? A top engine on good hardware beats any human at any time control now.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

20-30 years more until top engines catch up with best humans in terms of strength

In what sense? A top engine on good hardware beats any human at any time control now.

still not me.

[Nordlandia]

The question is -> how long until engines can catch up on opening understanding.

Engines are given opening book to compensate for relative mild opening play.

[carldaman]

When did chess engines running on a common home pc hardware became stronger than the strongest human?
Was it around 2006?
By common home pc hardware I mean the kind of hardware people would buy (like Intel core 2 duo E6300 back in 2006). I am excluding server machines.

I am interested in which hardware, which human and which chess engine you consider in your reply.

Thank you!

Hi,

there used to be a few human vs comp databases floating around. There is one by G. Tsavdaris at Ed's site but I can't reach the site that hosts it.
The link is:
http://www.top-5000.nl/gm-comp/dgt_chesstheatre.htm


Another one is hosted here:
http://privat.bahnhof.se/wb432434/welcome.htm

It would be great if someone could repost the G. Tsavdaris db.
Thanks,
CL

PS. To answer the original question, I think the top engines reached parity [at STC] with the strongest humans in the 2001-2006 period, and went beyond it after 2006 (Rybka being a notch or two stronger).

most importantly, my 1000+ won games against SF will be missing.

not very representative database in this case, I think.

By all means, Lyudmil, I hope they can include all your games.