Some people who "do work" harm other people - sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. Other virtues of value:
* willingness to sacrifice oneself for others
* helping others to grow
Moderators: hgm, Rebel, chrisw
I *love* how CCRL takes the trouble of determing the strength of all those chess programs. They do it properly, they're friendly and helpful to the developers. Also, they do not get paid for it.JohnWoe wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:48 am Somewhere buried amongst the vicious internet hyenas.
That chess programmers are so stupid. That they need somebody to tell them how strong their engine is???
Really? That's ridiculous. I know exactly how strong my engines are!
If I could send 10 different versions to these lists and pick the strongest one after 1 billion games. Loop ad nauseam.
Then I could see some benefit.
As a programmer. Not consumer.
In this case you're actually attacking the reputation of Vondele the stockfish maintainer who published that fishtest result.
Because Albert has actually desribed his testing procedure, which makes some sense, but is slightly unusual.connor_mcmonigle wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 4:20 am These results are consistent with many other testers' results. Prematurely labeling this testing a "scam" is unnecessarily incendiary and immature. In fact, the only testing that's inconsistent with the general consensus which has formed as to the FF2 network's strength (-5 to -20 elo to SF 13) is Albert's published testing on ChessBase. Why aren't you so vocally decrying Albert's testing as a scam?
Peter Berger wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 3:34 pm...connor_mcmonigle wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 4:20 am These results are consistent with many other testers' results. Prematurely labeling this testing a "scam" is unnecessarily incendiary and immature. In fact, the only testing that's inconsistent with the general consensus which has formed as to the FF2 network's strength (-5 to -20 elo to SF 13) is Albert's published testing on ChessBase. Why aren't you so vocally decrying Albert's testing as a scam?
Because Albert has actually desribed his testing procedure, which makes some sense, but is slightly unusual.
...
Peter Berger wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 3:34 pm ...
Albert's procedure ( as I understand) is a bit similar to what I have read in posts by Frank Quisinsky before: I want my chessprogram to make sense in all kinds of setups ( you can do this by forcing all ECO codes e.g.). And he has trained it with human games and games played against itself starting from a similar approach.
What is so unusual and illogical in assuming that this may result in different results?
...
For any two somewhat competitive networks, trained on different data, it is possible to construct a cooked book where one will erroneously outperform the other. Assuming that Albert's test results, for some biased book, are honest, the results still aren't very interesting. I see zero potential benefits for the computer chess community. Albert has contributed nothing meaningful to the advancement of computer chess, though he'll gladly take credit for the hard work of others in lengthy ChessBase "articles".Peter Berger wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 3:34 pm Actually this is what bookcooks have been doing for like forever, though not really in a very scientific way. Yay, I understand the ethical implications, this is not rocket science anyway - probably this is just some Stockfish with very minor changes - and now sell it for 100 dollars? Bad guy. But he is some single guy and he produced sth of at least minor interest against the community - there have to be logical reasons for it, if FF2.0 is of similar strength as Stockfish, but still somehow different, how come? When it is about evil ChessBase or evil FatFritz ( what an ugly name btw) - so be it. But can't we slowly start to think of potential benefits for the general development of the freeforce crew?
As the CCC TD, I heard claims from authors about how strong their engines were all the time. This new net gave +X Elo; the latest patches finally pushed it past Y other engine.JohnWoe wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:48 am Somewhere buried amongst the vicious internet hyenas.
That chess programmers are so stupid. That they need somebody to tell them how strong their engine is???
Really? That's ridiculous. I know exactly how strong my engines are!
If I could send 10 different versions to these lists and pick the strongest one after 1 billion games. Loop ad nauseam.
Then I could see some benefit.
As a programmer. Not consumer.
Testing is really hard. I'm grateful for CCRL testing Sapeli when I was actively developing it. I dropped it long time ago. I only gained like +150 ELO. Ended up 1900 ELO? If I remember correctly. Not even 2000 ELO.the_real_greco wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 6:21 pmAs the CCC TD, I heard claims from authors about how strong their engines were all the time. This new net gave +X Elo; the latest patches finally pushed it past Y other engine.JohnWoe wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:48 am Somewhere buried amongst the vicious internet hyenas.
That chess programmers are so stupid. That they need somebody to tell them how strong their engine is???
Really? That's ridiculous. I know exactly how strong my engines are!
If I could send 10 different versions to these lists and pick the strongest one after 1 billion games. Loop ad nauseam.
Then I could see some benefit.
As a programmer. Not consumer.
I could count on one hand the number of times those claims were actually true. But, it's completely natural to see your engine through rose-tinted glasses.
Rating lists are nice because they don't care about any engine in particular. They have established procedures that everyone knows are reasonable, and that you can actually trust.