Stockfish vs Houdini - Long TC Match - LIVE BROADCAST!

[Martin Thoresen]

This game is probably won by Rybka, no doubt.

For the next match I will add information on the website that if for any reason an engine loses on time (ie crash or hangs or anything) it will lose and the next game begins.

That should clear it up.

Apologies about the decision I made regarding game 42 here, I wasn't aware that so many people thought the result should stand.

[S.Taylor]

This game is probably won by Rybka, no doubt.

For the next match I will add information on the website that if for any reason an engine loses on time (ie crash or hangs or anything) it will lose and the next game begins.

That should clear it up.

Apologies about the decision I made regarding game 42 here, I wasn't aware that so many people thought the result should stand.

I also don't think it was all that terrible, after it was already conclusive who wins the whole match.
However, i think it is EVEN WORSE, if a game is decided because of a crash or similar.
There are possible alternatives, e.g. to reset from same positions and same clock times where it was.
With that, you could give a small time penalty to the side which crashed, to make sure that the side which did not crash should not lose thinking time and that the odds should be against the engine which crashed.
But, I don't think anyone in their right mind, really likes something to win or lose becaue of a crash. Even if all my heart was on one engine winning, and the other crashed, i would feel it wasn't the win i was hoping for, and would pretend to myself it wasn't played and i would even discard it from my feeling of what the real score is.

[Paloma]

Hi Ignacio,

thanks for the information, i've overlooked that.

[Martin Thoresen]

There are possible alternatives, e.g. to reset from same positions and same clock times where it was.
With that, you could give a small time penalty to the side which crashed, to make sure that the side which did not crash should not lose thinking time and that the odds should be against the engine which crashed.
But, I don't think anyone in their right mind, really likes something to win or lose becaue of a crash. Even if all my heart was on one engine winning, and the other crashed, i would feel it wasn't the win i was hoping for, and would pretend to myself it wasn't played and i would even discard it from my feeling of what the real score is.

That was my initial reaction as well, I don't enjoy it if an engine gets a full point because of a crash of the opponent.

But the problem with your suggestion is that it's not possible to do, if an engine crashes and loses on time, the database records victory for the other engine and the next game starts. So if I stop and replay the game that was lost on time, the position starts from the beginning. This is just how the Chessbase GUI is created and there's nothing I can do about it.

Unfortunately.

[M ANSARI]

Considering the beatdown that Stockfish 1.8 is having, I suspect that something is wrong with your configuration. Have you verified (for instance) that Stockfish is using all the threads you want it to use?

The reason I suspect a setup snag is the following:
http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/40_40%2 ... liste.html

Rybka 4 default time management with CCRL and CEGT setups is terrible. It will spend way too much time on a few moves and quickly end up in terrible time trouble. We saw that in beta testing but had to come up with a TC setup that was a good compromise for all in the little time we had. I remember getting results against SF 1.71 that would change more than 80 ELO by simply changing one TC parameter. It is also one of the reasons we requested that the TC parameters be left available to change. The default TC setups that R4 especially had trouble with was when you had say 40 moves to play in X amount of time, or in very fast lightning games, so I think you will find that R4 will underperform in those setups when compared to games where there is increment or in LTC games where poor TC management is not as big an issue. Hopefully this will be improved with the R4 update. I wouldn't be surprised if with the R4 update that R4 will score 40+ ELO higher than what it is scoring now against SF in CEGT even though chesswise it will be the same engine.

[S.Taylor]

There are possible alternatives, e.g. to reset from same positions and same clock times where it was.
With that, you could give a small time penalty to the side which crashed, to make sure that the side which did not crash should not lose thinking time and that the odds should be against the engine which crashed.
But, I don't think anyone in their right mind, really likes something to win or lose becaue of a crash. Even if all my heart was on one engine winning, and the other crashed, i would feel it wasn't the win i was hoping for, and would pretend to myself it wasn't played and i would even discard it from my feeling of what the real score is.

That was my initial reaction as well, I don't enjoy it if an engine gets a full point because of a crash of the opponent.

But the problem with your suggestion is that it's not possible to do, if an engine crashes and loses on time, the database records victory for the other engine and the next game starts. So if I stop and replay the game that was lost on time, the position starts from the beginning. This is just how the Chessbase GUI is created and there's nothing I can do about it.

Unfortunately.

If so, i would vote for adjudication (if it is clear enough), or, replay (esp. if it is not clear).
But not to count irrelevant happenings.

[Martin Thoresen]

Match has started!

http://home.halden.net/mordor/match/broadcast.php
http://chessbomb.com/o/2010-sf-houdini/

[Martin Thoresen]

At the half-way mark (16 of 32 games) the score is 9.0 for Houdini vs 7.0 for Stockfish.

[gerold]

At the half-way mark (16 of 32 games) the score is 9.0 for Houdini vs 7.0 for Stockfish.

Update- 14.5 Houdini. 11.5 Stockfish.

Houdini is having fish for dinner

Best,
Gerold.

[IGarcia]

Game 27:
Looks like Houdini will won this one for a 15.5 - 11.5 score
Not big difference at all

I like Houdini because its free, but Im biased towards Stockfish because its
open source. They are true free and has the disadvantage of ideas visible
for the ones making non free programs. and this is a more than 50 ELO
points handicap for sure

Go Stockfish