On-line engine blitz tourney March

[hgm]

You can of course simply set the hash size and number of threads in the Common Engine Settings menu dialog, and control pondering through the General Option 'Ponder next move'. Most people prefer to control their engine settings through the GUI, rather then by recompiling...

[Joost Buijs]

I think it works but I have to do a lot of messing around to get past the extremely annoying Winboard overwrite of Hash/Threads/Ponder options. As far as I can tell, it has a special ini file somewhere (not polyglot.ini) which overrides everything and force sets those variables. Short of finding where that ini file is, the fix is to let Winboard think it did the override, but decline to actually do it - this means a special executable for FICS.

Actually I do almost the same, my engine uses an ini-file for most parameters, it understands just enough from the UCI protocol to play a game. I never felt the need to change this, besides Winboard to play on FICS I never use other GUIs at all.

[chrisw]

I think it works but I have to do a lot of messing around to get past the extremely annoying Winboard overwrite of Hash/Threads/Ponder options. As far as I can tell, it has a special ini file somewhere (not polyglot.ini) which overrides everything and force sets those variables. Short of finding where that ini file is, the fix is to let Winboard think it did the override, but decline to actually do it - this means a special executable for FICS.

Actually I do almost the same, my engine uses an ini-file for most parameters, it understands just enough from the UCI protocol to play a game. I never felt the need to change this, besides Winboard to play on FICS I never use other GUIs at all.

Well, it worked under test yesterday, but today it crashes before I even get to log on

[chrisw]

I think it works but I have to do a lot of messing around to get past the extremely annoying Winboard overwrite of Hash/Threads/Ponder options. As far as I can tell, it has a special ini file somewhere (not polyglot.ini) which overrides everything and force sets those variables. Short of finding where that ini file is, the fix is to let Winboard think it did the override, but decline to actually do it - this means a special executable for FICS.

Actually I do almost the same, my engine uses an ini-file for most parameters, it understands just enough from the UCI protocol to play a game. I never felt the need to change this, besides Winboard to play on FICS I never use other GUIs at all.

Well, it worked under test yesterday, but today it crashes before I even get to log on

eventually made it, but no book

[Joost Buijs]

Not so many players this time.

Belfish won the tournament with 6.5 points out of 9. StockfishRB (latest HCE version) and WaspX both got 6 points.

There are 5 players with 5.5 points, all programs seem to be very close in strength to each other, the biggest difference is probably the used hardware and the number of cores.

Code: Select all

:Tourney Players: Round 9 of 9 
:
:     Name              Rating Score Perfrm Upset  Results 
:     ----------------- ------ ----- ------ ------ ------- 
:  1 +BelFish           [2998]  6.5  [2985] [   0] +08b =02w +09w =06b =04w =03b =05b +07w +10b 
:  2 +StockfishRB       [2861]  6.0  [2808] [ 123] +17w =01b =06w =04b =05w =10w +11b +12b =09w 
:  3 +WaspX             [2855]  6.0  [2878] [ 153] +16w =04b =05w =07w +10b =01w =08b +09b =06w 
:  4 +NightmareX        [2920]  5.5  [2849] [  39] +11w =03w =07b =02w =01b =06b =09w +13b =05w 
:  5 +ChessSystemTalX   [2888]  5.5  [2829] [  71] +13w =07w =03b =10w =02b +11b =01w =06b =04b 
:  6 +ArasanX           [2865]  5.5  [2858] [ 113] +12w +08w =02b =01w =09b =04w =07b =05w =03b 
:  7 +Marvin            [2777]  5.5  [2780] [ 262] +15w =05b =04w =03b +08w =09b =06w -01b +14w 
:  8 +WaDuuttie         [2558]  5.5  [2544] [ 148] -01w -06b +16b +14w -07b +13b =03w +17b +18w
:  9 +Goldbar           [2884]  5.0  [2784] [  18] +14w +10w -01b +11b =06w =07w =04b -03w =02b 
: 10 +atomNightmare     [2665]  5.0  [2580] [ 209] +18w -09b +12w =05b -03w =02b +13w +15b -01w 
: 11 +atomGoldbar       [2514]  5.0  [2489] [   0] -04b +16w +15b -09w +14b -05w -02w +18b +17w 
: 12 +feligres          [2188]  5.0  [2383] [  13] -06b +17w -10b -13b +16w +14w +18b -02w +15w 
: 13 +Spartacus         [2206]  3.5  [2296] [   0] -05b -15w +18b +12w +17b -08w -10b -04w =16b 
: 14 +Barbarossa        [2201]  3.5  [2263] [   0] -09b +18w =17b -08b -11w -12b +15w +16w -07b 
: 15 +KingSlayer        [2054]  3.0  [2171] [ 299] -07b +13b -11w =17w =18b +16w -14b -10w -12b 
: 16 +KhepriChess       [2152]  2.5  [2113] [  28] -03b -11b -08w +18w -12b -15b +17w -14b =13w
: 17 +Joker             [2153]  2.0  [2069] [  24] -02b -12b =14w =15b -13w +18w -16b -08w -11b 
: 18 +microMax          [1891]  0.5  [1943] [  81] -10b -14b -13w -16b =15w -17b -12w -11w -08b 
:
:     Average Rating    2535.0 

[Modern Times]

the biggest difference is probably the used hardware and the number of cores.

And the book for sure.

[Joost Buijs]

the biggest difference is probably the used hardware and the number of cores.

And the book for sure.

Of course, the book is important too, I assume most programs are using strong books nowadays.
Nightmares book is based on ~5.5 million games between strong engines, and I added and corrected several lines by hand too.
The engines in the lower half of the list are all single threaded, this makes a huge difference.
NNUE vs HCE makes a difference too, when Nightmare made the switch to NNUE it became ~150 Elo stronger.

The last 2 years I spent most of my time on training networks for International Draughts, working on these gave me a lot of insights that I can use for my chess engine too. I didn't touch Nightmare for over 2 years, maybe a good time to start working on it again. The problem is that nowadays I need 3 months for the same amount of programming work I did 30 years ago in 2 weeks.

[Graham Banks]

Not so many players this time.

Perhaps I'll get Ray to help set me up to play in the next one.

[Joost Buijs]

Not so many players this time.

Perhaps I'll get Ray to help set me up to play in the next one.

You are welcome!

[Modern Times]

Not so many players this time.

Perhaps I'll get Ray to help set me up to play in the next one.

First think you would need to do is decide what engine you are going to run and have an account set up for you.

I tend to run engines that are interesting but shouldn't win the tournament. Like a previous world champion from 10+ years ago Zappa Mexico II, or Stockfish the last HCE version from July 2020 etc. etc.