Komodo Dragon 2.5.1 released

[lkaufman]

KomodoChess has just released Dragon 2.5.1 at KomodoChess.com. It is a fix for a flaw in the FRC/960 castling
rules; Dragon 2.5 lost a game in the CCC FRC tournament due to thinking that castling was illegal in a position where
it was legal. This fixes that issue; since it is a fairly rare condition the fix is only worth one or two elo in FRC
play, so no need for re-testing. The problem was not present in Dragon 2. There is no change to standard chess play
in full-strength (Skill 35) mode. However the Skill levels (below 35) have been revised based on limited feedback;
levels 16 thru 28 have been made somewhat weaker, while most of the lower levels have been made a tad stronger. We
hope this will make the levels more in line with the ratings of the levels (with two zeroes added) in Rapid (15' + 10")
chess. Also the readme has been revised to incorporate the ratings earned by Dragon 2.5 on several rating lists.
Anyone ordering or downloading Dragon 2.5 will now get 2.5.1. It is free for anyone entitled to Dragon 2.5. They
can be considered to be the same version for rating lists.

[Odd Gunnar Malin]

Hi,

Sorry for not playing more games. I have been struggling with sleep the last two weeks (3-4 hour each night). I have something we call smoking legs, I guess the correct term is restless legs.

I will switch to this new version on my bot.

I see in my chess diary that I need playing alot more games (21 hour active learning and only 5 hour playing last week), it should be 50/50 between those, so the obvious is to reduse active learning .

If there is anybody out there with an established fide rating who want to help with this testing I would love to set the bot up for them too. The advantage for playing online is that the Dragon team know there isn't any takebacks or discarding of bad losses and can trust the results.

[Modern Times]

I didn't get any time losses or crashes in my FRC testing, so is this bug (simply) causing mis-evaluations in rare circumstances ?.

[reflectionofpower]

Hi,

Sorry for not playing more games. I have been struggling with sleep the last two weeks (3-4 hour each night). I have something we call smoking legs, I guess the correct term is restless legs.

I will switch to this new version on my bot.

I see in my chess diary that I need playing alot more games (21 hour active learning and only 5 hour playing last week), it should be 50/50 between those, so the obvious is to reduse active learning .

If there is anybody out there with an established fide rating who want to help with this testing I would love to set the bot up for them too. The advantage for playing online is that the Dragon team know there isn't any takebacks or discarding of bad losses and can trust the results.

Here we call it "RLS" - Restless Leg Syndrome - Hope you can find a patch for the RLS. It can wreck your sleep as you very well know.

[reflectionofpower]

I did not get an emailing for this release? I know Mark was having us submit to in private message our email not too long ago so it's probably still being worked on?

Dragon 2.5.1 is not posted yet? I just went there so it should be there later on?

[Damir]

It is posted there as 2.5 version. For some reason Mark has not updated it as 2.5.1.

When you open 2.5 version and go where the engines are you will find 2.5.1 version there.

[reflectionofpower]

It is posted there as 2.5 version. For some reason Mark has not updated it as 2.5.1.

When you open 2.5 version and go where the engines are you will find 2.5.1 version there.

Thanks, I was going to check that initially because I was wondering if that would happen.

[lkaufman]

I didn't get any time losses or crashes in my FRC testing, so is this bug (simply) causing mis-evaluations in rare circumstances ?.

It causes Dragon 2.5 to toss castling from the move list in some FRC positions where it is legal, so it won't cause time losses or crashes, but may cause serious blunders if it chooses a move that is refuted by opponent castling for example; this is what happened in CCC FRC event loss to Stockfish. But it is rare enough that we measure only a two elo gain from the fix, give or take a point.

[mjlef]

I did not get an emailing for this release? I know Mark was having us submit to in private message our email not too long ago so it's probably still being worked on?

Dragon 2.5.1 is not posted yet? I just went there so it should be there later on?

The emails went out this morning. There is a lot to do in a release like sending out copies to all the testers, but I normally complete this within 2 days of a release.

Mark

[mjlef]

It is posted there as 2.5 version. For some reason Mark has not updated it as 2.5.1.

When you open 2.5 version and go where the engines are you will find 2.5.1 version there.

We just replace the 2.5 version with the 2.5.1 fixed version. Some people get confused about buying 2.5 and then finding 2.5 missing and "this other version" being there, so this seemed the simplest way to get it out there. If you have a less confusing suggestion, let us know. If it was an App we could have automatic updates.

Mark