Arena Mega Showdown III

[Graham Banks]

...
8.0 - Hiarcs 11.2
...

Hiarcs have a hard time

These things can happen in tournaments from time to time.
Still time for it to recover.

Regards, Graham.

[Graham Banks]

I really like this tournament even though it has it's cons hehe


Pros:

1) You added most strong programs into one field even lower scored programs seems to hassle top programs and as it has been mention Movei did/doing really well against top programs heh.


2) Arena has it's advantages i can imagine since it can allow winboard engines and Scorpio 2.0 is good choice that you made to enter to this field!


3) Time control looks good, longer is better but this is reliable too!




cons:


1) Okay again again and again. I am not convinced that general book for all engines is wise deal. Shredder 11 should score even better by the end of the tournament with it's own Book and Fritz 11 is stronger proof! but I understand you're using Arena, so it's okay for a test tournament on Arena to use general opening. That is probably one of reasons that chessbase Gui is better but doesn't hurt to use arena! (as we discussed on opening book topic for engines, I would like to throw an important note and see for yourself if any true, the freestyle tournament over on playchess server, 90% of the winner/winners are winning because their opening books, they have prepared lines for all openings and know how to allow rybka to get advantage for it or other top programs even!)



2) You're missing Fritz 11 in the field which is a highly top program, one disadvantage using Arena! Fritz with own Fritz book on chessbase it scores right on top even with others multi processors programs!



3) You are using old comp which is really fine, not everyone are able to get new comp, some do not need new one and some wait to upgrade yearly or so. Obviously Multi processors does make huge factor and I should say on Intel more than Athlon/AMD as of right now! For example I can imagine Zappa Mexico should be near the Top! Also 64 bit windows ca is an advantage for programs that using 64 bit technology Rybka and Zappa especially (Deep Shredder 11 x64 as well!!).


Despite the cons (matter of opinion, everyone entitle to their opinion) But Tournament looks good and I will keep my eye on it!

Thanks for your interest and your thoughts.

At present, I mainly use the Chessbase and Shredder GUIs for my testing, but the Arena GUI has much potential and I like to stay familiar with it.
As you point out, Arena is the only GUI of the three where you can load both UCI engines and Winboard engines (without having to use the wb2uci adaptors).
The downside is that you can't use Chessbase native engines. However, Fritz will soon be the only engine in that category.

Because most of my testing is for CCRL 40/40, I must adapt my time controls as necessary.
The beauty of benchmarking computers to the AMD64 X2 4600+ (2.4GHz) is that it doesn't matter how ancient or modern your hardware is, you are able to contribute to the project.
I prefer to concentrate on single cpu testing while others do 2CPU or 4CPU testing.

Part of the CCRL testing conditions is that generic opening books are used.
Obviously some engines benefit greatly from using their own opening books, but we like to test the strength of the engine alone rather than the opening book/engine package.
For the same reason, we turn all learning off.

Regards, Graham.

[Graham Banks]

ARENA MEGA SHOWDOWN III

Dual Athlon XP1800+
Arena 1.1 GUI
128mb hash each
3-4-5 piece tablebases
Ponder off
Xmas2640.abk
40 moves in 75 minutes repeating (adapted for the CCRL)
2 cycles (30 rounds)


Standings after Round 25

19.0 - Rybka 2.3.2a
16.5 - Naum 2.2
16.0 - Shredder 11
15.5 - Zappa Mexico
14.5 - Glaurung 2.0.1
14.0 - Toga II 1.3.4
13.0 - Fruit 2.3.1
13.0 - Spike 1.2 Turin
13.0 - Loop 13.6
12.5 - Deep Sjeng 2.7
11.0 - Chess Tiger 2007.1
11.0 - Hiarcs 11.2
10.0 - Ktulu 8.0
9.5 - Movei 00.8.438 P10
7.0 - Chessmaster 11
4.5 - Scorpio 2.0


The tournament can be followed and games downloaded after each round from here:
http://kirr.homeunix.org/chess/discussi ... f=7&t=2858

[Graham Banks]

ARENA MEGA SHOWDOWN III

Dual Athlon XP1800+
Arena 1.1 GUI
128mb hash each
3-4-5 piece tablebases
Ponder off
Xmas2640.abk
40 moves in 75 minutes repeating (adapted for the CCRL)
2 cycles (30 rounds)


Final Standings

22.5 - Rybka 2.3.2a
19.5 - Shredder 11
19.5 - Naum 2.2
18.0 - Glaurung 2.0.1
17.5 - Zappa Mexico
17.0 - Toga II 1.3.4
16.5 - Deep Sjeng 2.7
16.0 - Fruit 2.3.1
16.0 - Loop 13.6
15.5 - Spike 1.2 Turin
13.5 - Chess Tiger 2007.1
13.5 - Ktulu 8.0
12.0 - Hiarcs 11.2
11.0 - Movei 00.8.438 P10
7.0 - Chessmaster 11
5.0 - Scorpio 2.0


The complete tournament pgn (zipped) can be downloaded from here:
http://kirr.homeunix.org/chess/discussi ... hp?id=8832