Free engines with positional understanting at depth 10.

[mesilikas]

Can you suggest free engines that understand positional patterns at depth 10? Engines also must be strong at tactics.

[Sopel]

Stockfish

[Ciekce]

depths are not comparable between engines. "depth 10" does not mean anything transferable

[FireDragon761138]

Can you suggest free engines that understand positional patterns at depth 10? Engines also must be strong at tactics.

Lc0, Dragon (1.0 is free, but no open source), or Theoria.

https://lczero.org/

https://komodochess.com/

https://www.theoriachess.org/

Lc0 is the strong at tactics, so is Dragon. Theoria will see human-level tactics, but isn't as tactically strong as Lc0 or Dragon.

[Ciekce]

[...] Theoria [...]

no point bothering with SF clones, just use SF

[FireDragon761138]

Preliminary testing seems to suggest SF 16.1 might be somewhat more stable in terms of evaluations than Stockfish 17.1, which generally means it's going to be better at demonstrating stable plans or ideas. SF17.1 seems to have the LMR algorithm being more directly influenced by the NNUE output, which inclines it towards more aggressive search for sharp tactics.

[syzygy]

Preliminary testing seems to suggest SF 16.1 might be somewhat more stable in terms of evaluations than Stockfish 17.1, which generally means it's going to be better at demonstrating stable plans or ideas. SF17.1 seems to have the LMR algorithm being more directly influenced by the NNUE output, which inclines it towards more aggressive search for sharp tactics.

Any PV output by an engine is as good as any other (while understanding that PVs for higher depths will generally have more accurate moves).
If the engine switches a lot you just get more PVs, which HELPS the user to understand the position.
To always get multiple PVs, use multipv=N. This option is specifically intended for analysis.
The more PVs the better.

The idea that "stable evaluations" and "stable PVs" are inherently a good thing is fundamentally flawed. Many positions simply inherently have many different possible continuations. You as the player can control your own moves but not the moves of the opponent. And even when you can choose a move, you want to know whether there are multiple promising moves.

Of course to really understand a position the user should also study the various possible lines separately.

[FireDragon761138]

Preliminary testing seems to suggest SF 16.1 might be somewhat more stable in terms of evaluations than Stockfish 17.1, which generally means it's going to be better at demonstrating stable plans or ideas. SF17.1 seems to have the LMR algorithm being more directly influenced by the NNUE output, which inclines it towards more aggressive search for sharp tactics.

Any PV output by an engine is as good as any other (while understanding that PVs for higher depths will generally have more accurate moves).
If the engine switches a lot you just get more PVs, which HELPS the user to understand the position.
To always get multiple PVs, use multipv=N. This option is specifically intended for analysis.
The more PVs the better.

The idea that "stable evaluations" and "stable PVs" are inherently a good thing is fundamentally flawed. Many positions simply inherently have many different possible continuations. You as the player can control your own moves but not the moves of the opponent. And even when you can choose a move, you want to know whether there are multiple promising moves.

Of course to really understand a position the user should also study the various possible lines separately.

A stable positional evaluation is better in the sense of gesturing towards actual positional ideas or themes. It's the difference between a positionally sound move, and one that's so hyper-contextual, that there's nothing to learn from it. They are not the same, and one facilitates much more generalisable learning than the other.

[syzygy]

Preliminary testing seems to suggest SF 16.1 might be somewhat more stable in terms of evaluations than Stockfish 17.1, which generally means it's going to be better at demonstrating stable plans or ideas. SF17.1 seems to have the LMR algorithm being more directly influenced by the NNUE output, which inclines it towards more aggressive search for sharp tactics.

Any PV output by an engine is as good as any other (while understanding that PVs for higher depths will generally have more accurate moves).
If the engine switches a lot you just get more PVs, which HELPS the user to understand the position.
To always get multiple PVs, use multipv=N. This option is specifically intended for analysis.
The more PVs the better.

The idea that "stable evaluations" and "stable PVs" are inherently a good thing is fundamentally flawed. Many positions simply inherently have many different possible continuations. You as the player can control your own moves but not the moves of the opponent. And even when you can choose a move, you want to know whether there are multiple promising moves.

Of course to really understand a position the user should also study the various possible lines separately.

A stable positional evaluation is better in the sense of gesturing towards actual positional ideas or themes. It's the difference between a positionally sound move, and one that's so hyper-contextual, that there's nothing to learn from it. They are not the same, and one facilitates much more generalisable learning than the other.

No, it is not. Those statements are based on nothing and essentially meaningless. An evaluation does not "gesture at positional ideas". Studying a PV might uncover an idea, but again, any PV is as good or bad as any other for this. PVs that vary over search iterations simply show more possible variations.

[FireDragon761138]

Preliminary testing seems to suggest SF 16.1 might be somewhat more stable in terms of evaluations than Stockfish 17.1, which generally means it's going to be better at demonstrating stable plans or ideas. SF17.1 seems to have the LMR algorithm being more directly influenced by the NNUE output, which inclines it towards more aggressive search for sharp tactics.

Any PV output by an engine is as good as any other (while understanding that PVs for higher depths will generally have more accurate moves).
If the engine switches a lot you just get more PVs, which HELPS the user to understand the position.
To always get multiple PVs, use multipv=N. This option is specifically intended for analysis.
The more PVs the better.

The idea that "stable evaluations" and "stable PVs" are inherently a good thing is fundamentally flawed. Many positions simply inherently have many different possible continuations. You as the player can control your own moves but not the moves of the opponent. And even when you can choose a move, you want to know whether there are multiple promising moves.

Of course to really understand a position the user should also study the various possible lines separately.

A stable positional evaluation is better in the sense of gesturing towards actual positional ideas or themes. It's the difference between a positionally sound move, and one that's so hyper-contextual, that there's nothing to learn from it. They are not the same, and one facilitates much more generalisable learning than the other.

No, it is not. Those statements are based on nothing and essentially meaningless. An evaluation does not "gesture at positional ideas". Studying a PV might uncover an idea, but again, any PV is as good or bad as any other for this. PVs that vary over search iterations simply show more possible variations.

Your just dismissing my point with Positivist-style hand-waving "there's no meaning here, only data... and the more, the better". Yeah, in which case, why use engines at all for analysis? If relevance and context aren't important in deciding what engine to use for a specific task, why not just stick with Sargon? It's about as useful for the average human player if all you want is "show me the best tactical move that I can learn something from"