Author: Mike Hood
Date: 06:44:40 03/01/03
Go up one level in this thread
On March 01, 2003 at 02:37:14, Sandro Necchi wrote: >On March 01, 2003 at 02:36:25, Sandro Necchi wrote: > >>Hi, >> >>some people asked for a different setting for Shredder to win agains Deep Fritz >>7 and to have it more aggressive. >>I have made a setting which meets these requirements even if it was tested only >>at long time controls or with very fast computers. >> >>here it the setting: >> >>Shredder Morphy 3 >> >>By Sandro Necchi >> >>(all not mentioned parameters should be left in the original way; i.e. Queen >>endgame = 100 as not mentioned) >> >>Queen = 99 >>Rook = 99 >>Bishop = 97 >>Knight = 103 >>Center control = 109 >>Pawn structure = 103 >>Pawn structure endgame = 103 >>Passed pawns = 103 >>Passed pawns endgame = 103 >>Bishop pair = 109 >> >>I hope someone will try it and let me know it you like it. >> >>Wishing a lot of fun... >> >>Ciao >>Sandro > >I forgot to say that this setting is for Shredder 7 only. Thanks, Sandro. It's not often that people publish "personalities" for the Chessbase engines. The largest hole in the documentation, not just of Shredder but of all the Chessbase engines, is the description of the engine parameters. This is something that only the programmer can do, so it's up to SMK, Frans Morsch, etc to deliver a description of the parameters to be added to the manual or the help files. Otherwise it's just guesswork. Let's take Shredder 7 as an example. The values for the pieces are pretty obvious... I think? If the Queen parameter is 100 it is worth 100% of its traditional value, ie 9 pawns. If it's 50 it's worth 4.5 pawns, and if it's 200 it's worth 18 pawns. Right? But then there are other parameters. The playing style is "Aggressive", "Active", "Normal" or "Solid". If you speak English you know what these words mean, and if you play chess you can make a rough guess what these styles are, but how do they translate into Shredder strategy? Then we have "King Safety". Sure, it's nice to protect your king, but what difference does it make if you change the parameter to make the king 50% or 200% or 300% safe? Just how safe is 100% anyway? The same questions can be asked about the "Center Control", "Pawn Stucture", "Passed Pawns" and "Bishop Pair" parameters. Change the values by trial and error? Sure, that's a possibility, but it would be better to have guidelines as to the "sensible" ranges and a description (with examples) of the effects of altering these parameters. The "Knowledge" parameter determines the overall effect of the previous eight parameters on the evaluation. So setting this parameter to 0 would mean the previous eight parameters are ignored. I assume that that's what it does. Again, just a guess. I know what "Forward Pruning" means because it's been discussed in this forum, but it can't be assumed that everyone who buys Shredder is a CCC member. Describe it. I have a rough idea what "Selectivity" means, but what does the default value, -1, mean? How does it change things if you change the Selectivity from positive to negative? And then, to crown it all off: "Combinations". The default value is "All", the other values are "Most", "Some" and "None". What on Earth does that mean? If you select "None", does it means that Shredder will try to mate the opponent using only one piece at a time? I could also go through the same procedure with the Fritz parameters as well as the Junior, Hiarcs, Nimzo and Chess Tiger parameters, but I think I've made my point. Something is missing from the Shredder documentation. If you know what all the parameters do, please explain them, and if you don't, ask SMK to explain them. It's really Chessbase's job to request parameter descriptions from the engine programmers, but I have little hope of achieving anything by emailing them.
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