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Subject: Re: WCCC Round 4 tables and 5 games

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 18:41:22 08/15/05

Go up one level in this thread


On August 15, 2005 at 21:21:46, Mark Young wrote:

>On August 15, 2005 at 20:54:51, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On August 15, 2005 at 19:35:25, Mark Young wrote:
>>
>>>On August 15, 2005 at 16:55:58, Thomas Mayer wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 15, 2005 at 16:41:40, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On August 15, 2005 at 16:21:31, Theo van der Storm wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>C:\DOSEXE\PGN.EXE -d -x wccc13.pgn
>>>>>>  # Name                   1    2    3    4   P    BU   SB     G
>>>>>>  1 Crafty                3b=  4b1 10w1  9b1  3.5   8.0  6.50  4
>>>>>>  2 Zappa                 9w1  6b1  5w1 11b=  3.5   6.0  5.75  4
>>>>>>  3 Shredder              1w= 10b1  9w1  6b=  3.0   7.5  4.75  4
>>>>>>  4 Deep Junior          11b1  1w0  7b1 10w1  3.0   7.0  3.50  4
>>>>>>  5 Fruit                 7b1  8w1  2b0 12w=  2.5   7.5  3.75  4
>>>>>>  6 Deep Sjeng            8b=  2w0 12b1  3w=  2.0   8.5  2.75  4
>>>>>>  7 Jonny                 5w0 11b1  4w0  8w1  2.0   7.5  2.00  4
>>>>>>  8 The Baron             6w=  5b0 11w1  7b0  1.5   7.0  1.50  4
>>>>>>  9 The Crazy Bishop      2b0 12w1  3b0  1w0  1.0  10.5  0.50  4
>>>>>> 10 Diep                 12b1  3w0  1b0  4b0  1.0  10.0  0.50  4
>>>>>> 11 Fute_MT               4w0  7w0  8b0  2w=  0.5  10.0  1.75  4
>>>>>> 12 IsiChess MMX         10w0  9b0  6w0  5b=  0.5   6.5  1.25  4
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  # Name                 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12    P    BU   SB
>>>>>>  1 Crafty               X  .  ½  1  .  .  .  .  1  1  .  .   3.5   8.0  6.50
>>>>>>  2 Zappa                .  X  .  .  1  1  .  .  1  .  ½  .   3.5   6.0  5.75
>>>>>>  3 Shredder             ½  .  X  .  .  ½  .  .  1  1  .  .   3.0   7.5  4.75
>>>>>>  4 Deep Junior          0  .  .  X  .  .  1  .  .  1  1  .   3.0   7.0  3.50
>>>>>>  5 Fruit                .  0  .  .  X  .  1  1  .  .  .  ½   2.5   7.5  3.75
>>>>>>  6 Deep Sjeng           .  0  ½  .  .  X  .  ½  .  .  .  1   2.0   8.5  2.75
>>>>>>  7 Jonny                .  .  .  0  0  .  X  1  .  .  1  .   2.0   7.5  2.00
>>>>>>  8 The Baron            .  .  .  .  0  ½  0  X  .  .  1  .   1.5   7.0  1.50
>>>>>>  9 The Crazy Bishop     0  0  0  .  .  .  .  .  X  .  .  1   1.0  10.5  0.50
>>>>>> 10 Diep                 0  .  0  0  .  .  .  .  .  X  .  1   1.0  10.0  0.50
>>>>>> 11 Fute_MT              .  ½  .  0  .  .  0  0  .  .  X  .   0.5  10.0  1.75
>>>>>> 12 IsiChess MMX         .  .  .  .  ½  0  .  .  0  0  .  X   0.5   6.5  1.25
>>>>>
>>>>>Is there a hardware listing somewhere yet?
>>>>>
>>>>>I am guessing that Fruit is the only one in the top six that is running on a
>>>>>single CPU.
>>>>>
>>>>>Against Crafty (for instance) there is about 6-7x speed difference (as a rough
>>>>>estimate).  I am curious about the other hardware.
>>>>
>>>>Hi Dann,
>>>>
>>>>all I know currently is, that Diep & Crafty play on 8-way boxes, Shredder,
>>>>Junior & Zappa on 4-way, Deep Sjeng on Dual an the rest on single... For Jonny
>>>>it should be Athlon 64 with 2.6 GHz internally, Fruit is 2.4 GHz...
>>>>I think Gerd has his own Athlon 64 with him which is afaik 2.2 GHz -> The rest
>>>>is probably P4 3.0 GHz
>>>>
>>>>Greets, Thomas
>>>
>>>Crafty has really shown me some very good chess in this tournament. Crafty has
>>>shown some holes in its play before. I don't see them so far in this tournament.
>>>This has to be more then just 8 cpu's and 16 million nodes a sec helping
>>>Crafty's play. For this to happen Crafty must has also stepped up a notch on the
>>>programming side. Speed is great, but speed can't always fix holes in a programs
>>>play. As shown by Diep for example who also plays on a 8 way. Bob looks like a
>>>big threat for any program in this touranment, and it is no fluke that Crafty is
>>>in first place. Bob has to be considered a favorite to win this tournament. I
>>>would not have said that 2 days ago.
>>
>>
>>I still wouldn't say it myself.  :)
>
>You may not want to say it, but you see what I see...I bet. :) It is not easy to
>bring everything together when playing in WCCC. You may have done it this year.
>All the best Bob. Good Luck.


There are a couple of issues at least.  Yes, the thing is very fast, which tends
to mean that everyone else is searching a perfect sub-tree of what crafty is
searching.  That is a serious problem for them.  If you ever play against
someone with much faster hardware, you'll see this effect.  You play the best
move you can find, yet your eval continually drops.  This simply means you are
getting out-searched.  TCB played well today, it just got out-searched pretty
badly.  The other issue is the "luck factor".  A good program can have bad luck
and lose against anybody in Iceland.  A bad program can have a bit of luck in a
single game, and be capable of beating anyone playing there.  I just have to
hope that I'm not the recipient of that bad luck.

Also, there are some very strong opponents left.  Anthony's program (zappa) is
certainly highly dangerous.  Don't know much about Fruit, but from all the
comments here, it is highly capable of winning games.  It is going to have its
hands full against Crafty's search speed, but I can clearly remember both Cray
Blitz and Deep Thought losing a game here and there against _far_ slower
programs that also had less chess knowledge.

In the shredder game, Crafty played well.  It pushed hard and pushed into a
position where it had an eval of almost -2.0, which means it was simply
out-searching shredder for the most part (ignoring shredder's selective search
stuff of course).  It then was a little optimistic in its evaluation with the
opponent's two connected passers, something I had seen a couple of times in test
games against shredder on ICC.  Was afraid to try to fix that so close to the
tournament, because changes to the eval can have effects far beyond just the
things being looked at.

The deep junior game saw DJ self-destruct with the BN for RP sacrifice.  No idea
what caused that, other than probably king-safety turned up too high to reward
aggressive play.  But you don't want to go overboard on aggressive play if your
opponent is likely out-searching you due to superior hardware.

The Diep game I have not looked at in any detail as I missed it this morning due
to an early meeting.  No idea what happened there.

The TCB game looked pretty drawish after Crafty entered a way deep tactical plan
that ended up winning the exchange, losing two pawns, but getting a serious bind
on white in the process.  The bind turned out to be a strangle-hold that could
not be broken.  This was a game where Crafty's eval climbed or remained steady
each and every move, never dropping at all, another indication of overwhelming
search speed rather than chess skill.

What will happen next is anybody's guess.  I've never been one to make
predictions about myself, it is easy to look stupid (I won't name names for
someone that likes to make stupid predictions, but you know the example) and it
is just as easy to say "we'll know by Sunday who wins this thing..."  Every good
round for Crafty increases the probability it will win the event.  But there are
7 rounds left.  Even though shredder and junior games are done, there are enough
potholes left to blow a tire easily.

Tomorrow is Deep Sjeng I believe.  Another strong program, that is easily
capable of handing Crafty its first "0" in a round.  Sooner or later Zappa steps
up as well, and it is also dangerous.  There are a few left I _should_ beat, but
should != will, so the games have to be played.  And an opponent can find a
brilliant move for the wrong reason, or Crafty can play a horrible move for the
wrong reason, or anything in between.

So we still have a tournament to watch.  :)



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