Author: Eelco de Groot
Date: 19:32:33 02/13/06
Go up one level in this thread
On February 12, 2006 at 23:42:01, Howard Exner wrote:
>http://www.lokasoft.nl/howto/0003.htm
>
>After doing some more searching I found this site. The Chesspartner GUI has a
>utility built right into it that does exactly what I was inquiring about. It
>describes how to convert the Rebel dat files to pgn. So now I can try Rybka and
>Toga and other free programs on these old test suites I saved over the years
>from magazines, books and this message board.
>
>Eelco I remember you as having a solid understanding of the Rebel program.
>Do you have any interesting engine personalities for prodeo to share?
Hello Howard, thanks for the above link. I had completely forgotten that page, I
did see the settings in Rebel 12 a while ago but could not get them to work. I
had saved the article before but forgotten about it. I hope it works, haven't
tried it yet, if not there is always the option of doing it with the DOS
version, just post or e-mail if you can't get it to work after all
I did do a lot of tweaking with the Pro Deo 1.1 version, unfortunately probably
also Ed's last version. The settings I made mostly for analysis, I did not play
many testgames. If Pro Deo's endgame was a little better, I think it would still
be very near the top! But as an adsembler program I suppose it is extremely
difficult to debug Rebel/Pro Deo for Ed. Do you have a listing of all Pro Deo's
options? Ah, I found it again, Ed posted it in CTF, see below. I posted some of
my Vulcan settings on the pages from Lokasoft, see
http://www.lokasoft.nl/usercontributions.htm
Some of the options are difficult to get right, and some settings also are at
the margin now of what is still giving positionally good results, that is part
of the difficulty I think, King Safety just a little bit higher than 170 for
instance and some of the testpositions, I tried mostly the testpositions from
Michael Gurevich in German CSS forum, go wrong. But there must still be a lot of
combinations I did not try, and very many I only tried in one or two
testpositions to get an idea -if they speeded up things in my favorite Ferret-
Gandalf or Rebel-Rohde testposition, Yes! Hurray!, else they'd just get tossed
out again, just like that-, many parameters I tried with some other parameters
not in a good position yet. And the different "Master"-settings for openings or
endgames I did not try, only a few, that gives even more possibilities.
Everybody has his own tastes too in playing style and Rebel can handle many
different settings.
Eelco
============================== =======
REBEL [MISC] options (01-80) REMARKS
=============================== =======
[MISC-01] Don't touch Is in use by [Eternal Checks]
[MISC-02] Speedup Small move ordering speedup (1.5%) DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-03] Speedup Small move ordering speedup (4-5%) DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-04] ALPHA/BETA Set Window to 0.25 (instead of 0.50) doesn't matter
much.
[MISC-05] ALPHA/BETA Fail-High or Fail-Low in 5 phases doesn't work
currently.
[MISC-06] ALPHA/BETA Zero Width (speedup is 3%) looks safe.
[MISC-07] NULLMOVE Detect Zugzwang (new style) untested and doubtful.
[MISC-08] Reduction History Reductions DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-09] Reduction Reduce if bad HT score (max=1) (+12%) unclear.
probably no improvement.
[MISC-10] NULLMOVE Block first extension (+10%) untested. no high
expectations.
[MISC-11] Reduction TR70 only on RD-3 probably small improvement.
untested.
[MISC-12] Lazy Eval Double Lazy Eval (safety) DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-13] Bishop Pair Extra bonus (0.25) if opponent no N/B untested.
[MISC-14] Queen Ending New passed pawn handling untested. contains a bug.
[MISC-15] Time Control TR30 (quickly check next iteration) unclear.
[MISC-16] Sel. Search Increase Brute Force if extension (1) (2,0,0,0) see
also MISC-28
[MISC-17] Search Skip first extension (+30-35%) unclear.
[MISC-18] Bishop Pair via no. of pawns instead of material unclear.
[MISC-19] Time Control Play Fast against humans mandatary against GM's.
Do NOT mix with MISC_68 (!)
[MISC-20] Don't touch In use for compatibilty reasons with older versions.
[MISC-21] Lazy Eval Tuning attempt (-4%) about equal.
[MISC-22] Move Ordering Sort root moves on nodes no improvement.
[MISC-23] Reduction PLMAX-b reduction only once could make a difference.
untested.
[MISC-24] Search Skip first recapture extension unclear.
[MISC-25] Reduction PLW3 reduction (new style) DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-26] Extension Skip endgame extension untested. no expectations.
[MISC-27] Eval Eval double pawns (new style) untested. interesting.
[MISC-28] Sel. Search Increase Brute Force if extension (2) (2,2,1,1) see
also MISC-16
[MISC-29] Search Limit check extensions (2x SVDSG) looks ok (+4%)
[MISC-30] Extension Allow singular check extensions (max=3) great for
tactics, unclear in practical games
[MISC-31] ALPHA/BETA Fail_high_error = best move unclear and risky.
[MISC-32] Sel. Search Increase Brute Force if extension (3) untested. Speed loss
of 12% in endgame.
[MISC-33] Eval Cancel exchange when up/down algorithm unclear.
[MISC-34] ............ ...................................
[MISC-35] ............ ...................................
[MISC-36] Extension Extend double attacks (W6) at the leafs looks
promising (-2%)
[MISC-37] Extension Hash Table extension (-18%) DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-38] ............. ....................................
[MISC-39] NULLMOVE Move ordering (+4%) DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-40] Sel. Search PLMAX-Z3 reduction (+15%) DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-41] ............. ....................................
[MISC-42] REDUCE no reduction if prev plies extended interesting. good
first results. needs more testing.
[MISC-43] Search No TWS extensions in the last x plies untested. better
don't touch.
[MISC-44] ............. ....................................
[MISC-45] ............. ....................................
[MISC-46] ............. ....................................
[MISC-47] Extension King Safety extension (-5%) equal. matter of taste.
[MISC-48] Q-Search No FHR pruning in QS (-6%) unclear.
[MISC-49] ............. ....................................
[MISC-50] Search Maximize reductions iteration driven unclear.
[MISC-51] Time Control Minimum search depth easy-moves untested. could
matter a lot in blitz games.
[MISC-52] Reduction FH reduction (new style) (max=1) DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-53] Reduction BBB reduction (new style) (max=1) untested. could
matter.
[MISC-54] ............. ....................................
[MISC-55] ............. ....................................
[MISC-56] NULLMOVE Limit Nulmove Mate Extension (max=1) untested. probably
no big deal.
[MISC-57] Extension Extend withdrawing moves at the leafs looks promising
(-2%)
[MISC-58] Eval Recalculate passed pawns the [M58_Table = midg]
sub-setting looks promising.
[MISC-59] Eval Recalculate Bad Bishop (endgame) untested.
[MISC-60] Eval Recalculate Bishop financhetto untested.
[MISC-61] Eval Rook behind passed pawn tuning Sub-setting [M61_Perc =
100]
[MISC-62] ............. ....................................
[MISC-63] Lazy Eval Include pawns on 7th (2th) rank unclear.
[MISC-64] Search No 7th (2th) rank pawn exte in MIDG untested.
[MISC-65] ............. ....................................
[MISC-66] Hash Table Bugfix DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-67] ............. ....................................
[MISC-68] Time Control Play fast against computers promising. Do NOT mix
with MISC_19 (!)
[MISC-69] Eval King tropism opponent passed pawn DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-70] ............. ....................................
[MISC-71] ............. ....................................
[MISC-72] Search Research FH error directly unclear.
[MISC-73] ............. ....................................
[MISC-74] Reduction HT singular reduction (2.00) (+11%) unclear.
[MISC-75] Eval King Saftey (no pawnram queen endings) untested.
[MISC-76] Endgame Rook 7th rank (new style) untested. note the 2
sub-settings.
[MISC-77] Search Avoid double reductions untested. probably no big
deal.
[MISC-78] NULLMOVE Adaptive nullmove. DEFAULT SETTING.
[MISC-79] EVAL Adjust King Safety (insuf. material) attempt to fix the
KBPK bad bishop bug.
[MISC-80] Draw Bugfix 50-move rule don't touch. probably even worse.
MISC sub-settings (parameters)
==============================
[MISC-09] Reduction Reduce if bad HT score (max=1) (+12%) (default is
2.00)
[M09_val = 2.00] Margin is 2.00
[MISC-27] Eval Eval double pawns (new style) untested. interesting.
[M27_midg = 100] Double pawn factor middlegame
[M27_end1 = 100] Double pawn factor endgame (normal)
[M27_end2 = 100] Double pawn factor endgame (simple)
[MISC-43] Search No TWS extensions in the last x plies untested. better
don't touch.
[M43_TWS = 3] RD=3
[MISC-52] Reduction FH reduction (new style) (max=1) DEFAULT SETTING.
[Fail High Margin = 9.00] Default is 9.00
[MISC-58] Eval Recalculate passed pawns the [M58_Table = midg]
sub-setting looks promising.
[M58_Table = midg] normal|strong|midg|endg (default is normal)
[MISC-61] Eval Rook behind passed pawn tuning untested.
[M61_Perc = 100] Default is 100.
[MISC-69] Eval King tropism opponent passed pawn DEFAULT SETTING.
[M69_Perc = 100] Default is 100. Tuning is needed
[MISC-74] Reduction HT singular reduction (+11%) (default is 2.00)
[M09_val = 2.00] Margin is 2.00
[MISC-76] Endgame Rook 7th rank (new style)
[Rook 7th Rank (low) = 50] 50 (default) (when opponent king is on the 8th
rank)
[Rook 7th Rank (high) = 50] 50 (default) (when opponent king can't escape
from 8th rank)
Other parameters
================
[Your Quuen = 100] Increase (decrease) value opponent queen
[My Queen = 101] Own Queen +1% (0.09) DEFAULT SETTING.
[Own Queen = 1.00] Increase own queen when down unclear.
[Queen Endgame Bonus = 0.50] Increase value of Queen in endgame unclear.
[Endgame Mobility = 100] Self explanatory untested.
[Knight Mobility = 100] Self explanatory A lower value is probably better.
[Minimum Knight Mobility = 100] Self explanatory DEFAULT SETTING. Tuning is
needed nevertheless.
[Minimum Bishop Mobility = 100] Self explanatory DEFAULT SETTING. Tuning is
needed nevertheless.
[Keep Main Line = 10] Minimum margin for each new mainline untested.
risky! (speedup 5%)
[Time Control = 125] 125 clear
improvement using blitz levels, unclear
[Time Control Status = ALWAYS] ALWAYS|PB ONLY on all
other levels.
[Eternal Checks = Normal] off|normal|risky|safe default=off. Algorithm
to detect eternal checks,
its quality is doubtful.
[Recaptures = Normal]
1.00|1.50|2.00|2.50|3.00|4.00|5.00|normal|aggressive
I am afraid none of these will give a clear improvement, but I only tried
[2.00]
[Chaos = 100] Substitute for [Attacking = 100] [Attacking] [Chaos] and
[Confusion] are algorithm's
[Confusion = 100] Substitute for [Attacking = 100] to use against humans. It's
practical use against
computers is doubtful, their status is untested.
[Lazyeval MIDG = moderate] * normal|moderate|strong probably a small
improvement.
[Lazyeval ENDG = moderate] * normal|moderate|strong probably a small
improvement.
[Checks Depth = 1] limit QS checks to 1 ply (+9%) probably an
improvement.
[Clear Hash Table = Always] Always|Never|PB only probably a small
improvement.
[Pruning = Prune Bad Moves_0] No reductions allowed slows down search with a
factor of 2.
[Pruning = Prune Bad Moves_1] Allow only 1 reduction slows down search
considerable (30-40%)
[Pruning = Prune Bad Moves_2] Allow only 2 reductions slows down search
(10-15%), effects are little.
[Pruning = Prune Bad Moves_3] Allow only 3 reductions slows down search a bit,
effects are negligible.
[Nullmove Margin = 0] Search speedup depending on the height of the parameter.
Reasonable values in the range
of 0-16. Above that chances are high for big search gaps. Default setting is
0 (off)
[Transpositions = ON] on|off (for testing purposes only)
[Extensions (remaining)= 3] Maximum recapture extensions (default is 3)
(maximum is 15)
[Extensions (checks)= NORMAL] low|moderate|normal|strong|high|all Low
(+25%)
Moderate (+8%)
Normal Default setting
Strong (-16%)
High (-21%)
All (-26%)
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