Author: Ed Schröder
Date: 00:21:44 09/14/99
How to divide $2000 A few days ago I posted the rules of the Rebel Century engine contest on my pages. I like to receive some feedback as once the final cdrom is burned I can not change the rules anymore. Below is a full copy of the contest page. Some people on Rebel-Board made suggestions and I do think they have a point. The current engine contest is based on playing automatic games on a decent (no-blitz) time control. But some people pointed out that having an engine that is optimized for playing blitz games is also a nice thing to have. Therefore I am thinking about the possibility to introduce a few extra categories such as: - make the best blitz engine - make the best engine for tactics - make the best engine for end-game play - more? This is all possible with Rebel's new engine concept but of course the an engine that performs best in normal games should be rewarded higher than the above mentioned 3 sub-categories. I am puzzled by this and I can use some feedback as I want the master-cdrom to be in the factory latest end of next week. The current rewards are: * $1000 for the best improvement. * $500 for the second best improvement. * 10 prizes of each $50 for other improvements. I can keep it this way or for instance do: * $500 for the best (overall) improvement. * $250 for the second best (overall) improvement. * $250 for the best blitz improvement. * $250 for the best tactical improvement. * $250 for the best improvement for end-game play. * 10 prizes of each $50 for other improvements. Some guidelines have to added about playing blitz games since blitz is so dependant on the hardware you are playing (blitz on a PIII-650 is almost tournament time control on a 486SX-25). I don't see a good solution or rule to overcome this problem. A base for judging the best tactical engine can be a large tactical set of positions. The same (a large set of end-game positions) IMO is a good way to judge improvements for end-game play. I also like to know if there are things that are unclear in the below testing procedure. Ed Schroder Posted on Rebel-Board and CCC ------------------------------------------------------------ [-] THE BIG REBEL CENTURY ENGINE CONTEST [-] Every chess program is released with its "default settings" which according to the programmer are the best settings he is aware off. But are these "default settings" really the strongest ones? This is unlikely as chess (and programming chess) is much too complicated to say that for sure! The more likely truth is that there are maybe easy elo gains the programmer isn't aware off. The "Pilz" settings of Chessmaster are famous for that. REBEL CENTURY's new "flexible engine concept" allows easy and powerful tweaks (tuning) of the engine by the user and it is expected to get an elo improvement of 30-50 points by finding REBEL's ideal default settings. The challenge for you the end-user is to find REBEL's ideal default settings! Rewards: * $1000 for the best improvement. * $500 for the second best improvement. * 10 prizes of each $50 for other improvements. -------------------------------------------- Starting point is playing automatic games either on 1 or 2 Pc's. If your created personality scores better than Rebel Century's default settings then you perhaps have made Rebel stronger! In this case contribute your personality you might win the jackpot of $1000. Automatic games on 1 PC Base is Rebel Century's build-in autoplayer (see menu's WHITE and BLACK), do as follows: * Set the desired time-level (menu LEVEL) * Create a new empty database (menu DATA), all games will be automatically stored in this database. * Go to the WHITE menu, pick "Load Personality" from the menu and load REBEL.ENG. This will load Rebel Century default settings as player-one. * Go to the BLACK menu, pick "Load Personality" from the menu and the load the personality you have created using "Define Personality" (menu EXTRA). This will load the chess engine you have created as the second player. * Go to the WHITE menu and set "Allow double games" to OFF. Double games are of no value if you want to test 2 chess engines on strength, actually you will get misleading results in case you leave this option on. * All things are ready now to start the autoplayer. Go to the WHITE menu and pick "Autoplay Series" from the menu. During the games Rebel Century will display the match score on your screen. All games are automatically saved in the database. If you want to see the match score afterwards then go to the database (ALT_L), then go to "Overviews" (F4) and pick "Complete Overview" from the menu. The match score will be displayed. The autoplayer swaps colors after each game. HINT: Go to the CONFIG menu and set the option "Resign" to the -5.00 value. All games will be terminated in case the Rebel score will go up to 5 pawns. This will typically speed-up your testing with 30-40%. The game will be stored in the database with the right game-score and a new game automatically is started. ABOUT OPENING BOOKS For accurate testing: is MY_ENGINE stronger than Rebel Century ?? it is not such as a good idea to use opening books. Opening books play random from book for variability, also for the very same reason an opening book will not always play the strongest move but will play reasonable alternative moves as well. As a result match results may differ because of this randomness. Rebel Century offers an accurate way to avoid the randomness of the opening book. In the root directory of your installed Rebel Century directory (ie C:\CENTURY) you will find a USER-BOOK called "50-POS.RBM". This opening book contains 50 carefully chosen pre-programmed opening lines made by Jeroen Noomen the opening specialist of Rebel. If you use this option the Rebel autoplayer will play all these pre-programmed opening lines one by one and with reserved colors too. So in the end you will have 100 games based on FIXED opening lines which is a perfect base to compare your work! To activate this special option do: * Go to the WHITE menu, pick "Load User book from the menu and load AUTO232.RBM, next set "Opening Book" and "Tournament Book" to OFF. * Do the very same from black thus, Go to the BLACK menu, pick "Load User book from the menu and load AUTO232.RBM, next set "Opening Book" and "Tournament Book" to OFF. * The Rebel Autoplayer will now play all the opening lines from the "50-POS.RBM" user opening book one by one. HINT: Feel free to create your own pre-programmed opening lines. You can easily modify the pre-programmed "50-POS" userbook yourself using Rebel's build-in book editor (see menu BOOKS). Doing that the Rebel Autoplayer will follow the opening lines you made. -------------------------------------------- Automatic games on 2 PC's Rebel Century is equipped with an external driver called AUTO232 which allows you to play automatic games against other chess programs. For that you need 2 Pc's and the AUTO232 software (about $75) which can be obtained from your chess dealer. For accurate testing:is MY_ENGINE stronger than Rebel Century ?? AUTO232 isn't the best tool as too many aspects have to be taken into consideration. Besides the already mentioned randomness of opening books you also have to take into account "Book-learning" and "Position-learning" of chess programs (Rebel as well). To avoid disappointments we advice you to stick to the following rules: * Make sure that "double games" are not allowed. Rebel Century offers you this possibility, see menu WHITE. * Make sure that opponent programs do not have any learning active. From experience we know that the only good way to do this is to restore (copy) the original book from cdrom. Note that this isn't necessary for Rebel. HINT: Try to convert the "50-POS.RBM" opening book to the format of the other computer opponent and run your matches with this (small) opening book. -------------------------------------------- How do I know? How do I know if MY_ENGINE is stronger than Rebel Century's default settings? Good question! Here is some advice: * Play at least 50 games on a time level of 15 seconds average. * Play at least 50 games on a time level of 30 seconds average. * Play at least 50 games on a time level of 60 seconds average. If the results of the 3 matches are reasonable CONSISTENT (and of course better than Rebel Century's default settings) you have a very strong indicator you have found an improvement for Rebel! -------------------------------------------- How does Rebel Company know? How do we know if your created engine is stronger than Rebel Century's default settings? Another good question! Here are some guidelines how we will judge your work: * Your created engine will be tested on our own PC's using a special database of about 200 positions. For every position the engine can gain 1 to 10 points. Thus the maximum number of points your created engine can score is 2000 points. * Second step is to autoplay some automatic games using Rebel's build-in autoplayer and AUTO232. * From this information we will select the 12 winners. -------------------------------------------- How do I contribute? You can contribute your REBEL CENTURY improvement by email or on floppy disk. In case you contribute by normal mail the address is: REBEL P.O. Box 6365 7401JJ Deventer The Netherlands EXAMPLE of a contribution: Your Name ............................... Address ............................... City ............................... ZIP-code .......... Country ............................... Email ............................... Serial number .......... (as found on your quick guide) MY_ENGINE (personality) .......... (your created ".ENG" file must be included as attachment or on a floppy disk) MATCH Score Machine Time Control MY_ENGINE - Century 28.5-22.5 Pentium-II 266 Mhz 0:15 average MY_ENGINE - Century 24.5-25.5 Pentium-II 266 Mhz 0:30 average MY_ENGINE - Century 31.0-19.0 AMD 333 Mhz 0:60 average That is all we need! -------------------------------------------- Remaining Rules * The closing-date of the contest is set to the end of this century (December 31, 1999). * The winners will be announced latest March 31, 2000 although we will strive to do this earlier (end of January) but it will strongly depend on the number and quality of your contributions! * The created personalities of the winners will be offered for download so you perhaps will get an even stronger Rebel Century for free! * Although it is unlikely there is always the small possibility nobody will find an improvement for Rebel Century. If this is the case Rebel company of course reserves the right that no prize money will be paid. Rebel company wishes you many days (weeks) (months?) of happy testing!
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