Author: Heiko Mikala
Date: 13:09:42 12/06/99
Hi everybody!
A few weeks ago I presented the results of my current, ongoing
tournament, game in 60 minutes on two computers. In the meantime I
continued the tournament by entering two of the programs many of us
awaited most eagerly: the current World Champion Shredder 4 and
"the legend continued" Genius 6.5.
Again, I would like to show you the results, talk a bit about my
impressions of these games and the programs, and simply share the fun
I had playing these games.
The following programs played in this tournament:
-------------------------------------------------
Shredder 4 (full version)
Genius 6.5
Fritz 6
Rebel Century
Nimzo 7.32
Hiarcs 7.32
Chessmaster 6000
MChess Pro 8
Genius 5 (Mephisto Genius 98, using version 5.001 of the engine)
The conditions were:
--------------------
Game in 60 minutes (60 minutes for each of the programs)
2 computers: IBM 6x86MX PR-300, 64/128 MB Ram (approx. as fast as PII-300)
Pondering enabled
Each program used it's own opening book, strongest settings, learning
enabled where possible, EGTB's where possible (3,4 and a few 5-men)
And this is the resulting crosstable:
-------------------------------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 Fritz 6 ** 1½ 01 ½½ ½0 ½1 ½1 11 11 11.0/16
2 Nimzo 7.32 0½ ** ½½ ½½ 1½ 11 0½ 10 11 9.5/16
3 Shredder 4.00 10 ½½ ** ½½ ½½ 0½ 10 11 10 8.5/16
4 Hiarcs 7.32 ½½ ½½ ½½ ** 10 10 10 10 01 8.0/16 64.00
5 CM6000 ½1 0½ ½½ 01 ** ½0 10 1½ ½½ 8.0/16 63.75
6 Genius 5 ½0 00 1½ 01 ½1 ** 01 ½½ ½1 8.0/16 60.00
7 MChess Pro 8 ½0 1½ 01 01 01 10 ** 00 1½ 7.5/16
8 Genius 6.5 00 01 00 01 0½ ½½ 11 ** ½0 6.0/16
9 Rebel Century 00 00 01 10 ½½ ½0 0½ ½1 ** 5.5/16
You can find the PGN of all the games at:
http://www.online-club.de/~rp45195/tournaments
The following is a quote from my last post, which is still true:
----------------------------------------------------------------
[start quote]
I would like to point out, that I played this tournament to find out
more about the playing-styles of the new programs, not to find out which
one is the strongest or which one would win the tournament.
So, to make this very clear, I'm not saying that the winner is the strongest
program and the last one is the weakest.
The games have been played using the Autoplayer wherever possible, with some
exceptions. All games including Chessmaster and Genius 5 have been played by
hand, the games between Rebel and MChess have been played by hand too. No matter
which method had been used, I have watched all games live, since the reason
for these games was to find out more about the playing style of the programs.
I didn't see any anomalies in the games that were played using Auto232, and I'ld
like to point out especially, that the games with Rebel involved went absolutely
fine. Rebels nodes/second rate has always been normal (around 100k np/s on my
computers).
[end quote]
My impressions of the games and the programs
--------------------------------------------
Since I talked a lot about the other programs in my last post, I'll mainly
talk about Shredder 4 and Genius 6.5, the new entrants in this tournament.
Nevertheless I'll say a few things about some of the others too.
First of all, there are by far not enough games played to be sure about the
relative playing strengths of the programs. And, very important, it
seems that all of the top programs are extremely close in playing strength.
As a proof, please have a look at the crosstable after Shredder 4 had
completed it's games, but before Genius 6.5 entered the tournament:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 Fritz 6 ** 1½ ½1 ½½ ½1 ½0 01 11 9.0/14
2 Nimzo 7.32 0½ ** 0½ ½½ 11 1½ ½½ 11 8.5/14
3 MChess Pro 8 ½0 1½ ** 01 10 01 01 1½ 7.5/14
4 Hiarcs 7.32 ½½ ½½ 10 ** 10 10 ½½ 01 7.0/14 49.00
5 Genius 5 ½0 00 01 01 ** ½1 1½ ½1 7.0/14 44.50
6 CM6000 ½1 0½ 10 01 ½0 ** ½½ ½½ 6.5/14 46.25
7 Shredder 4.00 10 ½½ 10 ½½ 0½ ½½ ** 10 6.5/14 46.00
8 Rebel Century 00 00 0½ 10 ½0 ½½ 01 ** 4.0/14
As you can see, MChess was third here and Shredder seventh. Now, if you
look at current cross table above again, you'll find, that after Genius
completed it's games, now Shredder is third and MChess is seventh. With
so few games (although 72 all in all already!), nearly everything can
happen...
And, as you can see, between the third and seventh place there is *still*
only one (!) point difference, with three programs (4.,5.,6.) having exact-
ly the same score of 8 points.
Shredder 4
----------
(Yeah, we've all been waiting for this one, eh? ;-)
After a not so good start in the first rounds (for ex. 0.5-1.5 against
Genius 5), it played very strong in the later games. My impression is, that
Shredder plays a very "quite" style, not very agressive, rather a bit passive
in the middle game. Sometimes I had the feeling, that Shredder relies com-
pletely on it's engame qualities, trying not to make a mistake in the middle-
game, not to risk too much. On the other hand, Shredder won most of it's
games in the endgame - but it also lost some of it's games there , so that's
some sort of risk too.
In all of it's games I had activated the Nalimov-EGTB's (new in Shredder 4),
and it seems, that Shredder uses these *much* more, than any other program.
You can often hear your harddisks being "shreddered" a lot earlier, than with
Shredder's opponents, surprisingly often many moves earlier.
According to the scores (and the visual impression) Shredder seemed to have
the biggest problems against Genius 5. This could be surprising at the first
glance, because Genius 5 is a rather old program, considered to be weaker
than the current top programs by some (believe me, it isn't). But if you
think about it, there could be a logical explanation for this: as I said,
Shredder plays more passive than many other programs, but Genius 5 I consider
to be the absolute master of passive play and the king of denfense. So maybe
Genius 5 is simply a bit better in this than Shredder, and remember that
Genius was always said to have a strong endgame play - another similarity.
Well, maybe, if I would let them play more games, Shredder would clearly
win the match, I don't know. But this is, how I explained this surprising
result to myself ;-)
Two of the most exciting games were those between Shredder and MChess:
In the first game, MChess found itself in a blocked position after the
opening, unable to develop or even move it's pieces, with Shredder having
the advantage (in this sort of position) of two knights against two helpless
bishops. Shredder saw it's chance and played a brilliant king-side attack,
destroying MChess in only a few moves. So Shredder can be very agressive
too, sometimes!
In the second game it was MChess, which played a brilliant king-side attack,
destroying Shredder totally. None of the two saw it coming at first, even
MChess had low score for a long time. But it was MChess, which developed it's
pieces in a way, that made this attack possible.
It was interesting to see these two games directly following each other!
Considering Shredder's playing strength, we've had some reports about Shredder
gaining a lot on fast hardware. I must say, Shredder is the only program, for
which I would believe this, without having seen it - although I can't be sure
of course. I can't really explain it, but watching it's general playing style
and it's main lines, it looks as if Shredder had some good use for some more
computing power.
Shredder has been described as a "slow searcher", whatever is your definition
of this. But, while it's not the fastest program, it searches extremely deep
sometimes, so my guess is, that it's extremely selective.
After these first 16 games it's too early for me, to give a bet on whether
Shredder could end up as being first in the SSDF, but I'm absolutely sure,
without any doubt, that it is one of the strongest programs available!
Genius 6.5
----------
Well, this was a surprise. I still can not really believe it myself, I hesitate
to write this down, but it's true: Genius 6.5 is an active, sometimes even
agressive playing program! You won't believe me, no? I wouldn't. So just
have a look at some of it's games...
Really, Genius 6.5 plays completely different than the older Genius versions.
You could think, these are totally different programs, written by different
authors. Very interesting in this regard were the games between Genius 6.5
and Genius 5. Most of the time, these two had totally different main-lines
and different evaluations. The only similarity was the search depth, which
was the exactly the same in most situations. So there is still the old (good)
motor in there somewhere, but at least the evaluation function seems to have
changed drastically.
Concerning the games, I must say that the first games were very disappointing.
It all started with a 0.5-1.5 against Century and a 0-2 against Shredder.
But than, suddenly, Genius fought back, and just at the moment when I started
to think that Genius 6.5 is a very weak program, it started to prove the
opposite. Unfortunately it did that by beating my own favorite program MChess
2-0, but hey, that doesn't really matter (No, really. I can live with that.
Two days after this I started to eat again, and I'm already planning to
leave bed in two or three days ;-)
Another bad defeat for Genius 6.5 was that against Fritz 6, and it seems,
after I played some other games against Fritz 5.32, that Fritz is Genius 6.5's
worst enemy. But I also saw some great games played by Genius 6.5, for example
the win against Nimzo 7.32.
Interesting concerning Genius's strengths were the games against MChess (again,
sorry guys. I'm not manipulating this). In both of these games, MChess played
very good and reached a clear advantage. But then, suddenly - I don't know,
what happened. Either MChess made a bad mistake in both games, or Genius
found a genius move. Either way, this could be an indication that Genius's
great defending-abilities are still there, because in both games it succesfully
defended against an attacking opponent, defeating it afterwards.
I'm not able to tell you, if Genius 6.5 is back at the very top, I can't
even tell you, if Genius 6.5 is stronger than Genius 5, but it definetely
is an interesting program - especially if you know the older Geniuses.
You'll be very (positively) surprised by it's active play!
Some more results of Genius 6.5 (all g/60 on two comps too):
Genius 6.5 - Hiarcs 6: 5.0-3.0 (+3, =4, -1)
Genius 6.5 - Fritz 5.32: 0.5-2.5
Ok, now some words about some of the others:
Fritz 6:
--------
Man, this thing is incredible. It clearly is one of the strongest programs
around, and it seems to be unbeatable in this tournament. Yes, it was defeated
in the match against Chessmaster 6000, but all in all it is clearly the
strongest program so far, not only by it's score, but also judged by the
visual impressions I had during it's games.
I have very good results in blitz-games (g/5) too, it's still leading my
blitz-list in front of Hiarcs 7.32 and some older Fritzes after a *lot* of
games.
We've heard some doubts about wether F6 is any stronger than F5.32, but
my own impression is, that it definitely is. If we see F6 lose in a direct
match against Hiarcs 7.32 (posted a few times during the last days), than we
should keep in mind, that Fritz has always had problems against Hiarcs.
But against a wide variety of opponents, my impression is, that F6 is one of
the strongest. Only my own impression, of course.
MChess Pro 8.0
--------------
Had some very bad luck in it's games against Genius 6.5, had been in third
place of this tournament for many weeks. Nevertheless, it is still my opinion,
that MChess plays by far the most interesting, fascinating, brilliant chess.
A must have for everyone, who loves chess!
Just look at a few of it's games, and you'll see what I'm talking about.
You won't ever believe that these games have been played by a computer.
(What about the MChess advertising department? Do you need a new employee? ;))
Nimzo 7.32
----------
Well, I definitely have the good Nimzo here ;-) (Remember Markus Kaestner
talking about the good and the bad Nimzo's on his two computers? I wonder
what they're doing all day long, while he's not at home... must be funny
to watch ;-)
I can't explain the bad results in the Thueringen-Tournament, all I can
say is, that I see some *very* strong play by Nimzo. I'm still happy, that
I finally bought it.
Rebel Century:
--------------
Played much stronger in the last rounds, and I'm sooo happy about it. You
know, Rebel's been one of my favourites for a long time (see my last post
for the reason why), and I'm happy to see it win again. Still, it's hard
to catch up with those bad results from the first rounds. The loss against
Nimzo was a bad one again, but the games against Shredder and Genius 6.5
were very good. It plays a very active style, most of the time marching
forward. Very entertaining!
The future of this tournament
-----------------------------
Well guys, first of all I have decided to give this tournament a name:
"Monsters of Chess 1999"
grin :) No. Just a joke.
(In Germany we have a yearly hard-rock/heavy-metal festival called "Monsters
of Rock")
Ok, well maybe I'll enter WChess (I'm very interested in this one) and Zarkov
in this tournament. Of course, the whole tournament seems to be meaningless
without Chess Tiger 12, but hey, where is it? I wanna have it *NOW*! Hmm...
Since Tiger is not yet available, I ordered WChess and Zarkov, wondering
about the big holes in my pockets ever since then. Don't know, if these
holes are already too big to buy Tiger too, but hey, Christmas is coming :)
I would also love to enter Crafty into this tournament, but Robert reported
about some bugs and an unstable play in the latest versions. Of course, I
would want to enter a bug-free, strong version. The other problem is, that
I would have to play all Crafty-games by hand (no auto232), which is a lot
of work.
Remember, you can download all the games of this tournament at the address
mentioned above, there are some very nice and entertaining games in there.
And maybe these games can help you to decide about your own christmas-gift?
Have fun everybody, see you soon,
Heiko.
P.S.:
-----
I read the Millenium-Package Licensing Agreement at least a thousand times,
and I can't find anything that forbids to publish results or games of Genius
and Shredder. If you don't hear anything from me for some months from now on,
then I'm in jail. This will be a hard time. As far as I know, personal com-
puters are not allowed in german jails. No computer-chess then. ooohhh.....
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