Author: Wayne Lowrance
Date: 16:07:49 12/07/99
Go up one level in this thread
On December 06, 1999 at 16:09:42, Heiko Mikala wrote: >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..... Very Nice Heiko Wayne
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