process
FICGS - Search results for process
There are 134 results for process in the forum.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-04-09 10:16:50)
Duplication
Hello Marc ! I thought players (I first) precisely would appreciate something different and this totally "live" concept. I don't think many correspondence chess players will try to cheat this way... Furthermore, I already did implement processes to DETECT 'double' games.. and rules clearly forbid these methods.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-04-11 18:33:13)
Bug fixed...
Many improvements in the send move process... It should not be possible anymore to make a wrong move. Stalemate detection is implemented. In checkmate case, nothing else should be possible than resigning. Thanks for your feedback.
Glen D. Shields (2006-04-16 12:33:44)
Comparisons
Hello Thibault - first thanks for creating this server. I'm happy to see so many members joined up so quickly.
I just started on Ortwin's server (IECG) yesterday. Too early to compare, though one initial item I like better on Ortwin's server is that I can
easily change board colors and chess pieces there. Would like the board a little larger (or maybe be adjustable) on both sites. Easier for old eyes!
Two items I like much better here than at ICCF are the time rules (ICCF's are much too long) and the tournament sign-up procedure. I can not sign up for an ICCF tournament on-line. I have to do so by printing a form and mailing a check to my NF. A old process for a modern method of play!
Thibault de Vassal (2006-04-16 18:42:59)
Two players matches
Question about 2 players matches will be discussed too. I first decided not to offer these formulas because it may lead to cheating problems, at least unfair results. I have implemented processes to detect cheaters, but avoiding temptations is probably best for all :)
Thibault de Vassal (2006-05-18 03:18:57)
Let's see...
Hello Glen.
This is quite unusual and it may look strange at the first sight, but I still think that this rule is positive and is not a nonsense !
That's true I prefer the server working this way, and it saves time process, but I keep in mind : First, this is friendly... 2nd, if a player want to last a game, he will do it before being checkmated. 3rd, I didn't adjudicate Wayne's game, and his opponent just resigned only 2 days after his move. Let's give a chance to this rule, I'm convinced time will show that it is not a nonsense ;)
Thibault de Vassal (2006-05-23 09:27:49)
Transpositions
Hello Pablo.
I fixed that. Auto-analyzing would take too much time processing, but it now works in another way : Just tell me (please send email) if you find a line transposing to another, and I'll make the change. As it's difficult to cancel a forwarding, only moderators could do such a change.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-05-26 21:19:33)
transpositions...
Hello David. Thanks for your feedback !
That's a big deal. Actually I have a solution to automate transpositions management. But it could bring other problems... In example, a secondary (or totally wrong) line should always transpose to the main line..
Your example (f4 e5 e4) is true, so we should give our opinion about the position (and future moves), not the last move...
About the search function, you're right again, but this point is even more complex ! I'll think about it later, I must care about time processing. Anyway, you can use Chessbase or Chess Assistant to find games sorted by position. So, by now, the search function works for openings, not positions.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-06-06 18:07:22)
Rules for team championship
I was thinking about... The possibility for players to defend another country is very interesting, but it may have many consequences that could complicate a lot the process for building teams and the choice for players who want to support a team or another, waiting for leaders decision etc... Furthermore, there could be confusion in the crosstables.
Sorry about that Dinesh, but teams should be 4 players from the same country. Maybe you could invite some other players from Sri Lanka ?
So, rules :
- All games (rated) will be played in 40 days + 40 days / 10 moves.
- If several players ask to lead the same team, the current chess rating will decide.
- Leaders will choose players for their team (4 players by team) and the "board" (1, 2, 3 or 4) they will play.
Glen D. Shields (2006-07-24 17:04:52)
Thanks Thibault
Thanks Thibault for the response.
I definitely concur that today's correspondence chess is different than 40 years ago. The two biggest things I miss about today's CC are the 1) blunders and 2) open tournaments. I remember the excitement of getting a postcard and rushing to check my opponent's move. Blunders weren't common, but they occured. Now they're non-existant. Blunders made for great lore!
Why no more open tournaments? Took me 40 years to get my rating where it's at. I'm not a top player, but what I've earned, I've earned mostly the "old fashioned" way. I avoid open tournaments to avoid losing to low rated players who just learned the moves, but because they have a a high powered muti-processor running Deep Fritz they can knock me down a hundred points. I miss chatting with beginners, teaching them the ins and outs of CC. Oh well :)
You mentioned the top CC players winning and then not sticking with the game because winning is too hard due to chess engines. Is the drop out rate at the WC level any different than it was in the past? Berliner won and dropped out 40 years ago. Palciauskas won 30 years ago and then he dropped out. Chess engines were not a factor when they won. I don't think top players drop out because of engines, but because it is too hard to keep a competitive edge to play at a top level for any length of time. Good results are a combination of talent, hard work and good fortune. Keeping all three together for any length of time is a HUGE endeavor.
Personally I think a bigger threat to CC burn-out is not chess engines, but chess servers. Servers make CC too easy. Today's CC today is like Bill Murray in "Ground Hog Day." You wake up to an inbox full of chess moves. You work all day/night replying. Then you wake up the following day to moves from the same people and do it all again. There are no week long breaks breaks between games like in the postcard days. Server chess is burning out everyone, not just the top players. The progressive server owners will need to address this issue someday.
Sooooo ... what's the bottomline for me? I liked the old days better, but the old days are gone. Chess engines are here to stay. Progress is part of life. I embrace progress and am determined to enjoy it. I get my thrills by learning about chess engines and their weaknesses. That gives me an edge and keeps the game fresh. But then that's me :)
Thibault de Vassal (2006-09-05 17:07:17)
Time to display all informations
Hmm.. That's a real problem :/
Could you tell me more about your processor / browser / internet speed ?
(by email if you prefer)
Thanks !
Thibault de Vassal (2006-09-05 17:40:48)
Time to display all informations
Do you know your computer (processor) speed ? That's very slow...
Nigel Colter (2006-09-22 21:50:39)
Comments at Resignation
Thibault
Many thanks. I now understand that when an opponent resigns and sends a comment that you cannot give a quick reply directly. You must go to an unrelated game and use the comments facilities there.
Do you plan to make this process more intuitive in a future software upgrade?
Nigel
Thibault de Vassal (2006-09-29 03:40:57)
Re: A small Go help
Hi Don.
That's a very good idea but I have to think about that. The program avoids to read all moves in order to display the goban. First priority is to save time processing... This change would add some work. But that's right, it would be better.
To be continued.
Dinesh De Silva (2006-09-29 13:14:25)
Kramnik's team says...........
Kramnik threatens to stop playing the match......
29.09.2006 Statement from the team of Vladimir Kramnik, rejecting the decision of the Appeals Committee of FIDE : "The protests of the Topalov team and the suspicions in the press release of Mr. Topalov are utterly disgraceful and are touching Mr. Kramnik’s privacy."
Elista, 29 September 2006
Open Letter to FIDE President H.E. Kirsan Iljumshinov
Copied to Executive Committee of Kalmykia Mr. Valery Bovaev, Chief Arbiter Mr. Geurt Gijssen, Russian Chess Federation
Dear Mr. President,
The Appeals Committee of the World Championship Match between Veselin Topalov and Vladimir Kramnik made the following decision on the protest of the Topalov Team:
“to close both the toilets in the players rest rooms and to open another toilet that will be available only to the two players”
The Kramnik team received the mentioned decision a few hours before the start of game 5 and was officially informed about the protest of Mr. Topalov only yesterday evening, 10 p.m., 28 September 2006. With such a decision the WCC Committee is clearly violating both the rules and regulations of the WCC match and the rights of Mr. Kramnik.
The relevant clause in contract of Mr. Kramnik expels: “FIDE shall provide a rest room and toilette for the players during the WCC match in the playing hall and close to the stage (if possible backstage) to be equipped with a live monitor furnished with coffee and tea as well as with light refreshments.”
The reasons that Mr. Kramnik is entering his own bathroom often is simple: The restroom is small and Mr. Kramnik likes to walk and therefore uses the space of the bathroom as well. The Appeals Committee has been informed about the issue before they decided. It should also be mentioned that Mr. Kramnik has to drink a lot of water during the games.
On the request of Mr. Topalov the agreed live monitors have been removed as well as the shower cabines in the bath rooms. The moves are provided on demonstration boards only. The substance of Mr. Topalov protests (dated 22, 24 and 28 September 2006) were basically always met by the approval of the Appeals Committee. Everything has been done here to satisfy Mr. Topalov’s requests.
On a regulary basis the restrooms and toiletts are heavily checked by specialists, obviously local police forces. This goes together with the arrival of the players. The arbiters are observing all the measures. One representative of each team has the right of being present in order to observe the activities. The playing area is banned from signals and the glas wall protects from any kind of view contact and/or body language. There is not a single reason or evidence to believe that a player would have any kind of cheating possibilities.
It is and was no problem for the organization to assure all necessary measures in order to avoid any kind of cheating. By starting the match both participants agreed all the playing conditions de facto and de jure and the conditions are therefore legally binding. Any change of the playing conditions without a good reason would in our understanding request the approval of both players which is not the case here.
Mr. Kramnik believes that the latest decision should increasingly concern the world of chess as it shows very clearly and once again the biased stand of the Appeals Committee members involved. In person: Mr. Makropolous, Mr. Azmaiparashivili (well known as a close friend to Mr. Danailov), Mr. Gelfer (now replaced by Mr. Vega). Therefore Mr. Kramnik requests to exchange the mentioned persons immediately. Enough is enough.
We would like to add that the recent decision not only insults Mr. Kramnik but is clearly critizing both the excellent work of the local organisation at Elista and the nominated arbiters. Yesterday evening the chief arbiter and the head of the excutive committee once again confirmed that the indirect accusations of cheating are nonsense.
The protests of the Topalov team into the direction of Mr. Kramnik and the suspicions in the press release of Mr. Topalov are utterly disgraceful and are touching Mr. Kramnik’s privacy. We do not think that the Topalov team has any right of getting access to the recordings. This shall be job of the nominated arbiters only.
The Topalov team includes a parapsychologist and more people which are obviously having no other tasks as to distract and to insult Mr. Kramnik especially since their team is realizing that Mr. Topalov finds himself in a difficult situation. This is what we call an utterly unfair behaviour which is not in accordance with the FIDE Code of Ethics. The decision taken by the Appeals Committee can only be seen as another attempt to disturb Mr. Kramniks concentration since it is difficult to understand what kind of improvement it shall be to have one toilet instead of two.
Our team does not trust the objectivity of the Appeals Committee anymore. Therefore it makes no sense for us to bring a protest to this table and Mr. Kramnik strongly insists once again that the members of the Appeals Committee will be changed immediately and that the heads of the Organizing Committee are taking their responsibilities.
In the meanwhile Mr. Kramnik will stop playing this match as long as FIDE is not ready to respect Mr. Kramnik’s rights, in this case to use the toilet of his own restroom whenever he wishes to do so.
Further and more detailed legal investigations are already in process.
On behalf of Vladimir Kramnik
Yours sincerely,
Carsten Hensel
(Manager to Vladimir Kramnik, Classical World Chess Champion)
Austin Ferrell (2006-12-16 23:31:37)
What is the best computer chess game?
Someone here should be able to help me out... should I get Deep Fritz 10, Deep Fritz 8 or Deep Shredder 10 (I'm getting a multiprocessor addition).
Marc Lacrosse (2007-01-08 14:53:13)
My new little chess site ...
... is located at http://chessbazaar.mlweb.info
There will be some computer chess related stuff (opening books, collected ICC games, database processing tips, tests results ...) together with a few games, analyses, and maybe some historical data and so on.
Not that much so far, but I wish and hope that the baby will be growing fast :-)
Marc
Wayne Lowrance (2007-02-15 23:05:38)
more chess engine talk.
Thibault, you miss the boat on Hydra futre expectations in my opinion. Its advantage over pc engines was dedicated hardware (no necessarily speed) and ease of making program modifications.
However you perhaps neglect to consider the tremendous improvement in PC performance multiple cores, processors and et all. My thought is that the pc programs already are superior to Hydra. Correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to recall that Rybka has finished ahead of it in tournament play.
As far as other programs, you did not mention Zap. You best keep an eye on this one. It is very very strong and improving. Right now it is the only engine that has a chance of catching Rybka in eng-eng matches. I think it will be number two on the computer rankings. I will try to look further into Zap for a top CC engine. we see.
again, my thoughts
Wayne
Thibault de Vassal (2007-02-16 00:24:16)
Hydra, multi processors
Hi Wayne.
I think you're right about Hydra and actually it's quite unfair to compare it to other engines. I don't know if such an engine using dedicated hardware still has an interesting future against multi-processors engines. Quite hard to say. And what about the Chessbrain project that could use thousands of computers - http://www.chessbrain.net
About Zap!Chess, as Anthony Cozzie retired from computer chess, I don't think we'll hear about this one during a long time and that's a pity. The race just started !
Wayne Lowrance (2007-02-16 01:29:39)
Hydra, Multi processors
Tribault. I thought he was active. What then is the Zanzibar zap i am hearing so much about ?
BestWayne
Thibault de Vassal (2007-03-25 04:11:00)
Computer Go
I don't agree with that anymore, unfortunately. The more I play, the more I think Go can be learnt by computers, probably at a 2 or 3 dan level.. maybe more. Of course the speed of processors won't change it much. In my opinion programs playing Go will divide (some probably do it already) better their "thoughts" and the game in several parts, some of recognition [shapes, liberties..] and others of calculation [fights that are often reduced to a ~6x6 calculation, whatever the board size] to evaluate positions... So, the board size might be not so important in future and I don't think it will change their level much...
Sandor Marton-Bardocz (2007-04-30 11:54:47)
WCH Stage 1 rules
Hi everyone!
Let me introduce my self :-) I'm the highest rated player in the Wch stage 1 group 12 "the blocking guy" how Achim described me...whatever that means..
1. there is no dead draw in my opinion likewise there is no absolute winning lines, openings in a chess game...And this is most true in our "centaur, human-engine tandem" era where lines are very "unstable" to say the least..so I
don't believe that one can play for a absolute draw without any risk..avoiding complicated variations...the variations complexity is very relativ...line can be "cristal clear" for one and most complicated for other..In my opinion high rates of draws among world class cc player isn't because they all play for draws ...It's a tendency..like it was in otb chess among super gm-s...not long ago...until the "no draw alowed" rules were aplied...i don't want to speculate why this happens..
2. If someone really want to win...then should play for a win ...no matter what regulations are applied for that particular tournament
3. I think that if someone might want to take a look to the game that I played against mister Deeb in the same tournament ...starting from the move 17 of mine...hardly can to argue that I wanted to play for draws just to achieve equal points to advance. I think that none of the engines can even "smell" the outcome of the game in that position after 17..d5!?...so...saying that nowdays it's easier to achieve draws because of engines....it's a little bit
exaggerated The plan started with the move 17 ...d5!? that I have played it was an absolute rejection of a drawish (by repetation) position...and it was played just because i wanted to ...play.. not to advance in a higher stage of the tournament or something...even though the final outcome ( just in my opinion! and this isn't an absolute true by far) is probably ...still a draw.
4. The regulations regarding the advance in the higher stages of the tournament..now this are definitly arguable!there are pro's and con's...and always be. We don't have plausible answers for this kind of issues...because it's is a subjectiv matter. I'm not convinced too that "higher rated player advance"is the right regulation..few examples...just look for example ...Kramnik - Leko WCH .
a. ..challenger and his fans can say.."hey he didn't beat him...why should remain WChampion?! He didn't proved that he is better!"
b. ..Wchampion and his fans can say.."hey u want my crown?! than beat me, and take it! draw isn't enough!"
The line of examples doesn't stops here ..i don't want to prolong this subject...No rule can satisfy both sides...polemics, flame are always present :-)
5. None can predict what will be the process in a group...If 2-3 or even 4 players changes they mind and doesn't
really play..that's it, and none can't do a thing about that ...maybe some sanctions later...i don't believe it will do any good anyway...
6. In the game betwen me and Achim...I don't think that I choosed a draw line...I think that I had the initiative but probably it wasn't enough for a win, Achim overforced it ....which isn't a bad thing but probably not with the plan he had preferred.
good day for everyone!
Thibault de Vassal (2007-04-30 14:05:46)
The meaning of Go for modern Russia
An interesting (as usual) article from IGN "Goama" newsletter - http://gogame.info
Alexander Rodin, the member of Go Federation
"The meaning of Go for modern Russia"
I'll try to state my thoughts about the meaning of the Go for modern Russia.
To begin with I suggested that we extrapolate Go models on the political and economical maps. These maps are very important as the spheres of social life, because the questions that are discussed at political and economical levels touch upon our lives, the lives of ordinary Russian citizens. In these spheres they continue the fierce struggle for life and death; in these spheres rivalry is especially keen and the made decisions define the vectors of our country development.
Let's imagine a situation if somebody inadequate came to power and set the totalitarian regime! Then all social "dissident" institution would start dying and so would do the Go Federation as a phenomenon which unifies people with independent thinking. Then it would be inevitable to start "hiding in basements" to keep the organization and set the secret addresses. Under conditions of modern Russia such kind of reasoning seems to be mostly fantastic than real. But if we look behind into our history we’ll remember that we have already had this phase of social development and know everything about it.
I am for that only "adequate" people, patriots, must hold power (I mean all its levels: federal, regional, local and busyness elite as well). These people must think independently and it would be just perfect if they were the people who both understand the very notion of strategy and use in their activity all the arsenal of strategic instruments and among them principles, stratagems and Go philosophy.
Someone can argue: "What are the patriots who set Japan draughts?" the heart of the problem is not in the fact that somebody sets draughts and even the Japan ones. The matter of fact is that there is a "pacific" model the centre of which is the idea of balance and peaceful division of the territory and influence. If someone of us can offer something better, so let him rule. In my opinion, it's the same as to rewrite the Bible or "The Treatise of Military Art" Soun Tsi.
The Go essence manifests in the state scale in the following aspects:
The first one is historical and cultural. The game has a great history and longstanding traditions. Go is no less than a civil game with the development of which hand by hand goes statehood making in many countries. Besides, it's followed by strengthening of spirituality and moral principles of society.
The second aspect is social. Go unifies people, sets friendly relationships between them. Through Go a man manifests quickly, through it s/he can see his/her reflection. Owing to "open spiritual fight" your adversary is likely to become your best friend without saying a word during a game.
The third aspect is pedagogical. Through Go they bring up the grown generations and form their active civil position. Like chess, Go forms and consolidates dynamical stereotypes showing in following behavioral models of people. Penetrating and consolidation happen imperceptibly when sleeping, during the junction of conscious and unconscious.
The fourth aspect is economical. Why are business people interested in Go? Because through the game model a man learns how to manage material and non-material resources. Via the game s/he realizes economical and management notions: market (territory), economical integration, SWOT-analysis (the analysis of weak and strong aspects) etc. Managers start realizing the importance of interconnection and interaction of structural subdivisions ensuring. These subdivisions shouldn't be isolated from each other. They should work time in time like a well-tuned tuning fork.
The fifth aspect is political. The idea of community in politics is as relevant as the idea of group of stones. When a group is weak there is always a possibility of dividing it and this is a sign for the whole group. When our country, being a federal union of equitable subjects, was going through its stage of making a number of subjects had a wish to use the weakness of this chain. So, in 1992 1994 for the first time after the collapsing of the USSR there appeared first separatist tendencies. E.Rossel, the governor of Sverdlovskaya region, A. Philipenko, the governor of HMAO, claimed about the possibility of Ural republic creation. The emissary of Chechen separatists Gokhar Dudaev proclaimed the independence of Chechen-Ingush republic. The detachment didn't happen but the country paid with blood for it. Nowadays we can see demonstration of political integration and isolation on the modern political world map. Take a strong unity of the European Union and states-outsiders: Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Iran.
In terms of remaining of the USA's striving for establishment of world hegemony (from V.V.Putin's speech at the recent Munich conference), Russia needs the processes of integration and consolidation with other countries aimed at its strengthening. The unified countries have a lot of dame.
Now we can observe the stronger split in the CIS as a consequence of energetic and territorial policy of Russia that uses economical instruments of pressure upon "unfriendly and opposing" countries. Is it good or not? It's more likely that it‘s bad. But there are some positive tendencies: the role of the EurAsEC as a community which's built not on the basis of "strange brotherhood" and the role of Russia in it are increasing. Go is an ideological and spiritual base making us related to the countries of Asia-Pacific region. Go teaches how to see and distinguish creative and destroying processes.
The sixth aspect is psychological. The game develops thinking, in particular such processes as analysis and synthesis. It develops the ability of seeing the whole board and its details, the ability of seeing processes proceeding at global and local levels.
The seventh aspect is verbal and lexical or even philosophical. Through studying of the game theory we realize such categories as life and death, territory and influence, reliability, stability, the whole and the parts etc.
So, what is the Go meaning on the country scale? I assume that Go, as philosophy (an ideological and spiritual base), is a very important instrument of upbringing of strategic leaders, those who make decisions at high economical and political levels that influence the country's fate. Because in Go the idea of peaceful co-existence shows the way to harmony. The most pleasant is the fact the "Go way" doesn't have an end and there sky's the limit.
Wolfgang Utesch (2007-05-02 14:46:08)
Fun and competition
For me is correspondence chess just fun and competition. It is possible, that some of my played games may give others a feeling of art (in this case not in the meaning of artificial :-)), but this is just a result of a random process. A special science of correspondence chess (beside normal chess theory) can I see only in programming chess engines or in finding of Tablebases – both not my skills.
I love chess, but I’m too weak playing OTB chess on a high level, possible not by my fundamental understanding of chess positions but by my missing personal power of memory, computing (without computers) and nerves. So correspondence chess is ideal for me, because I can substitute my individual weaknesses by a computer und have no time stress to analyse the positions in all ways – artificial and human – to find out the most efficient chance.
Garvin Gray (2007-05-14 15:25:46)
suggestion
I have had an opponent say to me that if you want to be a certain colour against another opponent who is already in the waiting list for a tournament, then you have to join the tournament in a specific position.
If this is the case, perhaps having drr's will speed up the nomination process because some players will not be picking and choosing which colour to they want against a certain opponent.
They will just enter because they will be both white and black :P
Albert H. Alberts (2007-05-23 14:49:38)
shesnikov
To Wolfgang Utech:
ALL openings have more secrets can the engines can detect.Invariant of the program Fritz, Rybka, Junior, whatever.Question is to unveil them.It is more difficult with greater processing speed/deeper depth. In "so-called "free style" chess (allowing use of machines) players go over ELO 3000 no draws, so some of them should be able to beat machines with ease.
Albert H.Alberts,www.howtofoolfritz.com
Thibault de Vassal (2007-06-22 20:30:57)
Rybka's strength at CC time controls
An interesting poll, following a discussion at TCCMB :
http://ancients.correspondencechess.com/index.php?topic=109.msg809
Let's say Rybka playing alone, running 4 days per move (quite useless IMO) on a multi-processor computer, which rating would it/she achieve at FICGS ?
In my opinion, 2200 (with some peaks to 2300) would be great already... What do you think ?
Wolfgang Utesch (2007-06-23 07:48:30)
FICGS vs. IGAME.RU
Nicknames are o.k., but the real name behind should be known for the opponent! Otherwise there would be an advantage on nicknames because their former games couldn't investigated.
And this would be the normal process in correspondence chess (and OTB) before match.
Wolfgang Utesch (2007-06-23 09:50:48)
Nicknames
Nicknames are o.k., but the real name behind should be known for the opponent! Otherwise there would be an advantage on nicknames because their former games couldn't investigated. And this would be the normal process in correspondence chess (and OTB) before match.
Jason Repa (2007-07-15 20:45:57)
Hillarious!
This is your "argument"? You copy and paste some drivel where they seem to substitute the word "skill" with "intelligence", or perhaps you did that.
You don't provide any sources or qualifications of the author whatsoever.
This is too entertaining and unbelievable to make up!!
in a statement signed by 52 psychologists, published in the December 13, 1994 Wall Street Journal
"1. Intelligence exists as a very general mental capability involving ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. The brain processes involved are little understood.
2. Intelligence can be measured, and IQ tests measure it well. Nonverbal tests can be used where language skills are weak.
3. IQ tests are not culturally biased.
4. IQ is more strongly related than any other measurable human trait to educational, occupational, economic, and social outcomes. Whatever it is that IQ tests measure, it is very important.
5. Genetics plays a bigger role than environment in intelligence, but environment has a strong effect.
6. Individuals are not born with an unchangeable IQ, but it gradually stabilizes during childhood and changes little thereafter."
I think 52 psychologists might be a bit more qualified than the random blog where you copied and pasted from.
Thomas Tamayo (2007-08-15 23:35:43)
Dead groups
The typical process is to enter a scoring mode with both players. Each player marks dead stones (if there is a disagreement play can be resumed or the game can be adjudicated).
Once dead stones have been marked manually the game can be scored, though it is important to keep in mind special circumstances such as seki - the only way to have dame (zero value) points in Chinese counting AFAIK.
Jason Repa (2007-09-10 22:48:06)
chess engines
I don't think it's a coincidence that the strongest commercial program was designed by a strong IM chess player.
It's always amazed me that the majority of chess engine programmers know very little about the game of chess itself, such as Stefan Meyer-Kahlen's Shredder. I think there comes a point in the decision making process where your human chess knowledge because an important factor.
Andrew Stephenson (2007-09-11 22:04:32)
Chess comp ratings
Rybka is most dominant in the single processor versions when it comes to multi processor versions the gap is less and suddenly Zap chess appears. I am not sure why this is. Another point thats interesting is Rybkas endgame evaluations there is some significant difference with Fritz here. It seems a bit overoptimistic but sometimes it seems right. Finally a striking point when using Rybka is how comparatively few positions it is analysing per second compared to Fritz maybe only 10%. This illustrates Thibaults point about Rybka's far greater reliance on chess knowledge.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-09-11 22:12:31)
Chess comp ratings
"when it comes to multi processor versions the gap is less" .. maybe because the Rybka mp version in CEGT rating list uses 2 CPU while Zap! and other engines use 4 !?
Gene Sensabaugh (2007-09-12 16:18:56)
Gene Sensabaugh
I am still trying to make a decision to use a chess engine or not.If for example
my moves are the majority of the time according to Fritz10 are inferior I can't see how it's going to help me accept to gain rating points.Say during a game I consult Fritz and for example I have overlooked a mate in 10.Which move would you choose?I have serious doubts that many people on here can beat Fritz10 unless they are grandmaster class.In a game you consult your engine select between it's choices and select one of"it's" choices.You receive a move and the process repeats.So why compete against human players most likely inferior to engine analysis?
Andrew Stephenson (2007-09-12 16:51:49)
Gene
ok Gene let me give you my experience as to why you should use an engine in cc. 1) I have learnt a lot about certain openings and I remember lot more effective systems 2) finding the truth about a position is fun and instructive 3) I have acquired some endgame knowledge I never would have got. 4) Generally I wil try to understand why the engines like certain moves and drill down into the position trying altrentives until I get it. Sometimes in very wild positions its tough. Most of the the time this reinforces principles of develpoment pawn structure piece dynamism and I find it rubs off on my understanding. One proviso - if you take on too many games a lot of this wont work!
Facing a much lower rated player you have to do research and prepare something - trotting down the main line poisened pawn Najdorf may not be the way to go. A lot of top players go for catalan and english openings hoping to utilise their chess knowledge and research.
One thing is for sure always playing the best move of your engine is going to drop 1/2 points and lose some games and that includes Rybka. Finally all this stuff is done by all the top professionals in the otb chess. One example I faced the line that Kramnik got crushed with by Topalov playing b5 and f4. I looked at the game notes and databases and couldnt find a good response 45 minutes with fritz and I cracked it and in the process gained some insight into the opening. In fact its a harmless variation if you know the antidote but over the board one slip and Kram was toasted
Andrew Stephenson (2007-09-21 18:52:24)
Tie Breaks
Farit just to clarify things, you lost your drawn match against Peter Schuster (despite being the higher rated player) because of the rule that the lower rated player wins in the event of a drawn match, where there has been at least one win by the lower rated player. So the 4 draws by you are drawing attention to the problems with the tie break by rating approach (albeit the higher rated player wins if all games drawn part of the rule) Well at least we understand your side of it - that you were actually making a point.
Wolfgang I understand the rule is a compromise no need to cry however surely its right to review the experience and see if we can improve? The problem I have, based on the experience, is that it just makes the site look bad and silly to have 4 identical 15 move games. Thats not chess - in my view its absurd. So lets examine the experience and refine the process. A 2 game play off series at a very fast cc time rate ( 1-5 day reserve + 1 day increment)would, I believe, get a result. Its still a compromise because the time for cc is very short. At the same time lets re -think having the championship every 6 months idea - I think thats a big factor behind Thibault's tie break by rating rule. Its leading to overcrowding and its pretty hard to follow perhaps 1 every 9 months or year? Incidentally Thibault how do you break the tie if both have the same TER? Just a thought!
Thibault de Vassal (2007-09-24 01:04:39)
Rybka vs. Zappa
What a surprise... Zappa now leading the match 3,5-1,5
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=2228
Even if Rybka plays without tablebases, the point is "The match will be played on two identical 8-cores computers"... So it probably means that Zappa's author Anthony Cozzie did it really well while implementing multi-processors engine. It would be interesting to know the performance of both engines compared to single processor version. Can Rybka be improved significantly this way ?! .. We'll see it soon, anyway nice to see a "real match" :)
Philip Roe (2007-10-18 00:40:41)
Feynman on Go
In a 1985 lecture, Nobel laureate Richard Feynman said that creating an expert program for Go would be a scientific project of very high importance. His reason was that he did not believe that it could done by brute force, and that it would therefore compel researchers to grapple
with the problem of just how human beings manage to do what they do with seemingly meager processing power.
Of course brute force has come a long way in 20 years, but my impression is that virtually no progress has been made of the kind that Feynman hoped to see. Does anyone know otherwise?
Thibault de Vassal (2007-11-19 02:50:40)
Fritz 11
Fritz 11 is now available... I just noticed that it already has a 2914 rating (single processor) at CEGT 4/40 (2 GHz), better than Shredder 11 and Hiarcs 11.1, but not better than Rybka 1.01, to be continued as this time control is usually not the best one for Fritz.
http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/40_4_Ratinglist/40_4_AllVersion/rangliste.html
Pekka I. Turakainen (2007-11-27 22:44:48)
Can u figure this out?
Some time ago we played a game of chess with my friend and after 66. move reached the following position:
6k1/5b2/8/4q3/1K6/8/1RR5/8 w - - 0 1
We agreed that it's a draw.
No it isn't! It's white's move and the material looks balanced, but black will have his win after 53 moves (if white has an ideal defence).
This is what the almighty Nalimov says.
Don't bother to check this out with your multiprocessor chess software...it'll probably take months before it finds the right combination.
What to speak of the poor human brain.
Feeling humble now....
Garvin Gray (2008-01-04 17:37:57)
new engine
Considering buying one of the single processor engines.
Already have Rybka 2.3.2a and fritz 8 plus a few freebie engines.
Recommendations? I have looked at the cegt tables and cant see Shredder 11 there. I see Deep Shredder 11 there alot, but not just Shredder 11.
Have I read the tables incorrectly or is Shredder 11 just poorly rated in the cegt tables?
Andrew Stephenson (2008-02-07 18:50:03)
Candidates final tie break rule
I vote for 1 consistent single tie break system for all matches and round robins: player higher TER at the start wins if all games drawn loses if not all games drawn. The tie break rule is complex enough without suddenly switching. To answer your 2 points Thibault:
1) The round robin winner is a sort of "challenger" to the knock out winner thus its right to give the knock out a tie break win if all games drawn and require the round robin winner to win a game to go through on a tie. But the whole process is a method of determining a challenger for the WCC not a challenger to one of the top eight.
2) Tie break system is different for WCC challenger ie champ keeps title in the event of a draw. Well this isdifferent and its easy to understand that its necessary to beat the champ to take the title. This difference does not explain having a different tie break system in the candidates - there is no challenge here and no title at stake.
Each cycle is a challenger selection process and we need 1 consistent tie break method for each stage.
Thibault de Vassal (2008-02-08 00:57:29)
Candidates final tie break rule
"But the whole process is a method of determining a challenger for the WCC not a challenger to one of the top eight." << Well, actually it is also in a way, why not ? :) Anyway, thank you for discussing this point and trying to improve the rules, it would be great to know the opinion of other players !
Marc Lacrosse (2008-04-28 23:12:00)
Is it a joke ?
" In correspondence chess i let my computer think 0-1 min "
In correspondence chess I never let my computer(s) think less than several hours on one move.
I also analyse on my own with computer use for at least 30-60 minutes per move.
I also prepare openings for at least one hour per day _everyday_ even when I have no game at all running in the opening phase.
I built one of my computers specially for chess, an overclocked quad with efficient watercooling.
I will go for an eight-processors one in the very next months.
My main weakness is that I like playing unorthodox openings
So it's a bit difficult to go higher than 2400 elo here ...
So if you let your computer go 0-1 min per move we probably do not play the same game ...
But I cannot imagine your pleasure when playing a move that has been decided by a "0-1 minute" engine analysis.
Marc
Benjamin Block (2008-05-03 21:14:21)
How fast is you´re computer?
I also prepare openings for at least one hour per day _everyday_ even when I have no game at all running in the opening phase.
I built one of my computers specially for chess, an overclocked quad with efficient watercooling.
I will go for an eight-processors one in the very next months.
How many GHz do you have?
Wayne Lowrance (2008-05-06 21:10:26)
how do you use correspondence chess.
Very interesting postings. I discovered just here that I am terribly outgunned here. I have a single cpu on a rather slow amd processor. I do not complain tho as correspondence chess using engine(s), is more about technique and metholodgy in analyzing with your engine. I think it is more important than cpu power, just an opinion.
Wayne
Thibault de Vassal (2008-07-23 14:00:26)
MoGo vs. Human
In 1997 Janice Kim (1 dan) beat Handtalk, then the strongest Go program, despite giving the program a 25-stone handicap.
On Thursday, August 7, Kim MyungWan 8p will play MoGo, probably the world's strongest computer Go program. MoGo will be running on a supercomputer boasting over 3,000 processor cores !! The game will be broadcast live on KGS - http://www.gokgs.com/download.xhtml
The human is "8p", meaning 8-dan professional; not quite 3 stones stronger than a 1d pro player, who in turn would give an amateur 1d at least 6 stones. Edward Lasker said that 3 stones handicap at Go is comparable to knight odds at chess.
Thibault de Vassal (2008-08-01 04:19:01)
Rybka 3 encrypted
It seems that Rybka 3 would be actually even stronger that the commercial version of Rybka 3, Rybka team (V. Rajlich, L. Kaufman) explains that the compiled code was encrypted, as a consequence the engine would lose about 60 ELO points in that process.
A smart move by Vasik Rajlich to prevent his engine to be cracked by using simple decompiling tools. (ICE may help the most motivated though)
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=5184
Thibault de Vassal (2008-08-08 13:19:10)
MoGo wins ! (estimated 2 dans)
I just read it in the American Go E-Journal, MoGo computer program defeated Myungwan Kim 8P by 1.5 points in a 9-stone game billed as “Humanity’s Last Stand?”
The professional player estimated MoGo’s current strength at “two or maybe three dan”, “made some 5-dan moves” (the program used 800 processors, at 4.7 Ghz, 15 Teraflops on a borrowed European supercomputer)
Strangely, Kim easily won two blitz games with 9 stones and 11 stones and lost one with 12 stones and 15 minutes by 3.5 points before this one hour game.
http://senseis.xmp.net/?MoGo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Go
Robert Mueller (2008-08-09 17:34:44)
3,000 processor cores?
... supercomputer boasting over 3,000 processor cores ...
I want one! :)
Andrew Stephenson (2008-08-24 11:52:22)
separate criticism from suggestion
Whatever decisions Thibault made are past and I never doubted his good intentions. However I made a suggestion for the future which is in itelf not a criticism but a response to his invitation to comment on his proposed rule ammendments. I suggested a system for adding to numbers based on the best losers (those tied for 1st place, those placed 2nd etc) and if necessary to rank the best losers by tournament entry rating so if there were 2 slots to be filled and 3 persons who tied for first place in the groups (ie they were 2nd in their group because of lower TER than the winner) the top 2 by TER would qualify. I would also like to suggest an Ajuducations process 1) having indicative finish dates in WCC 2)if the Tournament director feels a game needs to be adjuducated (ie finish date reached)requesting both players to submit their views with analysis 3)having an adjudication commitee who will agree on the result within a set time period. These are just thoughts for possible improvement perhaps they are unnecessary. Anyway they are not intended as criticism scathing or otherwise!
Thibault de Vassal (2008-11-22 22:55:35)
Bug : Poker games 26171 to 26300
A small bug happened in a few Poker games from game 26171 to 26300.
FICGS uses a virtual board to save processor time and avoid to re-calculate all moves to display the current hand, but there was an 'invisible' bug until now : The virtual board may be different from the re-calculated current board in rare cases. Consequently, when you'll look at previous moves in some games, your hand may not be the one you actually played. This bug has no consequences on the result of the game, it shouldn't happen again.
Thibault de Vassal (2008-12-02 20:07:17)
Update : challenges & move send
Hello all,
It is now possible to challenge a player for a chess, Go or Poker holdem game ! You can choose the game by clicking the pictures near "Challenge a player" in My games, you can also change the 'challenges' option in Preferences. This is an important improvement as advanced poker & Go games are a faster way to improve ratings ie. in order to qualify for the FICGS poker holdem & Go championships. (advanced chess has its own rating, different from the correpondence chess rating)
Also a new improvement in the 'move send' process, it should be much faster now, please report any bug if you notice one.
Thibault de Vassal (2008-12-08 19:33:05)
Levon Aronian's open letter
Now Levon Aronian comments the latest FIDE's decisions in an open letter :
"(...) With the GA's recent actions, it seems that there is a democratic deficit within FIDE. The GA did not consult the players currently taking part in the Grand Prix in their decision processes. Please keep in mind a very important point – these players, including myself, have a legally binding agreement with FIDE regarding the World Championship cycle and the Grand Prix. Therefore it is FIDE's duty to consult the other party of the contract – the participants.
Does this mean that the chess players have lesser rights than others? The GA appears to act with no concern for the players. The decision to suddenly change the World Championship cycle has damaging effects on the career plans of leading chess players. It is also reasonable to ask: why should we go through several tournaments over several years and fight for a place in a tournament that another player gets by losing a match? The GA's decisions remove the motivation for players like myself to take part in the World Championship cycle."
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5059
Marc Lacrosse (2008-12-15 12:26:29)
You are abused by a mediocre clone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(chess)
The machine described there relies on a 64 PCs cluster, each PC being equipped with specially designed FPGA hardware cards for chess processing.
So there is no sense in asking "do you use the hydra engine?" : the hydra engine proper won't run on anything else than its dedicated hardware.
At the time Hydra had just beaten a few GMs, there appeared a so-called Hydra engine in dubious sites. This was soon proven to be a mere clone of the Fruit engine, completely unrelated with the true Hydra machine.
This is what you may still find on sites like the TommyThomas one.
Marc
Thibault de Vassal (2008-12-15 19:17:56)
so Deep Blue...
Just my 2 cents, I'm far to be prof. of anything ! :)
Anyway, I think it is admitted now that we have reached the point where brute force can't fight anymore against knowledge, actually the processor speed is probably becoming less and less important. (but the respect of your new quad proc, Don ;))
Tano-Urayoan Russi Roman (2008-12-16 06:38:20)
Reply to Monsieur De Vassal
"Anyway, I think it is admitted now that we have reached the point where brute force can't fight anymore against knowledge, actually the processor speed is probably becoming less and less important."
I disagree as the Rybka engine is being used in a 40 core cluster for their latest tournaments. It is not the brute force approach but hardware is progressing faster than software so developers must maybe redesign their products to be able to use the full potential of the hardware advantages(in this example parallelization).
Thibault de Vassal (2008-12-16 11:17:29)
40 cores
That's true, we'll have some surprises yet in this area. But the more chess knowledge, the less impact the processor's speed, I'm not sure that the score of Rybka was so impressive because of her hardware. But I agree that "admitted" was a bit strong :)
Thibault de Vassal (2009-01-06 18:57:29)
Norms
No problem :) Well, I just can't find another way while saving processor time...
Don Groves (2009-01-12 22:50:39)
Cheating?
Hello, Tom -- It seems to me that "cheating" is defined as doing something that is against the rules of the game. Here, the rules specify that engines may be used, so using them is not cheating.
I understand your concern about players letting an engine play their games for them, but I don't think many here do that. I think the players here generally use engines to do deep analysis of moves they themselves have selected, not to select all the moves via the engine. Otherwise, there is no learning and the player is only harming him- or herself. This is only my opinion, of course.
Another point to consider: all top players in tournaments have advisers that help them prepare lines and analyze games during adjournments. And they all use engines as part of this process. Do you consider this practice to be cheating?
Thibault de Vassal (2009-01-24 14:51:22)
Chess computers & nodes by seconds
What about a thread on chess dedicated computers... dual-core, quad-core or even 10 years old tired processor ?
It could be interesting to gather some informations here on hardware evolution by comparing the speed of chess engines [nodes by second], specifying the operating system & the program that runs the engines (Arena, Chessbase, Fritz 11 interface & so on...)
Don Groves (2009-01-24 22:57:28)
Chess computers
I am interested in such a thread.
For the numbers to be useful we need to establish a benchmark for comparison, for example, a single core processor at 1.0 GHz. Has this already been done in the computer chess community (of which I am only a very recent member and know very little)?
Thibault de Vassal (2009-02-04 13:47:29)
Roadrunner vs. Jaguar
I found these informations on Roadrunner but I must admit I'm unable to compare it with a typical 2GHz processor, any idea on this ?
System Name Roadrunner
Site DOE/NNSA/LANL
System Family IBM Cluster
System Model BladeCenter QS22 Cluster
Computer BladeCenter QS22/LS21 Cluster, PowerXCell 8i 3.2 Ghz / Opteron DC 1.8 GHz , Voltaire Infiniband
Installation Year 2008
Operating System Linux
Interconnect Infiniband
Processor PowerXCell 8i 3200 MHz (12.8 GFlops)
http://top500.org/
Don Groves (2009-02-04 23:59:42)
Not easy to compare
Chess engines probably use almost exclusively integer operations rather than floating point, so direct comparison is difficult. But the parallel use of 1.6 million processors would make an amazing difference for properly coded engines!
Currently, Rybka only uses up to 4K processors but that's an easy change to make. Imagine being able to simultaneously compute the best few lines to a depth of 25 ply in a minute or so...
Normajean Yates (2009-02-05 04:28:40)
anyone here uses a 4K processor machine?
for playing here I mean - they might well drudge away on a 4K-processor machine in the office [or if I google something, how many processors - not necessarily all cpu - am I accessing?] - but do they pull enough weight to run rybka on it all the time?
Or worse still ( ;), actually *own* one ? No, access is better: 'if it's broke it ain't mine' - no maintenance hassles :)
Power without responsiblity..
from the 1980s BBC-TV 'yes. minister' series:
"Responsiblity without power; historically the prerogative of the eunuch" ;)
Thibault de Vassal (2009-03-03 20:39:59)
Show the cards & history
Hi Don, well I don't know which solution is best, waiting for more opinions on this...
Michael, the PGN does not include the cards, actually displaying the history would take much more processor time that I prefer to save. You may also 'mouse over' the last move just below the board and you'll see the last moves played in title.
Also I just added an option : "V" in the 'move_express' (fast interface - for poker only yet), that opens a new window with an improved viewer to navigate into the game more easily... Feedbacks are welcome ;)
Thibault de Vassal (2009-03-10 18:25:31)
Topalov vs. Anand
Veselin Topalov vs. Viswanathan Anand [reigning FIDE world champion] is the final match in the current FIDE world championship cycle, but it is now official that FIDE postponed the match already, from September 2009 to (at least) April 20th, 2010, and opened a new bidding process.
Where will the match take place ? To be continued.
Marc Lacrosse (2009-03-17 13:02:10)
Anand vs computer
Back in 1998 Anand was the first top player to lose a match (5-3) against a PC program (Rebel 10).
Rebel played on a PC equipped with an AMD K6 450 Mhz processor (something similar to present-day smartphones!)
The match consisted of four blitz games, two rapid ones and two slow games. It is noticeable that Anand still managed to win 1.5/2 the slow games part of the match. And if I remember correctly Anand's win in the final game was a brilliant one, one of the last convincing human wins against modern programs.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-03-22 14:54:02)
captured pieces
Hi Denis (and sorry, I forgot to respond to your previous message)
Well, the way I implemented it - to save more processor time - doesn't allow to show captured pieces without big changes :/ By the way I don't understand well why it would be so useful !?
Nick Burrows (2009-04-24 01:49:31)
International Competition
I disagree that international competition divides. Within the countries it unites.
The example of England v Argentina is different because of their recent political history, and because football in particular has a culture of 'yob' support. In England it was created from club football rivalry
Does the olympics divide? Or the Davis cup? Olympiad?
I believe they create something where otherwise there is nothing.
Every action is a positive action, even if it has a negative result.
By definition, playing for a team implies playing against. Your win is their loss, but you shake hands and say well done - remembering that it's 'just a game'! In the process, everyones level is raised, and something worthwhile is created. Just don't take it too seriously or symbolically!
Normajean Yates (2009-04-28 12:25:12)
PhilipRoe+SophieLeClerc - wonderful!
PhilipRoe+SophieLeClerc (Sophie should get joint credit I think because she first posted in 'international chat' (2009-04-16 08:31:15-25) that a Q+N mate would be even shorter) - that's wonderful - congratulations!
But Sophie had posted that 'it can be done in 8 half-moves with the Q and N' (she didn't give the line).
Philip's line, if reversed so that *black* checkmates white, will need 10 half-moves because the mating side in
this process needs to free the f-Bishop, free the Q, move the f-bishop once and move the Q twice - a total of 5
[half-]moves. So if black mates by Roe's method it on black's 5th move - which means 10 half-moves.
So, is there a shorter way [specially, with *black* mating]?
Waiting for more posts..
Nick Burrows (2009-04-29 20:11:23)
Past game search
To look at an opponents past games, i click on the magnifying glass>games>individual game.
Then to look at the next one i have to close the window and repeat the above process for each new game
Is there a faster way?
Normajean Yates (2009-05-28 03:40:31)
Thib, my auction suggestion was sarcasm!
Thib. please read it again (the part where I suggested auction at chess.com - or you can loook at my thread on this there - it is called 'the best chess money can buy' ;)
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/the-best-chess-money-can-buy
(I am not sure whether the link works for members only or for everyone; anyway free membership is a 5-minute process..)
That was sarcasm! I meant this: suppose you are left with K+Q v K. Sure win for you, no? At least you can't lose, even on time (insuff. material) ? Now my sarcastic suggestion was that: opponent bids €20 for the game, now if you cannot bid higher then opponent *wins* the game automatically!
Of course I thought until yesterday that no chess site will offer *that* kind of auction! but you said:
>Speaking of auction at chess.com, that's a funny idea and I just wonder why I did not think about a system where you can bet some epoints at any time in any game...
Surely *you* don't want *that* kind of auction here, do you? ;)
Normajean Yates (2009-07-10 20:04:24)
chomsky quote from above article..
"
The Obama administration announced that it would appeal the ruling, thus placing Obama's Department of Justice "squarely to the right of an extremely conservative, pro-executive-power, Bush 43-appointed judge on issues of executive power and due-process-less detentions," in radical violation of Obama's campaign promises and earlier stands.
"
(For those who prefer sound-bytes: that gives:
"Obama is well to the *right* of the Bush administration." - Noam Chomsky)
Thibault de Vassal (2009-08-22 22:30:34)
Slow moves & chat bar at Poker
Hello everyone,
You may have noticed that the chat bar disappeared during your poker "moves"... In my opinion poker moves are usually played so fast that it is useless to display it but it may be a problem for players who write long messages with their moves and can be disconnected (the small message box keeps players connected as it refreshes automatically). Is it a problem for many players ?
The other question is : Should the "slow moves" process be kept for poker moves as it is (IMHO) not necessary to confirm such moves in most cases ?
Your feedback is welcome, thanks :)
Thibault de Vassal (2009-10-08 12:47:47)
Message transmission (with slow moves)
Hi all,
Sorry to all players who use the slow moves process, I just realized the problem with 'empty moves (-)' at poker, you had to copy your message, now it is fixed... Please just warn me here if you still encounter any problem.
Thank you.
Sebastien Benoit (2009-12-30 17:22:55)
On reverse enginerring
I'v read some of the arguments for and against the theory that RobboLito is a Rybka clone and I must say that I'm more inclined to beleive it is not. But for those who think that the reverse engineering of a software as complex as Rybka is not possible... sorry but it is possible! A team ( don't know how many guys would be needed) of good computer scientists would certainly be able to reverse engineer enough of it to get a global picture of what kind of optimisations it has. And remember that computer chess is not new and a lot of knowledge is available trough books and of course, the web.
Some are claiming that a reverse engineered clone of Rybka would have the same level of functionality as the original. They say that, because they don't really understand the process. Reverse engineering doesn't necessarily lead to an approximate clone of the origninal source code. It is more a process of understanding how it works. Once you got this understanding you can write from scratch and add incrementally whatever functionnality you desire.
Daniel Parmet (2010-01-22 21:44:09)
Quote festival, part 6
Check out this beauty: "Excelling at chess has long been considered a symbol of more general intelligence. That is an incorrect assumption in my view, as pleasant as it might be. But for the purposes of argument and investigation, chess is, in Russkin-Gutman's words, "an unparalleled laboratory, since both the learning process and the degree of ability obtained can be objectified and quantified, providing an excellent comparative framework on which to use rigorous analytical techniques.""-Kasparov
Thibault de Vassal (2010-04-01 00:02:58)
How to check tablebases integrity
A small tip that I just read on rybkaforum.net and that can serve again...
For checking tablebase integrity, one can use md5summer.exe
http://www.md5summer.org/download.html
Tablebases md5 files :
http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/tablebases-online/
It looks like very useful when trying to install 6 pieces tablebases, particularly when your engine suddenly crashes when trying to access it, by the way how did you get it Wayne? TBgen.exe or download? Does anyone know how much time it takes in both cases?
What kind of computer (processor, ram) is necessary to generated 6 pieces tablebases?
Josef Riha (2010-04-01 09:14:18)
Computer keeps locking up... assistance
Other things you can do: Open the taskmanager and check the priority level of the Rybka process. The default value is normal.
What's the use of tablebases? Up to 5 or 6 Men? Notice that the 6 Men need extrem much memory.
Open the GUI options and click on the tablebase tab. What's the size of the cashe memory? The best value is 8MB.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-04-11 22:59:12)
Blitz Games
You mean on the board? I must say I don't like this feature much...
It is true that the only way (until there) is to scroll to see all moves in text or to "mouse-over" the last move played by your opponent to see the last 10 moves played if you use the fast moves process. I'd like to find another way to display the move before but some screens are quite small.
Xavier Pichelin (2010-04-13 12:59:03)
RYBKA 4 UCI available in May
Forum Rybka :De Vasik Rajlich Date 2010-04-11 07:47 Some information about Rybka 4:
- Rybka 4 will be a normal UCI engine, without copy protection, and will be available in the first part of May.
- There will be separate single-processor and multi-processor versions.
- Full chess analysis packages which include Rybka 4 will be made by ChessBase (www.chessbase.com) and Convekta/ChessOK (www.chessok.com).
- Plain Rybka 4 UCI without GUI for download only will be available from RybkaChess (www.rybkachess.com).
- All of these versions of Rybka 4 will be identical and can be used in any UCI-compliant GUI.
- The Rybka 4 book by Jiří Dufek will be available as a separate item from both ChessBase and Convekta. The two versions of the book will be 'essentially identical', although in different formats.
- Rybka 4 book compatibility will work as follows:
* ChessBase software users will require the ChessBase version of the book.
* Aquarium users can use either version of the book.
* Other software users are encouraged to upgrade their chess software.
Lazaro Munoz (2010-04-13 20:40:15)
More ratings questions
This time one big chess. According to rules for big chess (I actually read it first before posting :), it says that the original rating that is used for calculations is the correspondence rating, which should have been 1785, however it appears that 0 was used instead. In the section that I almost finishing I am now 5 out 5 with 1 game left. The ratings of the other players ranged from 1800 down 1200 (roughly) initially. My current provision rating is 1609 and it seems that all my opponents have lost at least 200 ratings points in the process of playing in this tournament.
If rating system had used a real low rating as the initial for myself it would have been unfair to both myself and all of the other players in my section.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-04-27 10:37:30)
FICGS down, server HACKED!
The server was down for about 1 day, all my apologies. FICGS is still secure and was not in danger or compromised at any time, nothing was lost during the process, but another site on the server was hacked so the server was blocked to avoid to spread the virus. Everything should be ok now.
To be sure that no game will be lost on time because of this, I've added 2 days to any player expected to play and 12 hours more to all players. Thanks for your patience and sorry about all that!
Garvin Gray (2010-05-15 11:40:44)
Rybka 4, news, tests & results
http://www.chessbase.com/shop/product.asp?pid=506
This is for the single processer version I think. So will wait for the multi-processer version.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-07-25 18:56:22)
Layout improvement
I'm now trying a few improvements for the layout (mainly for the fast moves process), please report if something displays badly because of a long name, tournament's name, anything... Feedback is welcome :)
Thibault de Vassal (2010-07-27 00:12:45)
Layout improvement
I just added a "next / list" option in My games (the same one than "next" option in Preferences, but the change remains only during the session), which makes it easier to change the option - available only with the fast moves process.
In my opinion the "next" option is great when combined to the poker games filter... Then when you're done with poker, you may change to "list" and no filter to play your other games... I feel I save more time this way.
Any opinion ?
Thibault de Vassal (2010-08-08 13:12:37)
Stay on Same Board
Hi Phil, ok now I see what you mean : "redirected to the viewer page after playing your move", yes it could be useful for Poker (in the fast moves process). Ok, I could add a checkbox somewhere so that when one play a move, the next window be the viewer (to see the new card or result)... Added to the wishlist.
I had some busy times these last weeks but there should be numerous updates at the end of the month.
Don Groves (2010-08-10 10:00:19)
Entry fee for higher class tournament
Scott: In a way you did earn it, you won a next lower rated tournament which "earned" you the right to play one time in a higher rated one. The purpose is to allow players to improve their ratings faster if they are good enough to win some games at the higher rating.
As you say though, and Thibault seems to agree, with fast processors and the best software, there isn't as much difference between players as there used to be.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-10-01 17:39:15)
WCH Stage 1 groups (new players)
I only meant that it is an advantage to play a 2100 player actually rated 1800 rather than 2100 in his group... Gives more chances to qualify but of course, a few Elo points will probably be lost in the process. There is a matter of luck there of course, just like when a player loses on time or forfeits his games in a group, that's why I try to launch almost 2 new cycles per year, it is not possible to avoid the lucky factor in a championship but it is possible to give more chances to everyone...
Anyway I don't think it is possible to build groups of perfectly equal strength (btw many players rated 2000-2100 after 50+ games are actually worth 2400 and more, but lost many games on time) while we need clear rules (if those players are in special groups, do they qualify the same way?).
Another option would be to prevent players who have not finished a certain number of games to enter the WCH waiting list... :/ I don't think it would be appreciated.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-10-06 08:39:16)
Colour allocation change in WCH round robins
Hi again Garvin, I must say I didn't even know the Berger pairing tables, very interesting to pair 6,8,10,12... players, but maybe not so interesting for 5,7,9,11... as there is a bye.
Anyway, I may try to code it for these cases!
On the original topic, the discussion should continue on the question: Must we reverse the colors in WCH round-robin groups so that Seed #2 play White against Seed #1, as the tiebreak (TER: Tournament Entry Rating) is an advantage for Seed #1 already.
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=forum_read&id=9097
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=forum_read&id=9093
As I explained in the other discussions (you can find some statistics in the first one), the whole idea of the chess championship is to find the best player, and rating is an important element in the process IMO. By the way I'm not sure if such an update would change the results significally.
Reverse or not reverse the colors in WCH groups, we need your opinion on this point!
Jimmy Huggins (2010-10-26 19:38:21)
Strong Tournament at Rybka Forum
Thanks to Thibault, who has what given his input into the tournament. As to the last two replies. The tournament format is an on going process. But I think the time control that has been stated by myself in just the last few hours. Is pretty reasonable to have a blitz control. 25 days per side + 10 days after move 40. That would be 60 days total. So that would be within 2 months. To be honest even if you see the games I post on there. You see even if you don't have serious tournament conditions all games were very close to finishing within 30 to 60 days.
Kamesh Nookala (2010-10-27 20:15:05)
Strong Tournament at Rybka Forum
I will only play to win if the prize is an EVGA SR-2 mobo and 2 Xeon processors :-p
Garvin Gray (2010-10-31 14:41:18)
Creating an opening book
No, I do not except people to give away their opening secrets, but I was wondering.
How does one create an opening book? I have just been changing options in the fritz or rybka books from green to red and vice versa, but I assume that quite a lot of the decent players on here have proper opening books.
What process did you go through to create these books?
Sebastian Boehme (2010-10-31 20:11:04)
Creating an opening book
Hi Garvin,
Book making ia for example in my case always been a very time-intense and manually tuned process. I never do import any outside games to my book.
Guidelines on how to starting out in creating an opening book you can find (or probably have already found), here:
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=11798
That site got some useful links
General rule of thumb, work on each system one by one. My favourite example: I as white play 1. e4 and Black replies 1....f5, so the Elephant Gambit arises.
Now I want to find good white moves for it, so I enable in my Book allow move adding and check my Correspondence and Playchess Games database for the replies of white. Also I see what major engines think about the moves offered by the database in say 1-2 minute analysis and what these engines themselves gotta offer. This way a reply to the elephant gambit (or maybe more) for move 2 of white can be found.
Also not in any case 1-2 minute analysis will be sufficient. You need to figure this out for yourself.
The less time intensive process: Create a database where you import games filtered by very well chosen criteria (for instance recent games i.e. 2008-2010). Then import the database games into a new empty book.
That's all I know about how it could be done.
Sebi
Jimmy Huggins (2011-04-29 11:23:50)
WBCCC-New stuff and Round 2 Update
Hello everyone! Its been a while since the last time I have updated. I would like to talk about recent happening. Then I will give an update on the games for this round.
I have had some talks with a few players. And I would like to announce that starting next year there will be more prizes. Besides the money prize next year. I haven't decide yet how many of these I will have yet. And its possible there could be more ideas to come by. Please also know that there will be money prizes still this is just something on also to add to the interests.
1.Subscriptions to annotated games. For example Chess Today, Chessvibes, chesspublishing.com and Opening Master. There can be others, these are just examples. If you have other good ideas here please post. Most likely this will be a combined prize here.
2.Rental time on the new Rybka Cluster- Not sure how exactly this one would work. It could be a lot different in a years time for the Rybka Cluster. But I think this would have some interests.
3.Hardware- Again not sure how I would do this. But I would probably have it as a middle to high end setup for a prize. Hardware is always a every changing process its hard to know what is good at that time.
Any other suggests are welcome. Probably the best realistic prize is the first one. If I have multiple prizes like this. The way it would probably play out is like a lottery system. Start with the winner and work your way down. On what they want and go 2nd, 3rd etc...
The last prize to talk about.(And maybe the best) I have had talks with the people of chesspublishing.com and next year. Whatever game is voted for "best game of the round". Will have there game analyzed, by one of the titled players on that site and have the game published. I will try and have it open to everyone that follows the games for the WBCCC.
The next thing of interest for next year. Is that we will have a conditional move system in place. It was thought in a blitz setting to be a great asset to have. For example if your opponent is in a different time zone than you and the next move to you would be a force move. It would be nice to have this option to make the forced play. Without having to say up late at night to make this obvious move. This is all the new stuff. Round 2 Update to come.
Des Jefferis (2011-11-12 13:56:54)
World Championship
The whole process seems a bit weird. Why not just put everyone in groups and let the winners go through to the next stage, or maybe the top 2 (or 3 or 4).
Thibault de Vassal (2011-12-26 15:14:54)
Achieving playing norms
I did not invent the process, that's just unlucky for this tourney... In another tournament with a slightly higher rating average, it will be easier...
Thibault de Vassal (2012-07-28 00:10:50)
FICGS IS BACK !!!!!!!!!
First of all, I've added 15 days to all players in running games because of the delay and the fact that many of us may have no access to internet during the summer vacation (this time is added to the 46 days, 13 hours and 20 minutes since the crash for players expected to play), this issue was discussed at Rybkaforum, of course it may be unfair to few players in certain games where their opponent had few time but I did not find a better balanced solution, sorry about that :(
Among other consequences, the current championships cycle will last 10 months instead of 8, and july correspondence chess ratings will be updated very soon.
Well, how to start... fortunately such an event is rare but possible, and following the Murphy's law, it happened (first time for me), the server's hard disk crashed and the least I can say is I've not been lucky, even if I obviously did some things wrong.
Of course I had enough data at home to rebuild all games until a few hours before the crash but I thought it was worth it to pause the server during a few days/weeks to recover more moves, and if possible ALL moves. I really hoped that it would work and at the end it did, but not completely... for unknown reasons. I had also other data to recover from the server, including some FICGS data that were not backuped correctly (my bad), because I did not think far enough 6 years ago when I coded the first FICGS scripts... That will be fixed very soon.
So, because the DDrescue process did not work -unlucky- just after the crash, my server provider (OVH in France) had to send me the hard drive and it took sooooo much time already :/
Then I tried to recover some files and the databases by myself and I learnt much on how to save a hard drive but each process was really long, it took several days again...
Finally none process completely succeeded, few sectors of the hard drive remained unreadable and unfortunately the FICGS database is divided into very numerous parts written everywhere on the disk.
At the end, I brought the disk to the very best professionals able to save it... the process was quite long again and it did not completely worked as well, for an unknown reason the current database was still not readable but they did much better than me at the end.
Finally the whole process was worth it, but I did not expect it could take so much time.... 46 days, 13 hours, 20 minutes. And that's a shame :(
Of course, I could have used a RAID 10 server, I was not favourable to this choice because it is not 100% safe as well, I don't know it enough and it's much more expensive. I'll reconsider it though.
But the other things I did wrong are clear anyway, I lacked of experience in such a situation and most important, I'll do now better backups also on another server every hour. Next time (if any), we'll lose at most 1 hour of moves but the server will be able to restart within 1 day.
One thing is sure, internet was really empty for me without FICGS during this long month and a half and I missed our tournaments too much so that happen again! Have no doubt, FICGS would not have stopped in all cases but once again I'm really sorry about that and all consequences... I can only hope that you'll enjoy your games as before.
Thanks for your understanding.
Best regards,
Thibault
Thibault de Vassal (2012-08-18 13:16:50)
FICGS backup is now ok!
Well, simple things are quite complicated sometimes (so many limitations on Linux) but finally the backup [site + database] works fine now...
Now the server can bug, crash, explode, whatever... I can completely reinstall FICGS in a few hours from most situations. There should not be more than 59 minutes of moves lost in the process.
- Complete backup every hour on a distant storage space.
- Complete backup every week on another distant storage space.
- Multiple database backup on the server (case of other problems)
- Moves incrementally sent to my email every 12 hours.
So, definitely the recent break shouldn't happen again... I hope so.
Eros Riccio (2013-05-10 16:09:30)
Eros Riccio on his win in 8th chess WCH
you know, Thib, I have always wondered why corr. chess is so easy for me. As I said, human chess is a completely different story, I feel like a beginner there, blundering at almost every move. But at corr. chess, with the help of the computer, things become extremely easy. I don't know why not everyone using a computter too is not nearly unbeatable as I am. maybe they use weak engines? Slow processors? Maybe they let their engine analyze the position only for a few minutes? I came to the conclusion that it must be something like that, otherwise everyone would play at GM Level by just analyzing for a decent amount of time with houdini on a fast processor. My conclusion is that I have more success than most other players because they don't take corr. chess too seriously, they probably have some better interests and only take corr. chess as a fun hobby.
Garvin Gray (2013-10-20 12:50:19)
Entry fee for higher class tournament
Was attempting to find the thread on allowing players to enter the next section up by winning the lower section.
Time for a review of this practice I think now that it has been going for a year or so.
I think it has had some benefits, I certainly have benefited from it ie have helped moved me up the rating list faster than otherwise would have occurred, I have noticed a couple of large issues.
In some groups, the waiting lists are taking much longer to form when two players from a lower rating group have entered early.
For instance a 2300+ group can be showing players with ratings of 2150 or so. This is possible when two players buy their ticket after winning a lower division and then their rating drops. This situation has occurred.
From then on for that group to form, it requires another 5 2300 players to join the group. That is a long and tedious process.
I think the rules on the upgrade ticket process need to be re-written to as follows:
A player, who has won the lower division, can only use the higher division ticket, once five or more places have been filled in that group.
The purpose of this rule change should hopefully show to keep 'strong' players that if they get in quick they can get a group going full of players of the ratings they want.
The market can then choose by entering quickly and watching the rating lists.
With the current situation of difficulty getting divisions started due to the number of wch groups started at the same time, some changes are required.
I think this rule is one area that needs to be reviewed urgently.
Timofey Denisov (2014-03-11 03:41:27)
Standard time control abusers
Don Groves, I have reason: "Finalgening" endgames, for sample. It takes very much time :( And this process makes engine very slow, so if I finalgening endgame in one game, I not make moves in all games...
Nick Burrows (2014-08-31 14:40:39)
Ficgs is a money trap * BEWARE *
If the conditions that FICGS operates under were explicit, why would any player ever buy e-points?
Pay 100 euros for a match that you may get to play after a long wait of many months. If you get an opponent, but he doesn't play moves; Ficgs keeps his 100 Euros. At no time can the e-points you bought be converted to cash unless you enter the above process, and win, when Ficgs will take 25% of your winnings.
Like a bad joke isn't it!
Perhaps a better business model would be one that gave attractive and fair conditions to the players; so that rather than stripping bare every victim you trick into the system, you have take less money from each player but with many, many more participants?
Thibault de Vassal (2014-11-09 18:17:28)
Registered for Go WCH 12 but excluded
Regular tournaments are in a way part of the championship, increasing rating allows players to qualify for this tournament. The other reason is that 8 games is not too heavy, and generally the 9th player has a much lower rating. If there were only 3 or 4 ranks between top seed and last seed, then the process would need to be reworked, I guess.
Thibault de Vassal (2014-12-16 23:21:58)
delete account
The process has started, you must have received an email.
Best wishes,
Thibault
Garvin Gray (2016-01-28 23:12:19)
FICGS chess cup : proposal
Hello Roger and thanks for your reply,
I would not like to see groups of fewer than 8 players to remove luck as a factor and to make ties less likely.
Garvin- Yes, this is something, at least from my point of view, is what I am trying to avoid. It also reduces the impact of any withdrawals in a group.
I would not like to see groups of more than 12 players so they are not overloaded.
Garvin- Unfortunately, Small number of groups, two stages, and if a large number of entries means something needs to give. So it could be the size of the groups. But hopefully they can be kept to a maximum of 11.
Also the tournament should always end in 2 stages so people know it won't be too long, and in case of a tie the winner should be the player with the most wins in the whole tournament.
Garvin- In my suggested version- I covered the two stage part. I take it your second comment refers to what happens if two or more players end up on the same score in the second stage?
Roger- And one more thing, please implement rules to reduce the number of non players and careless time losses. Like a minimum Elo, a minimum of finished games, and require 2 to 5 E-Points to enter.
Garvin- Quite a few of the withdrawals have come from top players in the past. The most important aspect to reduce the non players is to go from announcement, to closing date of entries, to start a quick and orderly process with no delays.
So after the rules have finally been worked out, have quite a period of time of publicity, then two weeks enter and then Thibault has to close entries straight away, get the draw done and games going.
The longer the lag period between announcement, entries opening, entries closing and games starting, the more chance of players 'going walkabout'.
Roger- Some of this would be valid for the WCH too. For example, stage 2 with only 5 players is ridiculous, because luck can play too big of a role.
Garvin- In the current WCH rules, it is already covered that Double round robin can be used if there are 5 players. I have complained previously to Thibault when he has not implemented this rule when put in a five player group.
In my reworded version for this competition, I asked, at what point should the second stage final for minimum qualifiers move from a double round robin to single round robin?
6 players, 7 players? It does seem like 6 players is the correct number. If only six players qualify from the first stage, then the second stage is DRR. If seven or more qualify, then it will be single round robin.
Practically, this would most likely mean there were 6 groups, and each player won their group outright. Or 5 groups. And 4 groups were one outright, with the other group having 2 players finishing tied for first and both advancing to the second stage.
Thibault de Vassal (2016-05-11 19:53:28)
Server crash (april 2016)
Hi all, welcome back :)
First of all, my apologies for this new server crash, about 4 years after the previous one...
The Raid 1 technology has its advantages, the 2 hard drives are almost-exact copies from each other, but it also has its difficulties [e.g. the "almost" part] and I just had to learn much about it to try to restore the server as I encountered not 1, not 2 but 3 hardware failures at the same time, added to a 4th hardware failure at home on the FICGS development PC, and of course added my "famous" incredibly bad internet connection. Murphy's law ^^ ... So, both hard drives and a SATA cable have been replaced on the server. Finally, the system had to be reinstalled and I had to upgrade it, which caused many difficulties these last few days. At the end, it was not possible to restore the very last FICGS database, so we lost a few minutes or hours of moves (fortunately it happened early in the morning). But nothing essential was lost at the end.
I'm still not 100% sure (if it's ever possible) that everything will work fine with this upgraded version of PHP & MySQL, obviously there are some problems with accents for players names (will be fixed soon) but let's go for a try. I probably made mistakes during the whole process that finally took 20 days but the good thing is that I should be able to better prevent such failures in the future. Thanks again for your patience!
As I said in the login/messages page, an email has been sent to warn everyone. If you tried to register or to change your password during the last two weeks, it was not taken in account so you'll have to do it again. 20 days (it was not possible to move during this time) have been added to all players expected to move, and 7 more days have been added to all clocks (including players not expected to move, to avoid any surprise in case of real vacation or something).
One more thing: It may be not possible to connect through SSL with https:// anymore in the future, I still don't know how to configure it on this system.
Let's play! :)
Best wishes,
Thibault
Thibault de Vassal (2016-05-26 22:09:27)
Server crash (april 2016)
So we're back!
The good news after this new episode is that I'm becoming even more paranoid about backups, so I'm installing stronger processes again.
Aniruddha Duttagupta (2016-07-01 20:48:35)
Rating calculation gain/loss
I'm playing in FICGS Server since last 18 months, but still unsure about the process of rating calculation after finish of a game.My query is that after a game finishes,while calculation of gain/loss of rating of the players which rating figure of the players are taken into account? Their rating figure as at the start of the game or present rating at the time of finish of the game? Can anyone kindly enlighten me?
Garvin Gray (2017-12-08 15:07:01)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish
Thanks for the extra information Thibault about processing speed available to both engines.
Also, I wonder how AlphaZero would go against the latest Houdini and Komodo with equal equipment?
The question is not one of curiousity, but is more that I have a suspicion that also the AlphaZero programmers had the opportunity to gain quite an advantage because Stockfish is open course and so they could really work out how the engine 'works'.
This process would be much harder against Houdini or Komodo. So a long time control match against either of those engines with equal processing power would be a fairer test.
Garvin Gray (2017-12-09 09:09:47)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish
Just to be clear, or a clarification for those who need it. I never stated that anyone from AlphaZero cheated, or did anything of the kind.
All I stated was that because Stockfish is an open source program, they had the opportunity to study how the program works and tune AlphaZero to take advantage of that.
Any opponent should take advantage of any small advantage they can gain.
I also made clear mention of the processing speed differences. This presented AlphaZero a clear advantage. The issue of same hardware being used is not a new topic. It is brought up in almost every tournament when chess engine tournaments are being played. That for a fair and level competition, the engines need to compete on similar strong hardware.
Reading some of the other replies and thinking further about my first post, I wonder how AlphaZero would go if a four engine event was held, with one game per day between Houdini, Komodo, Stockfish and AlphaZero with equal hardware being used?
Little opportunity then to tune AlphaZero to one specific engine and it would be more a test of the overall strength of the engine in long time control play.
Garvin Gray (2017-12-14 11:47:49)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish
Even more I read about this result, the more I am inclined to put this result in the 'nice story' but the devil is in the detail.
The time control was 1 minute per move, no tablebases and limited hardware for Stockfish.
This is a major limiting factor for any of the major programs and not how they are designed to work.
Also reading the chessbase article, as I suspected, AlphaZero was able to play many, many games against the Stockfish program, but Stockfish had no such opportunity against AlphaZero.
And so with each game, AlphaZero and the programmers had the opportunity to learn about Stockfish's strengths and weaknesses. Stockfish had no such opportunity.
The only way to see if AlphaZero and its MonteCarlo system is any good is for it to enter the next Computer World Championship and play under equal equipment against all the best chess programs.
Same time control, same processing power , opening books tailored for each engine and tablebases available for each engine.
That is the only way to find out how good the next version of AlphaZero really is.
Thibault de Vassal (2017-12-22 23:28:18)
Monte Carlo Analysis
Oh wow, it looks like I have no more idea of what Fritz Gui looks like nowadays... Is there a "Monte Carlo" engine or is it a Fritz option? Or is it the old option allowing engines to play each other in tournaments on various openings & positions?
Actually, I don't see the interest of a 'pure' Monte Carlo method in chess as it just looks like a non-optimized search. But it seems to me that it's a long time that engines use algorithms that look like it when it may be useful (particularly in calm positions & endgames). So, it's just a "plus" if you have some processing time to do it (like AlphaZero, having a much more powerful hardware), otherwise...
Right now, I must say I still have no accurate idea of how AlphaZero plays chess.
Garvin Gray (2017-12-23 00:53:39)
Monte Carlo Analysis
In the Fritz 16 gui, you choose Monte Carlo Analysis from the header options, just like you would if you were choosing infinite analysis or deep position analysis and the many other types of game styles.
Your main engine must be Fritz 16, which seems to be a pain. This is one of my questions about this analysis style. Will explain more below.
Then after choosing Monte Carlo Analysis, Fritz gui will change over to MCA and a new screen will appear with options:
Search depth: default is 5. The first is the search depth, with a default of "5". This controls how far ahead (in half-moves, or "plies") the engine will look before making a move. For example, if you leave this at "5", the engine will look 2.5 moves ahead before making a move. Remember, the engine is going to be playing a lot of games against itself and storing the moves in the form of a tree, so the search depth is important. You must realize, however, that there's something of a tradeoff here; the higher you set the search depth, the more time the engine will need to make each move -- so you're trading time for depth. On the other hand, setting a lower search depth means that many more games will be played in a given amount of time, but that the moves themselves are likely to be more superficial.
Keep in mind, too, that you should use only odd numbers for the search depth, because chess engines tend to develop a tactical "blind spot" when made to analyze at even ply depths. Rule of thumb: odd numbers good, even numbers bad.
The second setting is the "width" of the tree. This is similar in some ways to the "Branching factor" in Deep Position Analysis and is another "space for time" tradeoff. If you create a "Narrow" tree, you won't see many alternative moves displayed in your game tree but the overall process of playing games and generating the tree will be faster. "Broad" trees show more alternatives but take longer to generate (it requires more processor time and thus slows down the chess engine).
-------------------------------------
So in all from my reading- what I can seem to deduce is- MCA plays many games against itself starting from the set position. The longer you leave the analysis, the more 'reliable' the results.
The question, or issue I am having at the moment for testing is, in the Fritz gui, I am having to use Fritz 16 as the main engine but am not seeing the analysis change to any other engines, so am wondering how long before it does, or will it only analysis the position in Fritz 16?
Considering at the start when you were loading your setting, you were given the option of four engines, this seems confusing to me.
So I thought I would ask if someone else had more experience with MCA and how it works?
Also, what about Deep position analysis? We could start a thread about that one too.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-01-25 01:53:48)
Conditional chess moves (again)
As you may have noticed, chess.js & chessboard.js are now integrated as an option in the viewer page...
But strangely, it seems there are some bugs in the PGN processing, or at least this 24.R2e1 in WCH game 98780 (Kruse-Riccio) should be ok with the "sloppy" option.
You can see the new feature here:
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=viewer&game=98780&auto=1
Ilmars Cirulis (2018-10-22 19:25:35)
Resigning in poker
Resign button gives easy way to get out of game, if one doesn't want to continue.
Without it the same thing is possible by betting all except one chips and then folding (and then hoping for 'unlucky' hand to get rid of last chip). And then repeating this process once or twice more, depending on the game score. :D
The option to resign is, imho, still better than this.
Thibault de Vassal (2019-06-08 20:47:35)
The 3d will not work,
Hello Joe.
Would you explain your full process to try to activate the 3d ? What app or what url? On what kind of device?
Thanks in advance.
Garvin Gray (2019-11-10 12:11:05)
Komodo 13
For correspondence chess analysis, how good is Komodo 13?
Is it better than the other engines out there?
And finally, in the advertising for Komodo 13, the chessbase advert said useful on multi processor cpu's of 16 to 32.
So does that mean that Komodo 13 is a bit weaker compared to the other engines if you are not using the latest and greatest gaming software?
Garvin Gray (2020-02-15 13:57:31)
Game decided by tablebase
This topic is referring to game 119111. Over 24 hours ago, I pressed the call referee button and claimed a draw for a six man tablebase position.
I have also referred to this game in the chat section.
Whilst I have plenty of time on my clock, this whole process and lack of action, which in my opinion should not take much effort, is really making me nervous that nothing is going to be done and I should waste my time playing out the position.
All I want is the position declared drawn as per the rules.
It should not be this difficult.
What would occur if I only had two days or so on my clock? Would I have to use vacation time to prevent my clock reaching zero.
Garvin Gray (2021-04-18 17:28:11)
Wch 22 Stage 2 ended
I do not disagree with your general sentiment, but as someone who has been on this site a long time, I have experienced a lot of negotiations and discussions like this, where the discussions end up going nowhere, or some kind of 'change' is promised , and then after a while, those format changes are walked back.
Therefore, I have become rather jaded by this entire process and I am now of the opinion that Thibault just offers these discussions in an attempt to make it look like he is entertaining differing opinions, when really he TRULY can not bring himself to make the changes that some of these discussions are asking for as he already believes that the site is perfect as it is.
So, you are then treating the forum posters like mugs if you are saying, lets discuss the topic and come up with new ideas, if you have no genuine intention of embracing any of the ideas proposed.
I have now said my last post on this matter for quite a while.
I have made it clear what I think of these forum discussions and their purpose, so there is now no further requirement for me to reply.
Thibault de Vassal (2021-04-18 22:39:47)
Wch 22 Stage 2 ended
With all my respect Garvin, you couldn't be more wrong on that one... To me, FICGS is everything but perfect. Actually it is so heavy (mainly because it was coded very very fast - way too fast - with the [bad] idea to make it simple and to save as much processor & memory as possible) that some changes are very difficult to make. In this way, some good ideas could be very hard to bring to life.
But these 2 changes asked in the 2 running threads would be very easy to make! So it is only a question of time (it is most often bad to make a change fastly). For now, I have no clear opinion in this discussion and we could easily add a rule that states that any stage could start as fast as possible. And in the other discussion, the 10 moves rule could disappear even if I think it wouldn't be a good idea. Or it could evolve as it has been mentioned.
Thibault de Vassal (2021-10-21 00:29:15)
How to Accept a Draw in Chess
A first explanation to your problem with draw offers is that you use the "slow moves" process... not many players still use it. I think that this bug is not appearing in the "fast moves" process.
Thibault de Vassal (2021-12-01 02:12:36)
Repeated draw offers
I just updated the process and rules... let's give a try to this new version (without any human intervention on the result of the game):
"Also, no player will make draw offers repeatedly, particularly several times in a row. Doing so may lead to get blocked by your opponents, finally to get a limited access to the server (until to solve the problem)."
It is now possible to report then block draw offers (at least the main message & popup) just like it is possible with private messages in games. Then it shouldn't be annoying anymore.
Bahadir Ozen (2022-02-27 16:34:37)
FICGS support to Ukraine
-1 Messages of love, hope and light can be shared for people in Ukraine. Although the situation seems political, what is happening is happening to humanity...
-2 During this period, the "Special Leave" feature can be given to Ukrainian - resident players.
-3 During this process, the Russian flag may be suspended. (Of course, it is not the fault of the Russian players, but the flag does not comply with the rules of "Gens una Sumus", as it is to represent.
-4 A special tournament can be organized on behalf of Ukraine.
We are going through difficult times. No to war for humanity.
Best regards,
Bahadir
Thibault de Vassal (2022-09-10 15:03:42)
2022 Chess Cup-Group Leader(s)
Indeed, that would be more real time, but I always prefered to start the process by myself to make sure that everything goes ok & to see if there is any anomaly in the results.
Anyway, I could start it more often at least.
Patrycja Zerowska (2022-10-06 09:54:59)
Threefold repetition
It seems that there is no way to claim a draw by threefold repetition on this site. In the game 136386, where I have Black, the position that occurred after my 50th move, is the same as that after my 58th move, and will be the same after my intended 60th move, namely 60... Bf7. I therefore claim a draw in this game.
Since apparently there is no "automatic arbiter" to process the claim, I called the "referee" on 1 October 2022 (5 days ago), explaining that I made a draw claim as described above (and mentioning my intended move), but I haven't received a reaction yet.
This particular game has been a dead draw at least since move 35. I offered a draw after my 35th move and on my 59th move. Both offers were declined.
1. Why is there no automatic arbiter which processes draw claims? If I am not mistaken, this site exists more than 15 years already, and yet the Laws of Chess are not yet fully implemented.
2. Why can't I stop my clock when I make such a claim? See art. 9.5 of FIDE's Laws of Chess.
3. Why doesn't the arbiter or the referee stop my clock? Without this, a player making a claim can timeout, or, when she is short on time, may be reluctant to make a draw claim.
4. Why doesn't the referee take action? Is there a referee at all?
In the rules section of this site I read: "Also, there is no way to stop the clocks, players cannot claim that they stopped to play after they called the referee for any reason..." This is a violation of the rules of chess; it implies that on this site it is not chess that is being played, but a weird chess variant. Of course I disagree with this corruption of the playing rules, and so should everyone who call themselves chess players!
Your strange rules also state that the referee will "act as soon as possible", but so far, after five days, no referee has shown up. So you are not even acting in agreement to your own rules.
Finally, I find in your rules the following statement: "All games are played until a player resign, accept draw, or lose on time." This is the most ridiculous "rule" I have ever encountered. Not only renders this farcical rule a win by checkmate illegitimate, it is a blatant ignoring of the Laws of Chess, which allow games to be ended by accepted draw claims, or for any other reason at the discretion of an arbiter.
Thibault de Vassal (2022-10-07 02:58:17)
Threefold repetition
Hello Patrycja,
Sorry for the delay, I just saw the email indeed... As Scott says, you have to play the move anyway before to claim a draw (if the site does not recognize it automatically). It seems to me that's how work most chess websites.
1. Why is there no automatic arbiter which processes draw claims? If I am not mistaken, this site exists more than 15 years already, and yet the Laws of Chess are not yet fully implemented.
> The only way to claim a draw after a threefold repetition is to play the move.
2. Why can't I stop my clock when I make such a claim? See art. 9.5 of FIDE's Laws of Chess.
> FICGS offers (mainly) correspondence chess, that is not OTB chess, and some FIDE laws do not apply here.
3. Why doesn't the arbiter or the referee stop my clock? Without this, a player making a claim can timeout, or, when she is short on time, may be reluctant to make a draw claim.
> FICGS is an automatic place, mainly. Games continue even if the referee has to take action later.
4. Why doesn't the referee take action? Is there a referee at all?
> There is one. But he may take some time... the forum & chat are good alternatives to get answers to any question.
Juri Eintalu (2023-03-31 21:13:22)
RUSSIA AND BELARUS NOT SUSPENDED?
You are quoting me wrongly. And you are doing it intentionally.
Moreover, I was talking about whether FIDE and ICCF decisions were justified. My argument was that these decisions applied some important principles discriminatively, selectively.
Suddenly, you started to talk about whether the Russian invasion of Ukraine was justified. You also started to talk about war crimes.
Let me remind that the ICCF started a process of banning the Russian team just a few days after the Russian invasion began.Thus, your arguments about what happened months later might be pretty irrelevant.
Let me also remind you that you decided to talk ONLY about Russian war crimes in Ukraine. You dismissed the US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, the war crimes committed during the Donbas civil war (both Ukraine and the separatists committed war crimes there), and, finally, you also dismissed the war crimes committed by Ukraine in the present war.
And now, before I answered to your mess, you managed to attack me personally.
My answer to your provocative questions is that if the political regime will go absolutely crazy, then I will not defend that regime against anyone. But I still hope that it will not go absolutely crazy.
Anyway, I will not discuss with you anymore, because you are systematically ignoring important relevant facts and you regularly change the context of discussion.
Thibault de Vassal (2023-03-31 22:52:44)
RUSSIA AND BELARUS NOT SUSPENDED?
Sorry if I quoted you wrongly... Could you specify?
Yes, first you were talking about wether FIDE and ICCF decisions were justified, but our discussion went on the global case:
you said (quote):
"If country A starts a war against country B, the relevant question is whether that war is justified or unjustified, whether it is a war of aggression or, instead, the attacker has the right to do so. "
"You argue that any context should be analysed in-depth, but you fail to hint at why Russia should be punished and the US should not."
So let's separate discussions: one is about FIDE/ICCF decisions, the other one is about war & its justifications.
About ICCF, I am not aware of a process to ban the russian team just after the invasion, I'm not sure what it means as well... does this mean that the russian team should have played under a neutral banner (that could be understandable), or does this mean that the whole team (every player) was banned?
I have no problem to talk about US war crimes in these countries... if you read my post again, there is a link to a page that deals with it.
I have no problem to talk about war crimes commited by Ukraine as well. There were war crimes for sure. There are proofs of that.
Questions remain: how many, for what aim... Everything will be analyzed.
My additional questions were not provocative, these are real questions to better understand your point of view. But I did not understand your answer (or you did not answer ?!)
Feel free to continue the discussion, you're welcome.
Vadrya Pokshtya (2023-11-17 21:36:46)
Battle of Kings
On average, a game lasts 70-80 moves. This is provided that the players understand what they are doing. Otherwise the game may end quickly.
Since, unlike ordinary chess, the board does not become empty as events develop on the board, but on the contrary, the evolution of chess pieces pushes towards the collapse of the entire system, its finitude is obvious. The spawning process cannot last forever - everything is limited by the 8x8 chessboard.
Thibault de Vassal (2023-11-19 04:40:50)
A Public Appeal to Chess Organisations
Oh well, you surely cannot be sure of anything, but still it seems that you know many things... No, that's not a crime as far as I know. I just wonder what looks like your process to decide what the truth is. Maybe you "make your own researches".
I suggest you to watch the dozens of videos there:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=october+7+hamas
Do you estimate it's all made by an AI? Hollywood? Israel studio? In a single day?
Anyway, your message was heard... If you want to read it, my opinion is that you awkwardly try to bring confusion where there are facts and on the nature of these facts.
Obviously you are not in a hurry to decide what actually happened on 07 October 2023, but you seem in a hurry to appeal chess organizations to treat Israel & Russia in another way than they do. Why not waiting for a few years to be sure?
I do not have to accept your attitude too, by the way. Are you one of these confusionist propagandists? Are you some kind of Qanon or Trumpist?
Finally I do not demand that you believe anything, that would be totalitarist & stupid, indeed. I just give my opinion on your comments as well.
Herbert Kruse (2025-07-24 09:12:23)
Cheating / Forfeiting
is there a process to detect it today?
Bahadir Ozen (2025-11-19 08:46:16)
Clarification of Rating Groups
Mr. Ulises Pineda,
Of course, you're valuable. The time you spend, your actions, and your interaction enrich both me, the players, and the site. Thank you for your efforts.
It's clear that each site has its own infrastructure and process. Yes, we play on a different site, and there can be conditional moves there. But FICGS's games also go to the Corr Database, and they're respected. We can say it's a proven platform.
You're right about the ticket issue being annoying. In that case, the paying player has a slightly greater advantage.
I agree with you in the long run, but the person who keeps the site "usable" also puts in the effort. Perhaps a different update on this rule will be forthcoming.
There are 3 results for process in wikichess.
Thibault de Vassal (2407)
d4 Nf6 Bg5
The Trompowski attack is named after the one-time Brazilian champion Octavio Siqueiro F. Trompowski (1897–1984) who played it in the 1930s and 1940s.
With the second move, White is intending to exchange his bishop for Black's knight inflicting doubled pawns upon Black in the process. This is not a lethal threat, Black can choose to fall in with White's plan.
After 1.d4 Nf6, the Trompowski is a popular alternative to the more common 2.c4 and 2.Nf3 lines. By playing 2.Bg5, White avoids the immense opening theory of various Indian Defences like the Queen's Indian and the King's Indian. Some of the grandmasters who often play the Trompowski are Julian Hodgson and Antoaneta Stefanova.
According to Chessbase, white chances are about 56%
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Contributors : Thibault de Vassal
Kieran Child (1600)
d4 f5 e4 fxe4
Staunton gambit accepted.
White has now opened up both bishops and will look to attack the awkward-looking e4 pawn in the process. Black may try and hold on to the pawn but probably shouldn't, as white has some tactical ideas around Qh5+ Instead, attempts at castling kingside safely should be preferred.
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Contributors : Kieran Child
Luc-Olivier Leclerc (1800)
f4 d5 Nf3 c5 c4 d4 b4 Nf6 bxc5 e6 Ba3 Nc6 g3 Qa5 Qb3 Bxc5 Qb5 Qxb5 cxb5 Nb4 Bxb4 Bxb4 Nxd4 O-O Nc3 Rd8 e3 e5 fxe5 Ng4 Rc1 Nxe5 Be2 Bh3 Kf2 Rd6 Ne4 Rd7 Rc2 Re7 Rb1 Ba5 Rbc1 Rd8 Kg1 Bb6 Nc5 Rd6 Bf1
And now , white process, to replace his bishop on g2, as on e2, it was useless , right now, it will be better on g2.
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Contributors : Luc-Olivier Leclerc
FICGS : process , Wikipedia : process , Dmoz : process , Google : process , Yahoo : process
Alekhine is a poet who creates a work of art out of something that would hardly inspire another man to send home a picture post card. (Max Euwe)
It was clear to me that the vulnerable point of the American Grandmaster (Bobby Fischer) was in double-edged, hanging, irrational positions, where he often failed to find a win even in a won position. (Efim Geller)
A thorough understanding of the typical mating continuations makes the most complicated sacrificial combinations leading up to them not only not difficult, but almost a matter of course. (Siegbert Tarrasch)
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