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B. Ozen, 2269
N. Wilson, 2121

1/2-1/2

See game 152323




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Here are 6 results for Dee Syava in the games.


Game_1114   Game_1112   Game_1110   Game_1107   Game_1103   Game_1098  




There are at least 100 results for Dee in the forum.


Thibault de Vassal    (2026-04-16 13:24:19)
Cheating / Forfeiting

Indeed. I observe it for years, but obviously rating is not the motivation so...


Thibault de Vassal    (2026-03-13 23:17:02)
Post-tickets FICGS

The long answer:

FICGS story is a quite simple & classic one, the reasons why it's declining are quite obvious, and unfortunately the solutions aren't. A bit of story:

1. Luckily, FICGS.com was created when there were a demand, just after IECG stopped... It grew very quickly, and I was in a rush to code it (FICGS was the very first dynamic website I ran from A to Z), there were ideas from everywhere. FICGS.com was the shortest domain name available, but not a so good one. Quite hard to remember, hard to tell, not clear for search engines (unlike chess.com which is a perfect one). Maybe it was a mistake to choose it, I can't tell. Either it meant "Free Internet Chess Games Server" or "Free Internet Correspondence Games Server", so I added another game, Go (Weiqi), to FICGS, which is a quite heavy decision: After that, FICGS is not only a chess server anymore.

2. A few years after, there are several thousands players (a few hundreds active). The number of new players slowly decreases month after month but a few sponsors come. Obviously, the way I coded FICGS made it more and more difficult to fully update from a PHP version to another one, or to change it in deep. Even now, I'm not sure to regret it though cause I couldn't have done it differently, so it is what it is. At this time, chess.com was less interesting than FICGS (my taste), but success is already here thanks to a perfect marketing formula: best domain name & pay for options. On the contrary, I chose to keep FICGS completely free.

3. Chess engines explode, correspondence chess continues its evolution (human's thinking decreases in moves decision), finally I add another game that is in a hype: poker texas holdem. New sponsors come, I still play correspondence chess myself but now I play another game even more: Google. FICGS also extends this way and it works in some ways. At its peak, FICGS is about the 32,000th most visited website worldwide. But the number of players continues to decrease, Android & phones started to change the landscape already. Chess.com released its app and added probably its best feature: a quick Stockfish analysis with evaluation & explanation for each move (which is excellent for blitz games but quite a non-sense for a correspondence chess website).

4. The number of players suddenly declines very quickly, I react by creating FICGS apps for Android, a dozen apps... On some apps, you can play against the machine, virtual opponents, chess 960, blindfold & so on. But the way to maintain it is not easy at all for many reasons, but the main one is that Google (Playstore) constantly change technical things & rules. After a few years, I even have to completely remake it, losing what was acquired. And some apps still fail to re-appear at Playstore, that's why I just made the APK files available to direct download. But these applications confirm something clear: blitz is more fun and attracts much more players. Changing rating ranges for correspondence chess tournaments or championships formats won't be a solution for this.

5. FICGS is now 20 years old! Internet completely changed over the years but it survived longer than Messenger, Skype & many other great services. If you look at many websites, new versions of their modern interfaces are often worst (bugs or options) than previous ones. FICGS was never perfect, maybe even clear, but at least it remained coherent. Now Google (just like all major services) is mainly governed by AI, sponsors left - that does not change anything, FICGS will continue to run. I created other websites, but none so far successfully helped in a way or another to solve the problem we encounter here: how to increase the number of correspondence chess, Go or poker players again? If FICGS becomes a pure correspondence chess site again with a brand new interface, I'm quite sure that wouldn't change anything or almost. I might be wrong of course, but according to me, this is a deep problem, connected to society evolutions, computers, phones, our attention, time, even health & so on... In my personal case, I wish to play correspondence chess again, but still cannot find the time to do it. Finally I have no idea what internet will look like within 5 years, but FICGS will be there. Maybe an AI will find a solution soon ^^ Meanwhile, I received many ideas to improve FICGS and I have to thank you very much for this. Few ideas were released for reasons I explained here (but new ones are always wecome), I hope you'll better understand it by reading this.


Have good games & take care!


Stanislas Gounant    (2026-02-27 22:12:08)
Next thematic tournament

I amused myself by looking at the most frequently played lines at the top level, stopping at the first six moves. Then I used Stockfish to evaluate the resulting positions. I was surprised to find that Stockfish rated a Benoni line +0.91 at 40 half-moves deep. I suppose there must be a lot of theory surrounding this line, but with a rating of +0.91, there's certainly enough to work with. Here's the line in question (sorry for the Google translation):
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6


Bogoljub Teverovski    (2025-12-17 12:55:02)
Next thematic tournament

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. f3 would be good indeed


A. T. S. Broekhuizen    (2025-10-08 11:44:36)
Next thematic tournament

In the Leningrad 5.d5 is indeed suboptimal, but the lichess engine prefers 5.Nf3. After 5.e3 black has a combination with 5...Qa5 6.Ne2 Ne4 7.Qd3 cxd4 8.exd4 Nxf2 9.Kxf2 Qxg5


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.


Juri Eintalu    (2023-11-19 00:58:48)
A Public Appeal to Chess Organisations

ARGUMENTS CONCERNING THE RUSSIA/UKRAINE WAR

None of the commentators explained why it was necessary and reasonable to politicise sports and to impose sanctions on Russia and Belarus. No one answered my corresponding arguments from my Public Appeal. No one explained why the sanctions were imposed on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, while no sanctions were imposed on the US for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

HERBERT KRUSE PRESENTED THE FOLLOWING "ARGUMENT":

"like Ukraine Israel had its "Butcha" at the music festival, so who attacked?

and there were constant rockets on Israel from Gaza, should they just allow it?

and the hostiges should just given up?

if my state can not defend me, maybe u can help?!"

This emotional and psychological manipulation completely ignored all my relevant arguments and explanations.

Now, let us take only the first phrase of this mumbo-jumbo:

"like Ukraine Israel had its 'Butcha' at the music festival, so who attacked?"

My Public Appeal was about chess sanctions. Now, the data are as follows:

2022, February 24:
Russia started its invasion of Ukraine

2022, February 27:
An extraordinary meeting of the FIDE Council was held on the current situation and the urgent measures to be taken after the military action launched by Russia in Ukraine.
https://fide.com/news/1603

Thus, it seems that they waited for the beginning of the Russian invasion and had a plan for how to react, as they responded only a few days later.

Israel had occupied Palestinian territories for 55 years, but the chess federation FIDE had never reacted.

2022, March 16:
Russia and Belarus teams suspended from FIDE competitions.
https://fide.com/news/1638

2022, March 30:
Russian troops leave Bucha (near Kyiv).

2022, April 01:
The corpses in Bucha were discovered.

Now, the first obvious problem with Herbert Kruse's "argument" is that the timeline proves that the chess sanctions on Russia were imposed BEFORE the corpses in Bucha were discovered.

The second problem is that he does not know or pretends not to know the definitions of such terms as "war crime".

The third problem is that, as a matter of fact, we do NOT know WHEN these people were executed, and we do NOT know WHO executed them.

It is so because there were actually TWO massacres in Bucha.
The shelling killed some people, "The Guardian" reported. These people were lying on the streets. The satellite images proved that they were killed before the Russian Army left the town.
However, some people were executed in the cellars. Unfortunately, the satellite images cannot prove the time of the executions in the cellars.
There is one additional problem. Ukraine has not made public the names and personal data of the victims. Therefore, we do not even know what percentage of the victims were Ukrainians and what percentage were Russians.

THIBAULT THE VASSAL PRESENTED THE FOLLOWING SEQUENCE OF ARGUMENTS:

"Ukraine is attacked mainly because Poutine (at least) argues it historically belongs to Russia with no consideration of its recent history & international treaties (and among other reasons because he obviously sees nazis in every people open on what a man/woman/family could look like, meaning many europeans & americans)."

Thibault has no evidence whatsoever for one's claim that Putin "obviously sees nazis in every people open on what a man/woman/family could look like, meaning many europeans & americans)." There is even no evidence to the claim that the Russian administration thinks that the majority of Ukrainians were Nazis. The evidence might be the public speeches of Russian leaders. But I have seen no such speech with such theses. Indeed, Putin has said something else.

I believe that Thibault presents one's prejudices as "obvious facts".

Besides, it has nothing to do with the arguments of my Public Appeal.

"There are few doubts that war crimes have been committed there."

In the Ukraine/Russia war, BOTH sides have committed a lot of war crimes, and it is well documented and proven.

However, the chess sanctions on Russia were not imposed because of the war crimes, as can be seen from the schedule above. The motivation to impose those sanctions was, initially, merely the fact that Russia started a war (not a war crime but a crime against peace).

Moreover, in the Ukraine/Donbas domestic war too, both sides committed war crimes. Ukraine committed crimes against humanity, and there were clear genocidal elements of the behaviour towards the Russian-speaking minority of Ukraine. It is also well-documented and proven. At the beginning of my Public Appeal, I mentioned that Karyakin argued from the premise that Ukrainian ultra-nationalists murdered a lot of Russians in Ukraine.

However, I see that the responses to my Public Appeal have altogether ignored all my arguments, and everyone has preferred to talk about something else.


Thibault de Vassal    (2023-11-17 20:52:46)
Battle of Kings

I understand your point of view. Indeed, it would be very tough to evaluate positions, but I think that pure calculation would be far enough to surpass human abilities there.

I agree that the bot is really weak :) After a second game, I realized that it had no strategy at all... and that the game is even more interesting!


Thibault de Vassal    (2022-10-09 01:55:57)
Threefold repetition

Oh ok then... Anyway there are indeed several violations of FIDE rules at FICGS. The first one (the 50 moves rule does not apply) because I found it interesting to try it & to make it different when I created the website. It is specified in the terms & conditions (if you read it).

The other ones exist probably because either I didn't care or know, either because it was technically convenient.

Consequently, I agree with you on this point but it works like this for more than 16 years now and I don't aim to change it until FICGS goes into other hands (that will probably happen one day) for many technical reasons.

About your game, you will have to play that move, just like any other player has to do in such situation. This will prove you agreeded the draw.


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.


Thibault de Vassal    (2022-10-03 22:03:58)
Number of moves affect the ratng result?

Hmm no, I don't think so. (not the same in case of a win indeed)


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.


Thibault de Vassal    (2022-08-19 02:51:26)
respectful legacy

Hello Yeturu,

Indeed, Aleksey is the last ukrainian player I didn't succeed to get news from yet (or who did not continue his games since the war started), after several attempts :/ I hope he's ok... The only Aleksey Payzansky on Facebook seems to be ok as of may, 2022 (no update since that time). As rules already specify, if I learn (soon or late) that he died during his games, his rating will be retroactively restored. But games have to end at one time, I guess.

About games where there is a clear lead, I don't think it can be a sufficient reason for adjudications, at least in poker games.


Juri Eintalu    (2022-03-22 22:10:27)
FIDE BANS KARJAKIN

When FIDE decided to complain about Karjakin to the ethics committee, FIDE said that Karjakin was "supporting the unjustified war".

In the decision of the ethics committee, no references are given to Karjakin's relevant announcements.

As a philosopher, I am unable to understand how the chess organization can decide whether some war is a justified war. Moreover, "supporting the unjustified war" may mean that Karjakin tried to show that this war is justified indeed.

While I feel that this war is unjustified, I also feel that FIDE has chosen a side in the complex conflict and is far from being neutral.


Ilmars Cirulis    (2021-10-20 17:40:28)
Next Ficgs World Championship Tournament

Wow, indeed. Imho, that game could be adjudicated.


Thibault de Vassal    (2021-09-09 22:58:52)
VENEZUELA HAS BEEN DISMISSED FROM ICCF

Indeed... Thanks Juri for pointing this out (and Garvin for enlightening us).


Christoph Schroeder    (2021-07-18 13:00:19)
3 times repetition not recognized ??

Indeed, after my next move the repetition was recognized.


Thibault de Vassal    (2021-05-17 23:24:20)
Wch 22 Stage 2 ended

Garvin, that thread (13002) was about FICGS Wch, not FICGS Cup... I added the possibility only of double round robin in Wch because I was not sure it was necessary in every stages (obviously it finds more sense in a round robin final than in stage 1), but anyway I could make it more accurate.

But indeed I just saw it was specified in FICGS Cup rules: "There will be double round-robin tournaments in case of groups of less than 7 players." ... fact is I can't remember when it was added but I guess I could have forgotten to apply it. Usually I read the rules again & again while making pairings, so I may have been negligent here. My apologies to all participants...

Thanks Garvin for pointing it out.

I'll come back on changes soon, it is a pity not to be able to gather more opinions so I'll have to make a move anyway.


Thibault de Vassal    (2021-05-07 01:34:51)
Wch 22 Stage 2 ended

I understand your frustration Garvin, thanks for explaining your views once again and I'll try to answer each point (even if you do not answer anymore):

a) You were right on the Cup format Garvin, obviously. Probably on (many) other ideas... I just can't say.

b) I always thought & said that stable rules were important in many ways (that I explained), which is frustrating, I understand that.

c) As far as I remember, I added the possibility of double round-robin for 5-players groups after that discussion but indeed it was (probably) never used. Maybe the rule should be changed to "always double-robin for 5-players groups", that would be easy to do. A fact is that it is difficult to gather more than 3 or 4 opinions in this forum these times :/ By the way, if anyone can find this discussion where I agreeded something else than a possibility, then (my bad) I'll change it immediately.

d) I do think that a multi-stages tournament should have a pre-determined number of stages... (players should know what kind of engagement it represents) Maybe I just missed that point and a rule specifying that stage 1 groups will be built so that x to y players (no less, no more) will play round 2 could be added. Why not.


Thibault de Vassal    (2021-04-15 14:48:06)
Wch 22 Stage 2 ended

There is no full calendar indeed but that is a mistake... for now, there is a line "Schedule" in My messages that displays when the next WCH & CUP will start, but I could add the same for next rounds if we decide that all next rounds should start with new cycles. A start at 1st of the next month may be not so easy to manage according to the cases.


Thibault de Vassal    (2020-12-13 12:30:07)
Cannot make a move

Indeed, I just fixed it.

Sorry for the inconvenience.


Thibault de Vassal    (2020-12-13 11:59:19)
What happened to all the players?

That is a tough choice from Ortwin, obviously... I agree with him on the idea that any rule can/will be enforced, but I'm not sure I can agree with this "unknown" rule, indeed. But it may work.

Thanks to Daniel for the quote and to all for the comments on this difficult issue. That's matter to think about.


Thibault de Vassal    (2020-09-03 00:09:24)
Stockfish 12, neural network

Stockfish 12 is available, and surprise surprise it includes NNUE (efficiently updatable neural network) out-of-the-box. It would be significantly stronger than its predecessors.

https://blog.stockfishchess.org/post/628172810852925440/stockfish-12

Did anyone try it in deep already? Any thoughts?


Thibault de Vassal    (2020-07-30 01:28:33)
Chess engines levels from 1985 to 2020

What do you think about these elo estimations for chess engines, from Mephisto to DeepBlue, then AlphaZero and Stockfish, Komodo & so on?

Old names surfacing: Rybka of course, all Chessbase engines (Fritz, Junior, Hiarcs & Shredder) but also older but well known names like Fruit, Crafty, Chess Tiger, Chess Genius, Chessmaster, Rebel, Saitek, Nimzo and many others... Those graphics are always funny to watch :)


Roberto Battaglia    (2020-06-04 19:27:43)
chess archives in pgn

Very much
thanks indeed
Roberto


Thibault de Vassal    (2020-05-06 01:41:10)
AlphaGo, the movie (Deepmind)

Actually, the story ends with the defeat 4-1 of Lee Se-dol, but it is really great to see more of the way the match was conducted (and how this incredible champion lived that huge challenge). Great archive IMO.


Thibault de Vassal    (2020-05-05 17:54:22)
AlphaGo, the movie (Deepmind)

For all Go lovers, the film about the victories of AlphaGo over professional players, european champion Fan Hui 2 dan then Lee Sedol 9p and Ke Jie 9p.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y

Of course, AlphaGo was the start of the "AI" adventures in the Go game when it played Fan Hui... AlphaZero was even much stronger not long after that.


Thibault de Vassal    (2020-02-20 18:55:28)
Game decided by tablebase

...as per the rules indeed, here rule 11.5 specifies "If time control is superior to 1 day and if a player doesn't want to resign (or accept draw) and obviously last the game, his opponent may report to referee a first time. If the player takes 30 days more to finish the game, his opponent may call referee another time, then the game will be adjudicated."

I understand that this rule may be annoying but it brought some peace since it has been added: either it gives some time to end the game or it helps to make the referee's decision easier (and more acceptable by both players).


Thibault de Vassal    (2020-01-30 20:54:25)
Waiting lists

Yes, indeed... that followed a registering option I had to create to increase the number of (real) active players. It worked but that's the bad side effect. I don't think it should open the possibility to retire from waiting lists but I have to find a way to reduce forfeits.


Thibault de Vassal    (2019-07-17 14:24:57)
CHESSHERE.COM

Oh wow, indeed... sad news.


Thibault de Vassal    (2019-06-23 11:42:16)
Tournament

Hello Leon,

All games in a tournament start at the same time, indeed you should have received an email about this. Is there any chance that it was filtered in a spam folder?


Thibault de Vassal    (2019-01-28 20:00:01)
James Romig

Thank you William! Indeed, I misunderstood this message. Let's hope...


Thibault de Vassal    (2018-12-07 02:36:32)
AlphaZero 2.0

And of course the article on the Deepmind's website:

https://deepmind.com/blog/alphazero-shedding-new-light-grand-games-chess-shogi-and-go/


Thibault de Vassal    (2018-09-24 00:15:43)
Some questions to H. Kruse, WCH finalist

After that the last FICGS chess WCH final match finished, the choice was made again to ask a few questions to Eros Riccio's challenger: Herbert Kruse, for the 2nd time. He kindly accepted to answer it so let's learn a bit more on our top-ranked correspondence chess player.

______________________________


Hello Herbert, you're not really a player to introduce as you're very active here and at several chess websites for years, with outstanding ratings in each one (as far as I know), you're the 1st FICGS CUP winner & several times FICGS WCH challenger, each time facing "the wall" Eros Riccio, what could you tell us about yourself particularly as a chess & correspondence chess player?

- i began late with 16 to play my first tournament game, but with 18 i already was kicked out of a night club in company with tony miles ;) (dresscode) had vlastimil hort as trainer for a short time and played in teams with gutman, michalchisin, klovans, gipslis and some other GMs. corr chess i began, because i love to find the truth and because of freestyle, where i began to build very strong computers


What kind of computers do you build? Is it all dedicated to chess?

- i have several dual xeon e5 computers with 64gb ddr3 and 16 to 20 real cores and they all play chess ;)


Once again, GM Eros Riccio managed to draw the 12 games of the match. What are your feelings on these games? How did you estimate your chances to destabilize your opponent in the openings and to create complications enough with White (or Black)?

- this time my feelings were neutral. 1% chances to win, but i hoped he would lose his concentration if i began more games with him (we played 6 other games at the same time)


Doesn't "1% chances to win (the match)" mean about 0.17% to win only one game with White, even when losing one with Black? Isn't it a bit pessimistic after all, or is it the new so called Riccio-effect? :)

- if the strongest players face each other there is no win possible, except some has a mouse slep or forgot something during human interfacing


When did you start playing correspondence chess and what changed since that time? What attracted you most in the game?

- 2004 and evaluation of the position is the key point of improvement since then. attractive was to be better than actual world class players :)


Could you tell us anything on the way you work chess and play your correspondence games? Any tip or secret? (nothing to lose to ask :))

- with black i play for fastest way to 0.00 and with white i try every promising way to make a game for a longer time complicated


Do you use several ones at the same time when analyzing a game? (still grabbing some tips)

- i only use the newest stockfish versions of brainfish and corchess because the other engines are not so good. because i have many games i decide which one gets the most cores and time and let them run in infinity mode until i am happy that can be after 1 week or more sometimes.


You're not far to rank 2nd as a poker player at FICGS, you obviously started to take on Big Chess as well. What other games do you play? Did you consider to play Go already?

- i played go against the german champion and lost so i quit :)) played backgammon money game and internet (in fibs with kit woolsey i played over 100 matches) in bridge i was best bidder in germany 1994 to 1995, but dont play much nowadays


Do you have specific goals to achieve as a player?

- 2 goals, since a long time: be ficgs world champion and win one german bridge championship


How do you imagine correspondence chess evolution within a decade? What kind of engines/computers do you expect to use and what will look like centaur chess according to you? (in other words, what part will remain to the human player in the decision?)

- i think the engines today are already unbeatable, so in 20 years the would still not lose and chess is dead since about 4 years


What did you think about Google Deepmind's Alpha Zero performance vs. Stockfish?

- it was a joke because they let a bad version of stockfish play. i would not have lost one game against az0 and maybe won 2 til 5 out of 100


Conditions of this AlphaZero vs. Stockfish match were very specific (opening books, unbalanced hardware...) What weaknesses did you detect in AlphaZero play?

- it was the lack of precision, what would let it lose against stockfish in its tuned newest version but i look from a view of a player who is used to play with deep 60 :)


It seems that computers did not completely take on Bridge yet, what do you expect within a decade?

- i have not seen bridge programms, but the game is so easy that it must be already mastered by computers


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    (2017-12-16 02:15:04)
DeepZen reached 9 dan (Go)

Everyone is talking about AlphaGo / AlphaZero but I just realized that another Go program reached 9 dan in 2017 : Zen or Deep Zen

It won a computer tournament and beat number 1 japanese player Iyama Yuta 9d, that seems quite significant.

http://senseis.xmp.net/?ZenGoProgram

A way to compare the success of the program by Google Deepmind.


Ilmars Cirulis    (2017-12-14 12:12:53)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish

Sure, give each engine both CPUs and GPUs. :D

Also, look at suffering of Baduk/Go community and try to evaluate - what's the probability that Deepmind will release the trained Neural Network of chess playing AlphaZero. :) It's about zero.

They don't care about TCEC, they are in machine learning business, not chess business.


Ilmars Cirulis    (2017-12-14 12:09:18)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish

Conspiracy theories and not understanding of Deepmind motivation.

They tested if the concept works. It was success. They are satisfied and start working on other interesting/useful stuff, as they mostly don't care about chess.

The only training of AlphaZero happened when it played against itself. Stockfish was just an opponent to play against - to check how strong has AlphaZero became.

AlphaZero too had no opening book or endgame tablebases, so that's not relevant. Etc. etc., basically too much conspiracy theories and too much caring about which is the most strongest engine (at least in comparison to Deepmind, as they are totally chill about it, imho :D). :)


Ilmars Cirulis    (2017-12-09 11:24:21)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish

Tuning against specific opponent = 100% cheating, in this context. In that case Deepmind simply lied in their own article.


Ilmars Cirulis    (2017-12-08 21:23:22)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish

There will be some more matches, I hope. I expect that at least some criticism about settings and machine of chess engine will be heard.

Also more serious paper about AlphaZero (chess/shogi/go) will be publised.

And then Deepmind are going to leave chess in the past, in the same way as it did with go. At the best, it will be used for testing some of next research ideas, and we will get few more games to look at.

And then it will make a superhuman Starcraft player, then maybe some AI that can do math research like the humans do (I would like to live so far :D), then maybe computer will learn languages properly... :)

Chess is just random checkpoint for Deepmind. We will have to make our own AlphaZero to play with, anyway. :)


Ilmars Cirulis    (2017-12-08 21:12:35)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish

Btw, AlphaZero and the match is proof of concept, for research purposes. And that was done excellently.

If one remembers that Deepmind priorities isn't being computer chess or Go champion, but advancing Artificial Intelligence research (and earning money for Google - using those advances and gained experience) then any accusations of cheating or not participating in CCRL seems meaningless.


Ilmars Cirulis    (2017-12-08 18:10:02)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish

That too close to conspiracy theory. If one can't trust Deepmind, well, there are even worse ways how they could cheat - including completely falsified games by some bored grandmasters with engine and lots of free time.


Thibault de Vassal    (2017-12-07 16:44:05)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish

It looks like there's no more month without news from Google Deepmind... This time again, this is quite stunning!

AlphaZero would have been able to beat (crush) the most recent version of Stockfish, that is also the world champion program and of course the free engine well known by correspondence chess players.

But most important is that actually AlphaZero would have outperformed Stockfish after only 4 hours of training (if I understood well), while it took 8 hours to outperform AlphaGo Lee and only 120 minutes to outperform Elmo at Shogi! However it seems much much harder for the neural program to improve at chess after this stunningly fast auto-learning.

100 games played (25 wins & 25 draws with white! 3 wins with black... no loss, either with white or black, which is an incredible performance)

All details available (must read) here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf

http://www.sciencealert.com/it-took-4-hours-google-s-ai-world-s-best-chess-player-deepmind-alphazero

A few games played by AlphaZero against Stockfish are included in the arxiv article.




Thibault de Vassal    (2017-10-19 20:14:23)
AlphaGo Zero

Must read... AlphaGo would have been able to re-learn from scratch & reach the level of the AlphaGo (2015) that beat Lee Sedol in... 3 days... only 3 days!

http://deepmind.com/blog/alphago-zero-learning-scratch/

Not so surprisingly, it took 21 days to reach the level of the version that beat Ke Jie this year. Now he would have reached a stellar rating (that does not mean much to us poor humans) of about 5000 (!) and he's able to win 100 games out of 100 to the AlphaGo "Lee".

Really stunning.


Thibault de Vassal    (2017-10-19 20:05:55)
Morozevich speaking of chess & Go

An interesting interview from the now rare & still incredible Alexander Morozevich (well known for his creativity & spectacular chess), speaking about Go, Deepmind's AlphaGo, Kasparov's return (or not) & other things...

https://chess24.com/en/read/news/morozevich-on-go-computers-and-cheating


Thibault de Vassal    (2017-08-06 17:36:46)
When chess is just beauty

I just lost my chess master.

François Melison was a great friend to me, and a very special chess player as all who played him over the board know.

Actually he was the only one I never saw playing to win, even during a rated tournament (his performances were always 200 or 300 points below his level, often losing on time in winning positions - even when having the time to win, even against fide masters).

It seems to me that his deep motivation was to understand, to touch the beauty and nature of the game... that changed my vision of chess but not only, most probably, even if I was never close to approach his talent and vision of the board. He played correspondence chess when real mail was used, when it was a very special thing compared to this strange time dominated by computers. He was able to play blindfold of course, and some simultaneous games are great memories for a few of his chess friends.

He just played for the beauty of chess, or maybe he played for the beauty only.

He was 54 only. I'll miss him.

Condolences from all his friends at ESIGETEL go to his family.


Peter W. Anderson    (2017-04-19 13:42:06)
WCh and other ramblings

Congratulations to Eros for retaining his FICGS world title again. A casual glance at our 36 games might give the impression that I did not put him under much pressure apart from in game 95512. Actually it is more a case of him making it look easy. He generally plays extremely accurately in the opening and avoids deeply hidden pitfalls in the middle game – I always get the feeling that I am playing someone who understands the game well rather than someone purely reliant on engines.

I have decided to give up playing normal correspondence chess. Engines have simply become too strong and the amount of human input into my games has decreased over time. Human input remains (games 95516, 95512, 93727/87343 being good examples), but there is far too much hard work with engines these days for my liking. I am sure a GM would add a lot more value but I am a mere mortal! I will probably play some big chess instead. I tried this a couple of times and really enjoyed it. I just hope nobody writes an engine for it.

With regards to the format of the world championship, we need to recognise that with engines getting stronger the draw odds is a bigger and bigger advantage for the champion. Despite that I personally think the current format is fine. I generated a significant advantage in 2 games – in addition to game 95512, I believe game 87337 offered real chances if I had not forgotten to play 25.Nb4 as intended (I could barely look at a chess board for a month after screwing that game up, but that is another story). If people keep trying they may eventually beat Eros. The bigger issue to my mind is Eros’s own statement of boredom with defending the championship. So time for a change when the current cycles are finished?


Thibault de Vassal    (2017-02-18 22:51:08)
FICGS chess cup : proposal

That's quite a good result indeed! Well done...


Garvin Gray    (2017-01-26 02:30:15)
FICGS chess cup : proposal

Before I first proposed abolishing the first place tie break rules, I went through a lot of the stage 1 WCH groups and checked how many ties there had been for first, and especially looked for multiple ties.

There were very few indeed.

The odds of three or four players finishing on the same score, when the group size is likely to be 9 or 11 players and the ratings of the players will be from 2300 to 1200 is extremely low.

Hence why I proposed the removal of the rule in the first place.

The rules are accurate now.

As to when to open the waiting list- I have also commented in this thread that having the waiting list open for too long will increase the number of forfeits when play begins.


Francois Caire    (2016-11-12 16:48:17)
Stockfish fixes memory leak in Syzygy

I tested it and after a 24 hour analysis in an endgame position, stockfish was using only 2.6 Gb of ram with 2Gb hash size.

http://abrok.eu/stockfish/

Author: Marco Costalba
Date: Sat Nov 5 07:55:08 2016 +0100
Timestamp: 1478328908

Rewrite syzygy in C++

Rewrite the code in SF style, simplify and
document it.

Code is now much clear and bug free (no mem-leaks and
other small issues) and is also smaller (more than
600 lines of code removed).

All the code has been rewritten but root_probe() and
root_probe_wdl() that are completely misplaced and should
be retired altogheter. For now just leave them in the
original version.

Code is fully and deeply tested for equivalency both in
functionality and in speed with hundreds of games and
test positions and is guaranteed to be 100% equivalent
to the original.

Tested with tb_dbg branch for functional equivalency on
more than 12M positions.

stockfish.exe bench 128 1 16 syzygy.epd

Position: 2016/2016
Total 12121156 Hits 0 hit rate (%) 0
Total time (ms) : 4417851
Nodes searched : 1100151204
Nodes/second : 249024

Tested with 5,000 games match against master, 1 Thread,
128 MB Hash each, tc 40+0.4, which is almost equivalent
to LTC in Fishtest on this machine. 3-, 4- and 5-men syzygy
bases on SSD, 12-moves opening book to emphasize mid- and endgame.

Score of SF-SyzygyC++ vs SF-Master: 633 - 617 - 3750 [0.502] 5000
ELO difference: 1

No functional change.


Thibault de Vassal    (2016-09-12 18:36:27)
AlphaGo games commented

Interesting Go games to learn from...

https://deepmind.com/research/alphago/alphago-games-english/

Games played by AlphaGo (either versus itself or versus Lee Sedol)


Thibault de Vassal    (2016-08-04 14:14:27)
when will Stage 2 of WCH start?

Indeed, the last game finished about 1 month ago, the tournaments will start today!


Thibault de Vassal    (2016-03-09 22:03:56)
AI beats a professional Go player

https://deepmind.com/alpha-go.html

To be continued.


Thibault de Vassal    (2016-01-21 02:25:52)
Wch Match Tie Break Rules

Okay, I get it now! :) I said this in the chat bar, too quickly of course... This was wrong indeed. Thanks!


Pablo Schmid    (2015-07-12 02:09:18)
Wch Match Tie Break Rules

Here is most examples of my ficgs practice (corr and Advanced chess). This represent a low percentage of my games. These games are food for thought from my own assisted experience against that rule that I call "+1 decisive advantage chess". I believe you could already burn a lot of chapters in ending's book. Most of my games show balanced games until the end, sometime, the "punished guy" could have played another drawing defense, sometimes not, unfairly to me. The game would be more safe, with less sacrifices of piece vs 2 or 3 pawns and things like that because of fearing an ending with king vs king + piece or king vs king + pawn even if the sacrifice was sound and well played. Game 22895 and 84758 I would probably have been punished by the rule in the ending of game 22895 (and my opponent in the other game), and that type of ending in general (piece + pawn up vs piece when the king cannot block the pawn). Game 37122 Shame on me, my advantage in that ending was not sufficient to force my opponent to sacrifice his bishop for my last pawn. This is why I only deserve 0,5!
Game 37920 That king of pawns vs piece + pawn would become lost for the player without the piece, what a way of punish some balanced sacrifices for pawns!
Game 54907 and 20704 That kind of opposite bishop ending would be "lost" for the guy pawnless even if the transition into an inferior but drawn ending was the intention of the "inferior guy".
Game 74870 The ending is perfectly balanced but my opponent couldn't finish the game the way he did because of the rule.
Game 74875 I would have been half-losing in the pawn ending after a nice defense in an interesting unbalanced material line.
Game 74880 the ending knight + h pawn would have been "half losing" for me even if we can't say that I was clearly worse overall.
Game 76734 and 76764 Technichally this game is not directly concerned by the rule but it is very close. I was on the verge of defeat but I have managed to defend stubornely. If he have played well to get a winning position and then the win disapear because of bad play but still finish with a draw, he would get a bonus because he played better overall? The way I managed to defend would not be rewarded?
Game 77809 In this game the whole deep opening line would probably be "half losing" for Black in the ending because of the new rule.
Game 80954 Suddenly it seems that I would have been punished for my defense in the final position.
Game 85106 I did not play specially badly but... I would have been punished for my way of finishing the game!


Peter W. Anderson    (2015-07-09 09:35:12)
Wch Match Tie Break Rules

I have avoided commenting further on this idea because I wanted to see what other people had to say. But now I will reply to the points made.
“Giving a bonus for stalemate is almost like playing for stalemating your opponent, which is not the aim of the game and this would change the game deeply.”
As I said I am against a points bonus, but am in favour of using stalemates for tie breaks. The real question is would someone start a game aiming for stalemate as opposed to start the game trying to win? I am not sure how you would do that – either way you have to try to build up an advantage and if it gets big enough it will lead to mate and if it is not quite big enough it might lead to stalemate. Anyone who gets the choice between a win and stalemate will presumably always take the win.
The one way I think this will really affect the game is by discouraging some very deeply analysed defences that are known to drawn or close to drawn but will almost certainly lead to stalemate. Personally I think this is a good thing, but I accept that the opposite view could be taken :)

“I think you overlooking a little that a good defense leading to stalemate means showing great skill. It´s not all about luck.”
Reaching stalemate as the defending side can be very simple (e.g. king and pawn vs king) or can indeed show great skill. It is almost never down to luck. In the case where great skill is shown that skill earns you half a point instead of no points. Nonetheless, the very fact that you needed great skill to save the game shows how close you came to losing, so I see no reason not to use this as a tiebreak rule.

“And stalemating gamepoints definitely will favour stupid engine playing and not human thinking with endgame skill”.
Like Pablo, I think quite the opposite is true. In fact one of my motivations for suggesting the change was to increase the human element in the game.

“According to me, stalemating an opponent (or having King + Bishop vs. King) reflects who played better ONLY IF rules say it before the game. In some cases, it actually reflects a better play, but in some others, it only shows that the stalemated player (or naked king) found a clever way to draw the game by giving the opponent the illusion of an advantage. Isn't it quite subjective after all?”
I have some sympathy for this viewpoint. If we could play perfect chess and at the start of the game someone decided to take the draw by allowing themselves to be stalemated then that would be a very good example supporting that view. However, I think the reality is different. In most cases when someone gets stalemated (or would be stalemated if the game was played through to its conclusion) it is because they have got a worse position and have little choice if they want to save the game.
If the defending side could achieve a draw by stalemate or by other means, then under today’s rules they could choose either way. Under my proposed rules they might be wise to choose the other method, unless of course they were confident of achieving more wins in the match.

“Maybe the games become more interesting if instead give small extra score for win with black!? Encourage black to play for a better score, just as UEFA do in football.”
This might be helpful for tournaments but I don’t think it helps at all for match play. In reality, if you can win just one game in a match you will most likely win the match. Therefore you don’t need a bonus to play for a win with black in a match situation.
However, I think this point indirectly touches on an issue with match play and how hard people try to win, and I do think the stalemate tiebreak rules would help a little with this.
The problem as it stands is that the higher rated player (or the champion in the case of the tile match) knows that if all games are drawn he will win the match. The higher rated player (or champion) can therefore take a low risk approach to the match, with both black and white (actually I think the low risk approach with white is just as much a problem).
If the higher rated player (or champion) was not certain that all draws would win them the match then they would probably try harder to win. This would give a better chance of decisive games in matches.
One way of a achieving this would be through a toss of a coin if the match is tied with all draws. Personally I would not find this satisfactory.
Whilst the likelihood of stalemate is quite low, it will nonetheless be there, so this rule might encourage the higher rated player or champion to try harder for a win.
I will speak from personal experience on this matter. In most of my recent matches I have been the higher rated player. I still play some relatively risky defences as black (e.g. the modern against 1.e4) and I always try to win with white. However, I have to be honest, if I am the higher rated player, I do not always play the very sharpest lines as white and I do not often play some of my riskier defences to 1.d4. If the stalemate tiebreak rule was in place, I would be taking more chances with both white and black.
So whilst I accept that it is not perfect, I still think the stalemate tie-break rule is a good idea. However, as nobody else has spoken out in favour of it I accept that it is very unlikely to be implemented and I won’t write any more on this matter unless someone asks me a direct question. It is time to concentrate on my matches under the existing rules! :)


Thibault de Vassal    (2015-07-05 14:22:20)
Wch Match Tie Break Rules

Thanks for the article Alvin, I read it entirely. My feeling is still about the same than Pablo's: This is deeply changing the game. Doesn't it mean restarting from zero while at the end (which may be not so far), the same problem will appear again... maybe slightly weaker, but still?

On the other hand, I concede that I made a (less) deep change in the rules when I started FICGS, by not adopting the 50 moves rule, so I'm still hesitating.

My position would be first to wait and see what ICCF will decide on this point, meanwhile I'll try to have more opinions here on this.


Pablo Schmid    (2015-07-02 20:32:45)
Wch Match Tie Break Rules

I am against that rule. Giving a bonus for stalemate is almost like playing for stalemating your opponent, which is not the aim of the game and this would change the game deeply.


Peter W. Anderson    (2015-07-02 16:20:58)
Wch Match Tie Break Rules

Yes, this could be a small but deep change. Perhaps some drawing opening lines would be less attractive because they will lead to stalemate. I see that as a good thing as it will lead to more fighting chess.

As nobody has objected perhaps it should be implemented :)


Thibault de Vassal    (2015-06-19 02:16:28)
Wch Match Tie Break Rules

Ah... I must say this is an interesting idea. Actually it changes many things! This is a deep change in the whole game after all (in my view).

Any opinion?


Thibault de Vassal    (2014-12-01 15:56:08)
Thematic tournaments?

Ah, the "famous" Norfolk Gambit of Nimzovich Attack, right?

Very interesting opening, indeed... So, next time!


Garvin Gray    (2014-08-31 10:53:40)
Ficgs is a money trap * BEWARE *

From what I have read here from your response Thibault- I see no grounds AT ALL to not pay the prize.

The rating rule is there for the best interest of the site, because ratings are meant to be the way we all judge what standard of play we are and what divisions we can enter.

So comparing a rating argument with this argument is drawing a rather long bow indeed.

Just like the rating rule, why a player should get a money prize by winning games without fighting?

Already answered about ratings. About winning games without fighting (or playing), Nick entered under the conditions believing the match would take place.

If he entered the match believing it to not take place and David did play, then Nick has taken a risk that has backfired.

The point is that it is not Nick's fault the match did not take place. From my reading of the rules, there is nothing clear that says you can not pay out the prize.

Remember, you are making an absolute ruling here that applies FOREVER. This means that in effect you have taken 100 epoints at least out of Nick's account, his original stake, for just entering a match.

I would ask as site admin. Why would ANY player on this site want to support paid matches after this event and circumstances?

When the site admin can in effect, I was not happy with your match conditions that it was played under, I don't really have anything to point towards, but I did keep your cash anyways.

I for one will not be supporting any matches or tournaments from now on whilst this practice remains in place. I do not want to enter a match, have it not take place and then the site admin say, tough luck, not your fault the match did not take place, but I am keeping your cash.

The more I look at this and type, I am finding it hard to not say that Nick Burrows has been robbed of his cash. These events are real.


Nick Burrows    (2014-06-25 17:11:51)
FICGS WCh results summary updated

Indeed, if a top player wants to draw a game he can. Therefore possession becomes 9/10 of the law. Analogous to the otb candidates - Should the final be an all play all??


Thibault de Vassal    (2014-03-02 23:20:58)
Standard time control abusers

Chesshere is a very different system indeed. There is a server for any taste, I guess...

Garvin, if there was only you, George & I responding, then you'd be probably 2 to choose to close these waiting lists so I'd do it. But if you think I've installed a terror-like system here, then this is not an option anymore...

Ok, I think this decision is quite terrible but let's do this. Class SM, class M & class A are now closed.

Rapid SM 12 is now empty, rapid M 71 has one player & rapid A 158 has three, let's wait and see how it evolves during a few weeks/months.


Thibault de Vassal    (2013-12-26 23:48:23)
FICGS World Chess Championship results

Oh ok, so it may not be the right date in all cases because of additional groups that started after the usual date, indeed. To avoid mistakes, all quarter finals in the knockout tournament started at the correct date.


Peter W. Anderson    (2013-11-21 18:38:54)
World chess championship Anand / Carlsen

Yes, looks familiar Thib. Interesting choice indeed. Carlsen played really solidly in game 8 and then this sharp line in game 9.

By the way, I wasn't really convinced about Ra2. I know the idea - swing it over to e2 or f2 but in the lines I looked at it never got there without a lot of simplications first.


Charlie Neil    (2013-11-19 00:24:58)
World chess championship Anand / Carlsen

No one has anything to say about this match? Strange days indeed. As I write the score is +2 for Carlsen and game 8 starts tomorrow, 19th November. Let's get excited . . .


Thibault de Vassal    (2013-07-31 11:34:54)
Thematic tournaments?

Thanks a lot Peter, indeed I knew the name :)

Sorry Dann, I tried to include this FEN in a PGN in the discussion but it doesn't work well :/


Thibault de Vassal    (2013-05-15 19:03:28)
Eros Riccio on his win in 8th chess WCH

Easier to watch this way...


... a funny game, indeed :)


Attila Ba    (2013-05-15 17:41:52)
Deep analysis - can it be improved?

The idea behind deep analysis is to store engine evaluations of chess positions in a permanent way and build an analysis tree out of them. Deep analysis is an improvement over simple engine analysis in two ways:

1) Permanent storage of analysis results makes them reusable. You don't have to analyse the same position from scratch over and over again (which is a waste of valuable CPU resources) rather you can build and improve upon your earlier results.

2) The search is configurable. You have control over which positions are examined and in what way. This gives you freedom to tailor the analyis to your own needs not having to rely on the defaults provided by your engine.

This idea is presented in a revolutionary way in the Deep Rybka Aquarium GUI. However using this framework I have encountered some problems. The lesser one and non lethal one is that draws by repetition are not handled correctly. This is for a reason: moves in the transposition table should be valued in an absolute way (regardless of the line which lead to them) in order to preserve the integrity of the tree. Since Aquarium has no means to incorporate lines, it simply ignores them

My other problem is that though the search is configurable I'm not absolutely certain about what is going on. It is not entirely clear to me exactly which nodes are selected for analysis.

These problems made me to try to come up with a deep analyis program of my own. After several failed attempts finally I have on my hand a solution which is not only capable of performing deep analysis but overcomes some of the difficulties of Interactive Deep Analyis (IDeA) provided by the Aquarium framework.

First I introduced a mechanism that can handle repetitions. In order to achieve this I attribute not one but two scores to each move and re-define the concept of root position already present in IdeA. The first score which I call 'idea' score is the same as presented in IdeA. The second is what I call 'alpha' score is calculated by minimaxing the tree from the root position taking into account repetitions.

Consider the following game:

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Ng1 Nf8

The value of move 2. ... Nf8 at depth 18 by Houdini 3.0 is -19 centipawns. So the idea score of this move at depth 0 should be -19. Yet 2. ... Nf8 repeats the starting position. Therefore its alpha score with respect to a root equaling the starting position should be 0 centipawn which is exactly what my program calculates for it. ( For the sake of simplicity I don't require threefold repetition, since you would never allow your opponent to repeat a position if you have better ideas. )

So when my programs lists the tree it will present both scores for every move (which in most of the cases are equal of course - therefore this is mostly an aesthetic improvement rather than being a substantial one).

The improvement which I'm most interested in is that having full control of node selection now I have freedom to shape the tree search.

In order to keeps things simple I have only three parameters characterising the search:

1) engine depth
2) move distance (centipawns)
3) search depth

Engine depth means a fixed depth at which each move is analyzed. After long experimenting I have arrived at depth 18 as a good default for Houdini 3.0.

Move distance is a tolerance up to which moves are allowed into the analyis. For each position first the best move is determined. The search for alternative moves is continued until a move is found that has a valuation less than the valuation of the best move by 'move distance' centipawns (it is this 'distance' away from being the best move). The tree is then expanded for moves within 'move distance'.

To compensate for exponential growth of analyzed nodes I use a simple technique: at each ply after ply 1 the move distance is halved. So if the move distance at ply 0 and ply 1 is 20 centipawns, it will be 10 centipawns for ply 2, 5 centipawns for ply 3 and so on. This means that at greater depth less and less moves are allowed per position. So the analysis with greater depth slowly evolves into 'autoplay' rather than 'tree search'.

The other method to reduce exponential growth is the well known beta cut provided by alphabeta search. In order that all candidate moves in the root position and all candidate responses to them get proper values, I only allow beta cuts with ply 2 and deeper.

Once an alphabeta search of certain depth is carried out, the whole tree is mimimaxed out for the root. Now the initial evaluations of the root moves may change. This may make moves which initially fall out of the 'move distance' to become viable. So the search has to be repeated for those moves as well. This has to be done at every ply level.

My iterative search at a certain depth only ends when no new nodes are added by the alphabeta search (the tree is 'settled' for this depth). Only then the program is allowed to deepen the search (this I call 'refined' search).

With engine depth of 18 and move distance of 10 centipawns an average position can be analyzed to depth 10 within a matter of hours. This means a couple of hundred (possibly a couple of thousand) positions are analyzed to depth 18. Depth 10 deep analyis means an ultimate depth of 28 if you take into account that the engine depth is 18.

Whether this method has added ELO value over simple engine search is yet to be tested.


Eros Riccio    (2013-05-10 16:29:52)
Eros Riccio on his win in 8th chess WCH

Hi Alvin:

1) It depends on the position. Deciding a move may take from a few seconds to many days. My longest thought was 64 days for a move, in a decisive game of a past Italian Championship, the move was so hard for me that I also used the 30 days leave in order not to exceed the time limits for a single move. If someone is curious, it's move 40...Rh3 of the game Baiocchi - Riccio 0-1, 57 Italian Championship, played in 2007. Back then, after all my analysis with many different engines, I found out that Hiarcs was the engine that understood better than all the others that endgame, so I sticked to it mostly and its suggestions rewarded me with a win that allowed me to become Italian Champion.

2)The top 2 engines, which I usually use (and consider about equal) in infinite analysis at the same time with 3 cores each on my 6 cores computer are houdini 3 and deeprybka 4.1. Then come all the others, hard to pick a third place, probably critter or stockfish, depending on positions (stockfish is very strong in endgames, critter in tactical positions)


Thibault de Vassal    (2013-05-10 12:26:09)
Eros Riccio on his win in 8th chess WCH

Nice try :) Just joking... luck is part of the game, indeed... but one can't achieve what you're doing (here and in other tournaments) without something other players do not have. Well, good chess first.


Thibault de Vassal    (2013-05-07 13:18:49)
Eros Riccio on his win in 8th chess WCH

A quite surprising last answer, indeed :)


Thibault de Vassal    (2013-01-24 21:23:20)
Show opponents time

@Garvin: long time, indeed :)

@Peter: now fixed, thanks!


Thibault de Vassal    (2012-12-27 22:31:09)
A gift for your favorite Go player

Ahhhh... quite expensive indeed :)


Thibault de Vassal    (2012-11-27 20:47:27)
How do I stop the pop-up message boxes?

Really? (seems to me that I did not see you for a while, indeed)

So, how was this come back to society? Any regret (of the yurt, of course)?!


Thibault de Vassal    (2012-09-25 23:27:53)
Limit number of poker games

@Garvin:

1) It would be quite long to explain the full calculation for different examples, maybe best is to have a deep look at rating rules then come back to the discussion, sorry if it is not clear enough after that but trust me, it would change everything on ratings.

2) Both, I guess... the problem is that blinds shouldn't change and there isn't time controls that solve the problem.

3) Those who will go all in early will probably not reach the top of the rating list... That's the point :)

Hands that involve just 1 and 2 chips are real poker! The technical one, not the chancy one.


Thibault de Vassal    (2012-09-21 12:06:44)
A radical idea?

Good idea, quite possible but would need some deep changes.


Thibault de Vassal    (2012-08-21 16:23:20)
This is politics

I remember this interview of Kramnik with very good things said (I have no idea on the last part though, even if I have no doubt that things went in the right direction... fast enough or not. Quote: "nowadays eighty percent of the Russian population is not forced to fight for their existence, as they had to, some ten, fifteen years ago.")

But if things must not evolve too fast (as it probably happened in Russia 15-20 years ago), it is likely that both US (or European countries) & Russia don't even envisage to go the right way these times on political issues, mainly because the ones who control it don't want it. There are many more or less complex & historical reasons to this of course, completely logical, but anyway it could be better and even if Kasparov was paid by US or whoever, it looks quite logical & reasonable to ask for some deep changes in Russia too...

I try to keep a sociological view rather than an ideological one. I do not defend one existing system more than other ones, but unfortunately in most situations the power tends to protect itself too much "in order to" protect citizens, that is true in a good part but there also start many problems. It is still fine to me when citizens have choice and can leave easily but that's not so easy in our world.


Thibault de Vassal    (2012-08-18 12:31:29)
This is Russia :(

It's challenging for the least, but not much satisfaction to get from this indeed...

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8416


Thibault de Vassal    (2012-07-30 10:18:51)
Reset tournament waiting lists

That's a good point indeed.


George Clement    (2012-04-21 16:39:58)
Slow tournament entries

That would indeed be an interesting tournament to play in.


Thibault de Vassal    (2012-01-03 13:40:13)
Unable to stay connected to FICGS

Ah... Ok! Indeed, when you're running a chess engine while surfing the internet EVERYTHING can happen :)

I saw that also... Browser not responding, not loading a page (so disconnecting after a while) and so on... This is a computer issue, as Microsoft Windows is not able to do several things at once as Unix can do.


Garvin Gray    (2011-12-25 15:42:00)
Achieving playing norms

I have just started playing in tournaments on here that are able to earn norms and looking at the score for getting a norm, they seem rather high.

For getting a FEM norm, with a field of 2200+, the score is 4.5/6. Considering how many games are actually won between players over 2200, achieving a score of 4.5/6 seems very difficult indeed, unless someone forfeits all their games, or some games are somehow otherwise affected.

I am wondering, do others think that score is too high and 4/6 might be more realistic for one norm.


Thibault de Vassal    (2011-12-18 19:11:13)
Holiday

It can be discussed indeed... but I'm not sure if I'll be able to read a russian or a chinese certificate. And it's so easy to replace a name or something.


Thibault de Vassal    (2011-12-04 12:39:41)
4th FICGS freestyle cup

Jai, the FICGS crosstable is not exactly the same as in the program that organizes it. I'll publish the full results at the end of the tourney.

@Garvin, there are good chances indeed :)


Thibault de Vassal    (2011-10-11 11:38:19)
Change country settings

Both nationalities is a problem indeed :) In the case of a change, you can ask me to do the necessary. Thanks!


Thibault de Vassal    (2011-03-02 17:52:00)
FICGS chess World Championship #9

Okay, let's try this way, I've added paragraphs. Sorry, hard to read indeed.


Thibault de Vassal    (2011-03-02 15:44:26)
FICGS chess World Championship #9

Hi Garvin :)

The main point is IMO this suggestion:

"All 2100+, 2150+ or 2200+ players (but the 8 of the knockout tournament) could play the M groups at stage 1 with the new rule that only half the players in these M groups can qualify for stage 2, while the winners will qualify for stage 3 as before.

Combined to another new rule, that would allow new members declaring to use a chess engine (not so many so far, maybe 20%) when registering to get a provisional rating of 2000, it could solve this issue.

Indeed 2000-2100 players would lose less points to those strong provisionally rated players during the regular wch groups, while they keep more chances to qualify for round 2, and it would help to somewhat inflate the ratings that would be a logical thing when seeing the whole correspondence chess standards at the other sites (some already use this 2000 prov. rating).

The ratings may even deflate due to the 10 moves rule."


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-12-21 17:31:39)
Junior 12, Deep Junior 12

The new engines by Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky (who where World Computer Chess Champions) Junior 12 & Deep Junior 12 are available... It probably evolved quite a lot since the amazing Junior 7, anyone tested it already?


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-12-15 23:06:54)
Chess positions too complex for engines

Hi Hannes, I'm not sure if Qe2 is good or not, I'll look at that... Well, I posted these 2 positions quickly after your message in the other discussion, but I'm quite sure that I can find tens of positions like this if I have a deeper look at my games... To be continued.


Hannes Rada    (2010-12-15 21:56:00)
Chess positions too complex for engines

Hi Thibault,
Thank you for the examples.
I do not agree with your position against Peter Schuster. Almost every engine is now playing Qe2 i.o. Tb1 ?
So the engines now 'understand' this position a little bit.
Your position against Wolfgang Utesch is a classical fortress and indeed a bit funny. Here all engines show +5 and Rybka even +6 .... :-)
The 'tragedy' here is not the final position, but the fact the engines would go for such a position in their analysis, as it seems to be a clear win for white. I would file this under typical missing endgame understanding.
I.e. Rybka still does not understand wrong bishop endgames....


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-12-12 14:38:22)
Who's the favorite in the WBCCC?

That's what I say to myself each time I lose a game after having played a move too fast :) Computers are still really weak in some complex positions (also in the middle game) but for some reasons we trust it... At the same time we always try to play openings that allow such positions, so not everything is lost yet.

The 80's were a great period for correspondence chess indeed. A friend of mine became very strong while playing corr. chess only during these years.


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-12-07 19:34:08)
Who's the favorite in the WBCCC?

Wayne has serious chances indeed IMO.


Wayne Lowrance    (2010-11-02 22:18:30)
Strong Tournament at Rybka Forum

yep, I am aware of both sites. That is not the problem as I see it.
Those sites are good if you have arrived at 6 man positions. The problem occurs far before that during analysis. Example player(a) in deep analysis with his hardware/programs determines that a 6 man tablebase will occur and player (b) with his hardware/program is unable to verify that and thus will object to 6 man ruling as He cannot verify it. Not much time will be saved I am afraid if the game continue until the current position is a 6 man position.
Of course a lot of communication can resolve it for player (b) but that is a big work load for someone. So I am very much in favor of the idea, but do not see clear solution to it.
Wayne


Jimmy Huggins    (2010-10-29 05:21:56)
Strong Tournament at Rybka Forum

Just to let everyone know I've added a standing page and an unique commentary and recap page for fans and players a like a chance to look at all the game a little deeper. I'll invite any of the strong players to comment on the games as they go. As long as they don't give moves away that may affect the game. I thought this would add to unique style of the tournament.


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-10-02 23:26:17)
WCH Stage 1 groups (new players)

Hard to answer it. It only means what it means (but if you find a better way to say it, I can update the WCH rules), it can be concluded from the whole text (not from this excerpt only) that everyone plays round 1, indeed.


Scott Nichols    (2010-09-19 19:13:28)
Corr. Chess Maxims

I was going to let it drop, but...since you are from the same state as Obama, YOU need to have things explained further. You are probably right on the rules part, I indeed don't play as much as I'd like OTB. THIS is more about ethics, etiquette. Yeah you have the RIGHT to offer as many draws as you'd like. Just as you have the RIGHT to talk loud on your cell phone in a movie theater or a restaurant, you have the RIGHT to drive slow in the fast lane. And I am SO sure you avail yourself of ALL your rights.


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-09-17 00:29:38)
Svante Carl von Erichsen on Go WCH #4

As you probably read in the news, Svante Carl von Erichsen won the 4th FICGS Go WCH, beating his challenger Huayong Yang 3-2, Svante Carl wins the Go championship for the 4th time in a row!

http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=tournament&tournament=FICGS__GO__WORLD_CHAMPIONSHIP__000004

Svante Carl kindly accepted to answer a few questions on his match & computer Go:

FICGS - Hello Svante Carl, congratulations once again for winning this match against a surprising challenger who started here a few months ago with a 10 kyu rank, Huayong Yang, now rated 2438 after scoring 2 points in your 5 games match (which is a great achievement for sure). What did you think about his play & yours in these games?

Svante Carl - I think that he greatly underestimated his rank initially. As far as I know, he had not played for a long time and believed that his ability had therefore deteriorated. I do not think that you can drop more than one or at most two stones, though -- it is like cycling or swimming, you never unlearn it. I had the impression that we were quite evenly matched in summa, but our strengths are in different aspects of the game; I cannot really put my finger on the difference, though.

FICGS - After a previous win, you said that you spend a quite long time to analyze, which probably helps you to reach a higher level than 2 dan (your EGF rating) compared to OTB play... It looks obvious to me that correspondence chess moves generally ask for much more time than Go moves at a high level but I may be wrong, how much time did you spend on your longest analysis during the match? Do you remember for which move?

Svante Carl - I usually spend at least a few minutes on each move, except when the continuation is obvious. I often use more, and if I do not find a satisfactory move then, I will even postpone the move to another day, so that I can sleep over it and let my subconcious work on it.

FICGS - Do you watch other games played by your future opponent before starting your match? Do you think that this is really important in preparation like it can be in Correspondence chess?

Svante Carl - I sometimes glance over the games in the championship qualification tournament, but I do not try to prepare this way. I do not think that such preparation has any value in Go, especially in correspondence Go, since you have time during the game to do deep analysis. I usually try to take each game out of standard fuseki patterns pretty quickly, anyway. Of course, I know that my opponents in these title matches are always very tough and demand my utmost respect.

FICGS - Do you still follow the recent developments in computer Go? What do you think about the latest Go engines? How much time do we have yet before the best Go players are caught by computers according to you?

Svante Carl - I have the impression that the currently most promising technology (Monte Carlo/UCT) has the potential to achieve a rank of about 2 or 3 dan (EGF/KGS). I think that the next fundamentally new idea or breakthrough might add 2 stones, to get to 4 or 5 dan. I do not have any idea where it might go from that, but I think that it gets always harder.

What I would find interesting is having more intermediate board sizes. The best bots are almost on par with the best professionals on 9x9 now. I would propose to try to achieve a similar level on 11x11, then 13x13, then 15x15 etc.. Regarding 9x9, I think that the currently predominant komi of 7.5 points is too big, and that this has a negative impact on the experiments because the bots do not play in a balanced environment. It might be worthwhile to introduce the Taiwan rule (last move compensation) to get more fine-grained scores.

FICGS - What programs did you use this year to analyze? (just trying, of course it may be part of your secrets ;))

Svante Carl - It is not a secret. I just use an editor, usually EidoGo or CGoban3, to visualize the variations I imagine.

FICGS - Finally, what thoughts would you like to share on your 5 games, that could help us not to miss the best times or to help us to understand the most complex moves...

Svante Carl - I cannot give a detailed commentary, but I can try to summarize my impressions.

I think that Game 5 was quite balanced until move 21, but I think that the white invasion was a bit ambitious then. Of course, White did not need to die there, but after moves 32-33 I think that Black had a good result anyway (move 32 should go out faster in my opinion; note how E14 helps Black in enclosing White).

In Game 3, I think things got quite difficult for White in the lower left, but I let him take the initiative by backing off at move 35 (I should have simply closed off F10 then). White gained control of the centre as a result, and in the large endgame, I lost too many points there.

In Game 4, I fell behind in the opening through some slow moves (there was some discussion on the Life-in-19x19 forum about this, see the link in the comments of that game). In the endgame, Black then lost some points in the centre, so that I was a bit ahead when the game timed out.

In Game 1, I made some bad decisions on the left side, and never managed to turn things around. I think I was behind by about 5 points in the end.

In Game 2, I think that Black should not have ignored move 24. After I got quite some territory from my moyo and also reduced his top side, I could play it safe.

I look forward to the games with Olivier Drouot that recently started, but I also hope that Yang Huayong will re-enter the championship cycle.


Daniel Parmet    (2010-08-30 07:59:57)
Quote festival, part 6

Darn good quotes even if they aren't mine! Sorry, I can't claim authorship of them though I liked them hence I repeated them. You can scroll up for some of mine.

Here is my grandfather's favorite quote.

"You live on through your good deeds and those that people that remember and cherish those memories" - Jim Wolf




There are 21 results for Dee in wikichess.


Ilmars Cirulis    (1632)
e4 e5 Nf3 f5 Bc4 fxe4 Nxe5 Qg5 d4 Qxg2 Qh5+ g6 Bf7+ Kd8 Bxg6 Qxh1+ Ke2 Qxc1 Nf7+ Ke8 Nxh8+ hxg6 Qxg6+ Kd8 Nf7+ Ke7 Nc3 Qxc2+ Ke1 d6 Nd5+ Kd7 Qxg8 Qxb2 Rd1 Na6 Qh7 Kc6 Nd8+ Kb5 Qxe4

Black king in deeeep trouble! :)

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Contributors : Ilmars Cirulis


Benjamin Block    (1397)
e4 c6 d4 d5 Nc3 dxe4 Nxe4 Nd7 Ng5

Played by deep blue vs Garry Kasparov 1997 1-0.

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Contributors : Benjamin Block


Telmo Escobar    (2043)
e4 c5 Nf3 d6 d4 cxd4 Nxd4 Nf6 Nc3 g6 Be3 Bg7 Bc4 Ng4 Bb5+ Kf8 O-O Nxe3 fxe3 Nc6 Nxc6 bxc6 Bxc6 Rb8 Bd5 e6 Bb3 Be5 Qf3 Qe7

Again, Black has more than enough compensation for the pawn minus. Indeed he's "threatening" Kf8-g7 and White has to play very carefully in order to hold a draw.
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Contributors : Telmo Escobar


Telmo Escobar    (2043)
e4 c5 Nf3 d6 d4 cxd4 Nxd4 Nf6 Nc3 g6 Be3 Bg7 Bc4 Ng4 Bb5+ Kf8 O-O Nxe3 fxe3 Nc6 Nxc6 bxc6 Bxc6 Ba6 Bxa8 Bxf1 Qxf1 Qxa8

Black is a pawn down but this is of no importance in this position. Indeed, Black has "threatening" 15...Bxc3 16.bxc3 Qxe4 or (even!) 16...Kg7 when White, if any, has to play accurately not to going into serious trouble. Remember that pawn weaknesses are particularly serious when there are rooks.

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Contributors : Telmo Escobar


Telmo Escobar    (2043)
e4 c5 Nf3 d6 d4 cxd4 Nxd4 Nf6 Nc3 g6 Be3 Ng4 Bb5 Nc6 Nxc6 bxc6 Bxc6+ Bd7 Bxa8 Nxe3 fxe3 Qxa8

A critical position. In order to understand why a single tempo will be decisive for the evaluation of the position, it's advisable to remember that Siegbert Tarrasch postulated that "two bishops plus a rook are better than two rooks plus a knight". According my oddly uneven experience of near forty years of tournament play, during which I lost to many patzers but beat many masters -and a few grandmasters- as well, I think Tarrasch's axiom is correct most of the time. Indeed, *as most players seem to not know about Tarrasch's axiom*, one of my dirty tricks has been to look for these positions, when my adversary think he -one exchange up- is better, but I -one exchange down- usually know better.

In this position, both Black bishops seem to have excellent prospects and, should my dark bishop be already at g7, I'd be sure that Black has winning prospects.

But it's White turn to move, and...

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Contributors : Telmo Escobar


Benjamin Block    (1419)
d4 d5 Nf3 c6

Played by the computer Deep blue round 6 vs Garry Kasparov 1996.

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Contributors : Benjamin Block


Telmo Escobar    (2076)
d4 d5 c4 c6 Nf3 Nf6 Nc3 e6 Bg5 h6 Bh4 dxc4 e4 g5 Bg3 b5 Be2 Bb7 O-O Nbd7 Ne5 Bg7 Nxf7 Kxf7 e5 Nd5 Ne4


As played in Topalov-Kramnik, Wijk aan Zee 2008. White probably has a reasonable compensation for the sacrifice- and indeed Topalov won that game. Yet the definitive evaluation of this idea is still unclear. Notice that White is threatening 15.Nd6+ winning the bishop, otherwise Black would advantageously play c6-c5.
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Contributors : Telmo Escobar


Telmo Escobar    (2076)
e4 e5 Nf3 Nc6 Bb5 a6 Ba4 Nf6 O-O Be7 Re1 b5 Bb3 d6 c3 O-O h3 Na5 Bc2 d5 exd5 e4 Bxe4 Nxe4 Rxe4 Bb7 d4 Re8 Bf4 Nc4 Re2 Bxd5 Qd3

Better than 17.Ne5 Bg5 18.Bg3 Nxe5 19.Rxe5 Rxe5 20.Bxe5 Qd7 as played in Adams-Carlsen, Khanty Mansiysk World Cup 2007, when White has to work harder in orden to keep a slighter advantage (indeed the game, after a long fight, was eventually a draw and Adams was out of the World Cup).

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Contributors : Telmo Escobar


Gavin Wilson    (1400)
e4 e6 d4 f5 e5 Ne7 c4 c5 Be3 cxd4 Bxd4 Nbc6 Nf3 Ng6 a3 Qc7 Nc3 Ngxe5 Nxe5 Nxe5 Nb5 Qb8 Qh5+ g6 Qe2 Bg7 f4 a6 Nc3 Nf3+ Qxf3 Bxd4 Rd1 Bg7 g3 b5 Bg2 Ra7 Qd3 bxc4 Qxc4 Rc7

White resigned here. The b-pawn is about to be lost, and his position has no redeeming features.

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Contributors : Gavin Wilson


Graham Cridland    (1438)
e4 c5 Nf3 d6 d4 cxd4 Nxd4 Nf6 Nc3 a6 Bg5 e6 f4 b5

The Polugaevsky Variation, permitting, and indeed virtually requiring White to continue with e4-e5. Any alternative permits Black ...Bb7 with active development.
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Contributors : Rémi Marois, Graham Cridland


Thibault de Vassal    (2407)
e4 e5

The open game is a fight for center squares : d4 and d5 are already under control, and the probable next moves 2.Nf3 or 2.Nc3, then 2. ... Nc6 or 2. ... Nf6 will take control of e4 and e5 squares as well.

Games are often more tactical than in Sicilian opening (1.e4 c5), and requires more calculation than deep strategy. Furthermore, black chances to win are lower than in Sicilian, so I avoid to play it against computers or at correspondence chess.

According to Chessbase and correspondence chess statistics, black chances are about 43%

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Contributors : Thibault de Vassal











 		 
 
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Marciz, Alexander     (RUS)        [member # 11810]

Correspondence chess : 2501       FIM

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