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Stockfish 19

stockfishchess.org

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Re: Stockfish 19

#51

Post by dogman1050 »

thomasmg wrote: post #44
nevi-me wrote: post #18

To show you how strong Stockfish 19 is compared to 18, I used to lose 100% against 18, and I now lose 100% against 19, probably faster. Time to fire up En Croissant and see :)

For me (having written my own tiny 400 line chess engine, that now I'm not able to beat - sure I'm not a good player, but still), the reason to have Stockfish is not really to play against it, and then inevitably lose, but to use it to show which moves are best. I assume that's how most (hobby and professional) chess players use Stockfish nowadays.

I can't beat the famous 1k JavaScript version either. I was better when I was younger.

https://nanochess.org/archive/toledo_javascript_chess_3.html

Re: Stockfish 19

#52

Post by k2xl »

jan_m_savage wrote: post #42

I am a fairly good player but after playing 22000 games, I came to the conclusion that ideas and strategies from chess are context-dependent and don't much transfer to real life. I'd rather spend all that time reading up on game theory and play some fun video games, like Red Dead Redemption.

(Disclaimer, I’m the founder of chess67.com)

There is a very tangible benefit to people playing in chess that has nothing to do with the game itself. One example is for kids - I think kids playing chess (particularly over the board) learn quite a lot from the game. For example, etiquette (being respectful to your opponent), patience, logic, etc… but one of the best things they learn is how to lose. In chess you lose a lot. Asymptotically vast majority of players will lose approximately 50% of their games. Learning how to lose (respectfully), learn from your mistakes, then overcome them is really great process to learn. Doing this in real life rather than over the screen is also completely different.

Combine that with the game being fun and the social aspects (meeting new people, making friends)… chess very much transfers to real life in my view

Re: Stockfish 19

#53

Post by zarzavat »

kzrdude wrote: post #30
gwd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that AlphaZero only really existed for a year or two; there's no objective way to compare it at the moment. Leela Zero tried to open-source that work, but Stockfish incorporated a number of improvements from AlphaZero, including a neural network and a different search method, and consistently beats Leela Zero. I have a book, "Game Changer", in which a chess expert calls out several instances where…

Isn't one problem that it's hard to determine what equivalent compute is, for CPU search vs a neural net based engine like AZ or Leela?

It's more fundamental than that. AlphaZero is a shallower search with a heavier evaluation function. Stockfish is a deeper search with a lighter evaluation function.

In chess, depth usually wins because of how narrow the search tree is compared e.g. to Go.

Re: Stockfish 19

#55

Post by abricq »

For those curious to see actual games played by top-level engines, the most famous French chess-commentator has a youtube plalist where he and french GM Matthieu Cornette analyzes some of these games.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiZ56cRXeIu3-zr-S7_XND3M3...

GM Mathieu Cornette is an excellent chess analyist, might not be the best at banalazing, but he does find some amazing computer games. Engine games are often boring, so it's nice that they pick the good ones.

Re: Stockfish 19

#56

Post by SecretDreams »

jan_m_savage wrote: post #42

I am a fairly good player but after playing 22000 games, I came to the conclusion that ideas and strategies from chess are context-dependent and don't much transfer to real life. I'd rather spend all that time reading up on game theory and play some fun video games, like Red Dead Redemption.

Main thing I took away from chess when I used to play is it's just another exercise to work parts of your brain. I preferred 3+0 and 5+0 chess because of the low time commit, ease to move next, and the tradeoff between most correct move and most optimal move to cause the opponent to expand more of their time trying to figure out what you were doing.

I hit about 2k Elo on lichess playing the 3+0/5+0 and I have no regrets!

Re: Stockfish 19

#57

Post by gwd »

dllu wrote: post #34
gwd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that AlphaZero only really existed for a year or two; there's no objective way to compare it at the moment. Leela Zero tried to open-source that work, but Stockfish incorporated a number of improvements from AlphaZero, including a neural network and a different search method, and consistently beats Leela Zero. I have a book, "Game Changer", in which a chess expert calls out several instances where…

The Stockfish NNUE is completely unrelated to AlphaZero.

It's a neural network rather than a bunch of hard-coded rules. That turns out to make a big difference.

Actually, there's this interesting snippet from the release page:

> These techniques have been applied to hundreds of billions of training positions, all of which have been consistently rescored using a strong Leela net.

So Stockfish's neural network evaluator is actually trained using Leela Zero.

Re: Stockfish 19

#58

Post by 6_7 »

k2xl wrote: post #52
jan_m_savage wrote: post #42

I am a fairly good player but after playing 22000 games, I came to the conclusion that ideas and strategies from chess are context-dependent and don't much transfer to real life. I'd rather spend all that time reading up on game theory and play some fun video games, like Red Dead Redemption.

(Disclaimer, I’m the founder of chess67.com) There is a very tangible benefit to people playing in chess that has nothing to do with the game itself. One example is for kids - I think kids playing chess (particularly over the board) learn quite a lot from the game. For example, etiquette (being respectful to your opponent), patience, logic, etc… but one of the best things they learn is how to lose. In chess you lose…

I'm sorry, the founder of chess what dot com?

Re: Stockfish 19

#59

Post by RivieraKid »

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that a few years old version of Stockfish running on a modern MacBook Air with 1 min per move is unbeatable if the game starts from the initial position.

Even if the opponent is the latest Stockfish with 1000x more time per move, it will always be a draw.

I asked about this a few years ago in a Stockfish Discord and the above claim is what someone implied, if I remember correctly.

Re: Stockfish 19

#60

Post by [deleted] »

Sopel wrote: post #48
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not faster if I have to guess. The nuances of why 19 is better than 18 are likely indistinguishable from noise when they play against someone at a much lower level (i.e. any human).

also in chess a better line is not required to be shorter

[deleted]
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