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 :)
TIL: En Croissant https://encroissant.org/
love the name :P
Stockfish 19
101–110 of 165 posts
Re: Stockfish 19
#102But does it use AI?
As a joke project, it would be nice to add a LLM module that adds a commentary bullshiting an explanation of why it is destroying the human player.
It's not really what you're looking for, but I made this lichess BOT that makes stupid (but relevant) comments on your moves from time to time: https://lichess.org/@/Annie_Archy/all
Re: Stockfish 19
#103I 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.
Before transferring to life, it doesn't even transfer to a game like Poker.
Re: Stockfish 19
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Evaluation doesn't matter as far as I understand. If 19 beats 18 in a match on billion playouts then it's a feature. Any usability of stockfish evaluation for human analysis is collateral. Unfortunately there seem to be no serious fork of stockfish that would care about usability for human analysis. I was recently doing some larger study and I stumbled upon a bug/feature of stockfish where it accepts small number of…
Usability for human analysis will likely be more successful going a similar direction Maia is going with the lc0 like net trained to make human moves. SF is inherently so far removed from the human approach to chess (relatively speaking), that it would likely require a lot more work than just tuning it to work well on some positions.
There would be value in prep if one had an engine that automatically understood what positions are challenging for humans, as right now a big part of high level prep is finding opening lines that look like they lose by a bit in stockfish vs stockfish, but are full of landmines for a top GM to step on. That's where a lot of time goes nowadays, past the pure memorization. The issue is that value drops a lot when other players have access to the same tools, because then they will also pay attention to those lines. The value is in the information imbalance, but everyone has the same tools.
It might help young players learning without a coach, but my understanding is that most are just looking at engine evaluation anyway, as tactical speed is a typical advantage of the youth.
Re: Stockfish 19
#105I 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.
Real life is a game of risk/reward rather than a game of deep calculation. You can't "calculate" life because there are too many variables and unknowns. You have to simply pick a path and either accept the risks or mitigate them.
Re: Stockfish 19
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
(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…
> (Disclaimer, I’m the founder of chess67.com) You're so evil lol.
Created Feb or March this year it looks like lol.
Re: Stockfish 19
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
this feels around 1000 elo crazy to see 110mb.com links in 2026 (on the github repo project), it's been a while
Yeah, I blundered a knight and still managed to win.
Re: Stockfish 19
#108Earlier 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).
This seems like an interesting alternative line of research. Design the a chess engine where the goal is to beat the best human in the minimum number of turns, while still offering ~no chance of human victory.
The Leela odds bots are working on a similar problem: beat humans starting down material. It's roughly grand master level starting down a rook, and for fast time control even starting down a queen
Re: Stockfish 19
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a joke project, it would be nice to add a LLM module that adds a commentary bullshiting an explanation of why it is destroying the human player.
It's been tried, they feed the evaluation into the LLM and get it to commentate. The results are absolute garbage (as you would expect) since the LLM's really don't understand chess or how to play it, someone posted a benchmark of the current SOTA ones playing Chess and the best was estimated at 1480.
I think OP meant trash talking. "Nice knight on the rim you got there buddy." "How long do you think you'll be able to hold onto that pawn?" "The Latvian gambit, really?"
Re: Stockfish 19
#110I 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.
Reminds me of: "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life." Paul Murphy.
I got to a 1900 bullet rating in two years, playing an average of 10 to 30 games a day--while not learning any theory! (I wanted to discover theories on my own).
And that's when I realized nah, it's not worth it.
That's a great quote, thanks for sharing.