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Strongest chess player, ever

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Re: Strongest chess player, ever

#21

Post by jebus989 »

maaaats wrote: post #16
_flag wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can watch Magnus Carlsen play a chess program on his phone here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNvVWeHZG00 As you can tell from his commentary, he thinks the machine is rather stupid (and he is winning after the opening) but the machine is a much better calculator than he is and when the situation becomes more concrete he has to force a draw. Of course, the computer on his phone is considerably worse than the b…

Funny commentary: > That either shows a profound understanding... or a profound lack of understanding. ... ROOK B6! He has NO SHAME

Maybe it's obvious to those with a better understanding of the game but can explain that "no shame" comment at 11:44?

Re: Strongest chess player, ever

#22

Post by onestone »

anatoly wrote: post #20

Can anyone comment on what makes stockfish different from other chess engines? If I'm curious about state of the art in computer chess, is it worthwhile to study its source? What interesting ideas should I expect to see there beyond what I vaguely know to be the standard approach from introductory AI courses, i.e. some sort of alpha-beta pruning search?

What sets Stockfish apart is its open testing framework. Many volunteers allocate CPU time to run test games, checking if a pull request actually adds Elo rating points. Also, its open development model is a big advantage compared to closed-source chess engines, which usually just have 1-2 developers. The ideas used are mostly the same in all top engines, the advantage of Stockfish comes from tuning/testing/polishing/tweaks.

An year ago Stockfish was near the top, but not quite there. Since then its development model became more open, and the open testing framework was introduced. The rate it's been adding Elo rating points since then has been amazing.

Re: Strongest chess player, ever

#23

Post by ekr »

anatoly wrote: post #20

Can anyone comment on what makes stockfish different from other chess engines? If I'm curious about state of the art in computer chess, is it worthwhile to study its source? What interesting ideas should I expect to see there beyond what I vaguely know to be the standard approach from introductory AI courses, i.e. some sort of alpha-beta pruning search?

I'm not familiar with it, but I'd assume most of them use the same mini-max, with alpha-beta prunning, or some similar algorithm, with small improvements, especially in the heuristic state evaluation function.

You'd learn more by studying a book on AI, and maybe trying to implement an engine yourself, iMO.

The difference in score between the top engines is not that big.

Re: Strongest chess player, ever

#24

Post by arek2 »

anatoly wrote: post #20

Can anyone comment on what makes stockfish different from other chess engines? If I'm curious about state of the art in computer chess, is it worthwhile to study its source? What interesting ideas should I expect to see there beyond what I vaguely know to be the standard approach from introductory AI courses, i.e. some sort of alpha-beta pruning search?

I have not seen the Stockfish source, but my impression is that computer chess was going round in circles in the last 10 years, and it's still good old alpha-beta search with more refined heuristics.

The biggest value in studying computer chess for a programmer is IMO in seeing all the different performance optimization tricks.

Re: Strongest chess player, ever

#25

Post by letstryagain »

Isofarro wrote: post #10
StavrosK wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have computers and software progressed that much since the Deep Blue days? I didn't realize that chess has pretty much been solved now. Are computers really that much better than people nowadays?

Stockfish has been available for quite a while, and over the last few years has been recognised as being the strongest open-source chess engine. It's fantastic to see it take on the best commercial engines toe-to-toe and come out on top. These ratings are computer ratings, and because they are playing very much isolates (computers vs other computers), without enough external human encounters, the ratings are consiste…

It sounds like you think humans can still beat top computers? According to my research the last time a human beat a top computer was 2005. Almost a decade ago!

Re: Strongest chess player, ever

#26

Post by codehotter »

NhanH wrote: post #15
Isofarro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stockfish has been available for quite a while, and over the last few years has been recognised as being the strongest open-source chess engine. It's fantastic to see it take on the best commercial engines toe-to-toe and come out on top. These ratings are computer ratings, and because they are playing very much isolates (computers vs other computers), without enough external human encounters, the ratings are consiste…

That's a surprise to me. I've always thought that the reason we stopped having computer vs grandmaster is that the computer will just beat the grandmaster absolutely.

In 2006, Deep Fritz 10 beat Kramnik (then world champion) with a score of 4-2 [1]

On the Computer Chess Rating List, Stockfish is currently about 350 elo points stronger than Deep Fritz 10. [2] That means Stockfish would have about 88% chance of winning vs Deep Fritz 10.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93computer_chess_ma... [2] http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/rating_list_all.ht...

Re: Strongest chess player, ever

#27

Post by letstryagain »

NhanH wrote: post #15
Isofarro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stockfish has been available for quite a while, and over the last few years has been recognised as being the strongest open-source chess engine. It's fantastic to see it take on the best commercial engines toe-to-toe and come out on top. These ratings are computer ratings, and because they are playing very much isolates (computers vs other computers), without enough external human encounters, the ratings are consiste…

That's a surprise to me. I've always thought that the reason we stopped having computer vs grandmaster is that the computer will just beat the grandmaster absolutely.

You are correct, top computers beat any human player today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93computer_chess_ma...

Re: Strongest chess player, ever

#28

Post by mrtksn »

ars wrote: post #8
_flag wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can watch Magnus Carlsen play a chess program on his phone here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNvVWeHZG00 As you can tell from his commentary, he thinks the machine is rather stupid (and he is winning after the opening) but the machine is a much better calculator than he is and when the situation becomes more concrete he has to force a draw. Of course, the computer on his phone is considerably worse than the b…

> but top chess players generally consider computers to be excellent calculators but dumb in terms of general strategy. Is computer assisted chess a thing? Perhaps with standardized hardware, but any software. In chess I'm good at strategy but terrible at calculating and I miss obvious stuff all the time in my fight for strategy. I always thought I'd do great with computer assistance to look for the obvious stuff, an…

There is a chess app on IOS that suggests you moves and warns you against obvious situations where you would lose your piece. It's using an old but still popular engine: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess/id522314512?mt=8

I had most fun with this chess engine. Stockfish engine was not fun at all, it was playing like an "asshole" most of the time and when the AI strength is reduced it was like playing against a stupid "asshole". When playing against human you feel like your opponent is on something but against AI you feel like you run for your life. Mind you though, I am very amateur chess player, I play only recreationally.

Re: Strongest chess player, ever

#29

Post by Bootvis »

jebus989 wrote: post #21
maaaats wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny commentary: > That either shows a profound understanding... or a profound lack of understanding. ... ROOK B6! He has NO SHAME

Maybe it's obvious to those with a better understanding of the game but can explain that "no shame" comment at 11:44?

I'm guessing Magnus thinks it was a typical computer move: Strong but not obvious and a bit off-beat.

Re: Strongest chess player, ever

#30

Post by saykou »

Aside from the topic, the lichess.org captcha on inscription is a chess challenge? I advise against, that is one thing that computers are better than us, and goes everything what a captcha should be xD
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