God bless you, too, RFS!

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When I mentioned the 'unfairness' of the game I failed to balance it with the technical side of my statements.  In tournaments of softwares it is important that each software perform their maximum output.  There is this term called 'hash table' so the optimal performance of the engine is totally dependent on the available computer memory - while searching for the strongest line at the fastest time possible (like trillions of positions per second).  Without sufficient processor assistance and RAM - setting the performance of software like Rybka to the limit - will result in what is called 'stack overflow'.  This is probably the point why Rybka needed 40 cores and Sjeng only 4 cores.  If Sjeng used 40 cores, this might be irrelevant, since the max search depth of Sjeng could have been achieved at 4 core cpu.  (These are just my technical assumptions based on my experience with a chess program many years ago which demanded too much RAM and cpu when set to its maximum settings).  I believe that Rybka would still perform at 3000+ ELO on a dual core cpu.  Anyway, I'm happy that Rybka has joined the Fritz team for a better GUI.

Thank you very much for the help Sonofpearl, Gokukid and Totteran. Until next time. Thanks also to Chess.com community.  May God bless you all. 

Hi RFS

Yes chess programs are helpful and a good tool to have.

But in my experience serious tournament play with the chess program used as an assistant in the background, in preparations and analysis after, is what advances the player.

Regards

rfs - yes, you can set up any position in Fritz (or any of the Chessbase programs) and have the program analyse for you.

rfs, download Chessbase Light 2007 from www.chessbase.com

hi Sonofpearl and everybody, i've borrowed a Fritz 11 ( the Chessbase version ) since i have a hard time in reading the german language of fritz 5.32 (ive downloaded from this website) in my computer.Im just buying a dvd drive since fritz 11 cd ive borrowed was a dvd format. my Question  - Is Rybka (the Chessbase version ) and other programs like Hiarcs, Chessmaster latest version, Sjeng, etc..can set up a chess position or opening wherein he can analyze the best possible moves? The first version of chessmaster 10 years ago has no feature like this. Its just only a chess playing partner. im planning to follow your advice to buy Rybka 3 (the Chessbase version).Aside from being a chess trainer, i believe it can help me in studying and preparing my openings.

Another question - How to work with Chessbase Database openings to access the latest opening wringles everyday? Is Chessbase Database openings is another chess cd  or program that can also be download from the internet? Or this is already installed in all chess program like Fritz and Rybka?  Sorry for a lot of question since im just starting again to study chess using computer. Thank you very much and Godbless.

Nice news, someone has to win.

The processing power is important in the depth of calculation in terms of the number of moves you calculate within the given time.

The question however is how can we learn from the way computers play and make judgements?

Starting with the evaluation of a position. It seems that these programs posess the ability to judge even slight advantages/disadvantages. i.e. when you say this position slightly favours white or black.

I think these algorithms have to be made public and discussed in public so we can learn back from the machines which we have taught.

After all is this not the object of programming chess?

On the other hand I wish they program in the opening books of chess programs the known traps.

That would be a useful teaching tool.

Regards to all

When you buy Rybka, you don't buy Rybka+hardware w/ 40 cores (unless you have the 'money').  This tournament is supposed to help consumers decide which software to buy in the market.  Chess softwares are great tools for an individual's chess improvement.  In human tournaments, computer assistance in whatever means is not allowed.  So it is with software tournaments - 40 cores against 4 cores is totally unfair.  It is supposed to be a battle of algorithms.  Softwares 'do not' make gross blunders like humans.  I have tested both Fritz 10 and Rybka (version 1!)on same machines - Rybka calculated faster and stronger.  But in the game above - I'd say I'm not convinced with Rybka's victory.

Typo: "losing it's game" --> "losing its game"

I want to see their game...

I've been waiting to see Rybka/Hiarcs since the tournament started, but it's still not up.

I'd also be curious to see how each program would play using the same hardware.  It seems questionable to me to play software with greatly different hardware, particularly since systems with better hardware prevailed in almost every case (40 cores > most of everything else > cell phone). 

Whatever else may be said, that is a highly entertaining and instructive game; worthy of a brilliancy prize in any competition.

aah, I was rooting for the cellphone

This game was excellent!  It was amazing how rybka was able to sac two knights and a bishop so early in the game.  What was even more amazing was the fact that rybka was able to to win in a position i felt was pretty solid for white.

this game is so dull..

as captain of the rybka team in the latter part of the game against the hiarcs forum.

i would like to inform you that inWCCC the Hiarcs team was not playing on a Quad but on a 8 core Skulltrail running at 4GHz

It's definitely no surprise that Rybka 3 won (as a few people have already posted), but it did surprise me that Hiarcs got 2nd. In the past it has finished a pretty good bit lower than that. This game was interesting; Rybka got a queen + a pawn to Sjeng's 2 knights + a bishop. I agree w/ Jippo & DonaldLL that it wasn't fair that Rybka's team used a 40 core computer. I think they should make it manditory that they should have the computers be as similar as possible, especially the # & kind of processors. I think they should use quad-core AMDs or Intels for every team to make it fair $-wise & calculating algorithms-wise for all the participants. fzweb: I'm sure that Rybka 3 is stronger than Deep Blue was, but Deep Blue was definitely a powerful supercomputer. It ran on 30 microprocessors & could calculate 200,000,000 positions/second! Kasparov defeated Deep Blue in '96, but the new & improved version (Deeper Blue) defeated him in '97 because of a big time blunder that he played in the last game. It should have been a drawn match. One of the main differences is that Rybka is more efficient. Also, Deep Blue was written in the C programming language, whereas Rybka was written in C++.   

I don't understand how different algorithms could be compared objectively if each of them run on different hardware. It's very strange... Meaningless contest.

You mean as meaningful as Man vs Machine ? 

fzweb: According to Wikipedia, Deep Blue didn't play enough games to calculate a rating from, so there's no saying, really. Although since Kasparov peaked at 2851, it's fair to say Rybka (apparently rated at 3238) would give him a run for his money.

Does anyone know how accurate these engine ratings are, seeing as they tend to play against each other?

I agree, Rybka winning is not a surpirse...

ADK