Questions tagged [engines]
Questions relating to chess engines: any computer program that is able to play/analyze chess positions.
709
questions
2
votes
1answer
127 views
How can I send a UCI command to a chess engine in Python?
I have a followup question to my previous thread:
Python script to let stockfish selfplay 10 games from a given position
There are some engines that allow you to set a command that imposes that the ...
2
votes
1answer
123 views
How to get stockfish to play a selfmatch without clearing the hash table between games
A while ago I asked a question about how to let Stockfish play 10 games with itself for a limited number of moves:
Python script to let stockfish selfplay 10 games from a given position
This ...
2
votes
1answer
76 views
What is the 'combustion point' of a game? This was in an upvoted answer
Saw an answer and it had been upvoted.
Person answering had a large rep on stack.
The term used that was not explained is:
'Combustion Point' (of a game)
My question is just what does 'combustion ...
2
votes
1answer
150 views
Top players have seconds to help them prepare. Do they also use engines looking to prepare lines for surprise value?
What just do seconds add to a players preparation for a BIG match? Do they use engines to help them prepare better surprising moves?
Wouldn't a room full of powerful computers running around the ...
2
votes
1answer
407 views
Is there Python code to use the Leela neural network?
I am interested in doing some analyses of chess games using the neural network trained for Lc0. To that end I need to be able to turn PGN into the right kind of input vectors and to load and use the ...
3
votes
1answer
299 views
Python script to let stockfish selfplay 10 games from a given position
I would like to have Stockfish to selfplay 10 games starting from a given position. Game should end after 10 moves. From the python-chess documentation there is an example of playing only one such ...
2
votes
1answer
233 views
Faster bit-board implementation in Javascript
In a previous question I asked, linked here: How can I speed up my check detection in Javascript? I was told to implement bit-boards to speed up my engine. I can say that bit-boards have improved my ...
2
votes
1answer
1k views
Why is Leela better than Leelenstein? (as of January 2020)
Leela Chess Zero is a neural-network based chess engine trained entirely from self play (that's why it has the word "zero" in its name). Leelenstein uses the same binary,* but a different method to ...
1
vote
1answer
249 views
Chess move generation with bit boards in Javascript
To make my engine more efficient, I am writing my engine such that it uses bit-boards in its move generation. But I have a question, suppose I have a rook move mask centered at a specific spot, how ...
24
votes
4answers
8k views
What is the worst opening move in Chess960 for White?
Is there a first move for white in Chess960 in which white can immediately blunder a piece or lose a significant advantage (say -2.0 or so)?
2
votes
1answer
111 views
How to use a Polyglot book in C# with a chess engine
I would like, if possible, for someone to provide a code snippet of a basic logic to access a Polyglot book file. I'm having trouble finding the file format documentation, so I don't know how to ...
5
votes
1answer
134 views
How can I speed up my check detection in Javascript?
I am trying to write a simple chess engine in Javascript. It performs very slowly but I have finally rooted down the problem to check detection. How might I speed up this check detection? If you have ...
4
votes
1answer
208 views
Are these magics wrong?
I am working on my chess engine and wanted to finally implement magic bitboards to get a huge increase in performance.
Basically I was writing a method to check if a number can be used as a magic for ...
3
votes
2answers
158 views
Moves per depth in search engines
I have been implementing a chess engine myself and it is playing pretty good but it seems to calculate way too many nodes.
I was looking at this post: Stockfish nodes
And tested it with my engine.
...
3
votes
2answers
1k views
In what ways is it the best to use a computer in correspondence chess?
I have only recently started correspondence chess and I have
read that engines are allowed in correspondence chess. I definitely do know that the world champions of correspondence chess have said ...
2
votes
2answers
1k views
Lc0 weights file
On Windows 10 I have installed the latest versions of Arena (v3.5.1) and the Lc0 engine (v0.23.1). However I have only found one weights.pb file that it will accept. The one in the link in this Q&...
5
votes
1answer
151 views
Minimax check(mate) detection
in my minimax function I have a first few lines looking something like this:
children = board.get_all_possible_moves(board)
if depth = 0 or board.is_check_mate or board.is_draw:
return None, ...
5
votes
2answers
814 views
Stockfish 10 working on only 1 core at a time
I am a lichess user who would like to be able to use my 8C/16T processor to the best of my ability, and yet when I start up a chess engine only one of my cores is working on stockfish the rest are ...
3
votes
2answers
559 views
Minimax with alpha-beta pruning for chess
I am creating a chess AI using the minimax method with alpha-beta pruning. I am trying to understand how the alpha-beta pruning works, but I can't get my head around it when it comes to chess where ...
0
votes
2answers
151 views
What is the most effective openings to beat a 2200-2400 rated computer at chess?(With White and Black)
I have had good positions with the Hippopotamus opening with its Kings Indian structure(ranging up to +3 in evaluation) but in the end, the tactical superiority of the computer always gets in the way ...
1
vote
2answers
91 views
What is the most effective way to beat the computer at chess?
I have recently been playing a lot of games against the Computer level 9 on chess.com(not to be confused with Komodo 9). It is actually a reasonably difficult computer I would say rated definitely ...
2
votes
1answer
119 views
What is the highest mobility score of a board without a checkmate, stalemate, or draw?
I consider the mobility score of a board to be the number of legal moves one player could make less the number of legal moves the other player could make.
8/7k/2Q2K2/8/6b1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1
Using the ...
13
votes
5answers
5k views
Why have engines not increased top rated chess players' Elo?
The arrival of strong chess engines as Stockfish, Houdini or Rybka allow top players to deeply prepare lines in openings or to study better endgames.
I would expect a rating increase of top players. ...
4
votes
4answers
4k views
chess.com Analysis “Accuracy” - What score is computer like for a given rating?
I have a few questions about engine use detection at online games on chess.com:
Let's say both players are rated 1800 on chess.com online play and
they make n number of moves in a game.
White has 90%...
3
votes
1answer
69 views
ChessBase Nalimov tablebases
I'm using Nalimov tablebases with Fritz14 and it basically works. Just one strange problems occurs: The engine doesn't mate because the final mating move isn't sorted correctly. It look like this:
+- ...
3
votes
1answer
66 views
How to reduce the number of playouts on LeelaChessZero?
So after checking the wiki it seems the parameter "--playouts" allows to chose the number of playouts.
But when I try it on my laptop it just fails:
$ ./lc0 -w meangirl-7.pb.gz --playouts 5
v0.23....
8
votes
10answers
7k views
Is a Finite State Machine a good way to model chess?
A very common model in programming is the Finite State Machine (FSM) (see here for a great worked example.)
Is a FSM a good way to model chess? What are the best ways to go about it? What chess ...
2
votes
2answers
3k views
Why doesn't Stockfish (DroidFish) try to flag me?
Imagine the following position:
[FEN "3k4/7p/7K/3B4/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]
White is played by Stockfish in DroidFish and black by human (me). We both have 15 seconds.
After a few moves, white bishop ...
3
votes
1answer
249 views
Hans Berliner and computers. Did he win the world ICCF championship using computer help?
Way back when, Hans worked for IBM. I met him at an IBM data center one time, but he worked in the Federal division and just used the center for a demo. I had known him from the Washington Chess ...
3
votes
1answer
75 views
Are there any sources of massive transposition tables?
Do transposition databases exist the way tablebases do? Would an engine be able to take advantage of a pre-calculated TD? Is there a benefit to players when studying if they had access to pre-...
1
vote
2answers
491 views
What is the farthest away a game can be from a guaranteed checkmate?
What is the maximum number of moves away from checkmate that a player can be where checkmate is guaranteed? There are many positions that are a guaranteed win for a player if played perfectly right? (...
4
votes
3answers
616 views
Chess engine: Quiescence Search increases required time by a factor of 20
I am currently trying to implement a basic chess engine and got to the following point:
I have got Alpha-Beta Pruning implemented and extended it with a transposition table. To further increase ...
4
votes
4answers
910 views
Help with game phase identification
I'm working on a chess AI for a school project and I am looking into ways to identify the current phase of a board, meaning the opening, middlegame, and endgame. I have seen an article explaining ...
2
votes
1answer
193 views
Use of transposition tables in chess engines
I hope this is the right place to post this question. So I like to implement things myself without using libraries and one of my first projects was a chess engine and I would like to improve this one.
...
3
votes
3answers
200 views
File format/interface for home-brew engines (and implementation in lichess)
I'm a hobbyist chess programmer. I've built a few engines from scratch, had lots of fun, and am generally pretty proud of what I've made (I estimate ~1400-1500 though it's hard to tell).
I was very ...
4
votes
0answers
38 views
Human assisted handicapped engine against engine, adjustable parameters
I am looking for software preferably local interface on windows, to play human+engine against engine with access to search parameters such as depth and "greed" or dismissal factor (controlling ...
15
votes
9answers
3k views
Could a chess engine do retro analysis?
If I took a legal chess position, to what extent could an engine work out the previous moves? [in some other board games such as Othello such game reconstruction is done easily with an engine.]
4
votes
1answer
158 views
Minimax algorithm - Play with Black pieces?
Motivation:
I am trying to make a basic AI agent that can play chess against an opponent. The goal is to see how good it can become through the use of machine learning later on and also learn the ...
14
votes
4answers
3k views
How to tell that this is a draw
In an endgame I played as Black, after the rooks were exchanged, the below position was reached. A funky stalemate quickly ensued.
[FEN "8/5ppk/5p1p/8/3K1P2/6P1/7P/8 b - - 0 1"]
[startflipped ""]
1.....
2
votes
0answers
46 views
Where to find a list of the computer stored in the FICS Games Database?
According to the FICS Games Database there are currently 1,525 "computers stored". Such accounts are indicated by a "(C)" after the username. However, this suffix does not seem to be recorded in the ...
2
votes
1answer
108 views
Can engines use the current pawn structure to refine its search/eval?
As I understand it, engines use so-called "bitboards" to generate the current position & possible moves. I'm wondering if any engine uses the pawn bitboard to refine its search and eval.
To ...
5
votes
2answers
301 views
Does Google's new quantum computer mean we will soon have a more powerful AlphaZero?
According to a paper published in Nature Google has developed a quantum computer.
Abstract
The promise of quantum computers is that certain computational tasks
might be executed ...
5
votes
2answers
297 views
Is it possible to combine CPU and GPU engines to use the other's principal variation?
This is a speculative question since I don't know if such an engine is even plausible.
The idea: we'll start Stockfish and Leela at the same time using both my CPU and GPU. Within a fraction of a ...
5
votes
3answers
172 views
Usefullness of analysing ones own games with an engine
There are different opinions on analysing your games with an engine. Some say you shouldn't use an engine at all, and others say you can use it, but you should do your own analysis first. Most say ...
3
votes
2answers
131 views
How many games to get a good idea of computer chess board rating?
I have an old Radio Shack 1850 Electronic Chess Computer, which I would like to know the ELO rating each level plays at. The instructions just give average number of seconds per move.
I figure I ...
6
votes
3answers
182 views
How do generic game engines work?
The evaluation functions for chess usually includes chess specific knowledge. However, Zillions of Games is able to play any game based only on a description of how the pieces move and winning/losing/...
2
votes
2answers
149 views
How can I set up en passant in the Popeye engine?
I want to solve a problem with Thomas Maeder's excellent Popeye engine, and to specify that a possible en passant in the diagram is ok. How can I do this please? The documentation seems opaque. Thanks ...
28
votes
3answers
4k views
Is there an engine that finds the best “practical” move?
A standard chess engine will find the move it considers best assuming best play from both sides. But this move might lead to an insignificant advantage or a tricky line that can easily result in ...
3
votes
2answers
152 views
How does an engine choose between two moves of equal evalulation?
In many positions, different moves are functionally the same, and an engine should return the same evaluation. For example, in a KR vs. KR endgame, (almost) every move that does not lose the rook ...
2
votes
1answer
197 views
How to tweak a chess engine like SF to return a variation which is only slightly better than your moves?
By default, engines return the strongest variation(s) they calculate. I was wondering if there is a way to tweak an open source chess engine to show a move from their MultiPV which is slightly better ...
