Questions tagged [stockfish]
Stockfish is a strong open-source chess engine.
149
questions
8
votes
3answers
2k views
Stockfish: What is the maximum (minimum) centipawn score that a position might be evaluated at?
With the exception of checkmate and mate-in-x positions, what is the highest centipawn score that a chess position might obtain upon Stockfish evaluation?
This is a practical question because there ...
2
votes
1answer
40 views
Compile StockFish optimized for arm64-v8a
I cloned StockFish from GitHub and did a make inside the src folder and found that supported archs are:
x86-64-bmi2 > x86 64-bit with pext support (also enables SSE4)
x86-64-modern ...
5
votes
2answers
389 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 ...
-2
votes
1answer
83 views
How to force Stockfish to make mistake [closed]
I developed a bot. It had a 100% win rate and my account was banned. I need to get it to make mistakes but can't force Stockfish to do it. How can I modify Stockfish to make mistakes?
20
votes
3answers
3k views
Why is Leela so good at beating Stockfish in the French/Caro-Kann?
I notice Lc0 is especially good against Stockfish in French / Caro-Kann pawn structures. However, I don't understand why.
Here're a couple of games where Leela smoothly outplays Stockfish. Can anyone ...
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 ...
5
votes
2answers
143 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 ...
0
votes
1answer
63 views
What's the difference between movetime and the Slow Mover option?
When I tell the engine to find the best move with
go movetime 1 depth 1
I expect it allows itself to take up to about 1 ms to make it's move. But what's the difference between that and the Slow ...
2
votes
1answer
158 views
What is the best way to interface with Stockfish in a C++ program?
I am looking for a way to have my C++ program communicate with Stockfish. An ideal solution would use the compiled version and my program would send commands to the .exe which would return the results....
1
vote
2answers
128 views
When to use Clear Hash
I am developing a program that analyzes games sequentially, i.e. one game after another.
Below are the parameters.
Engine: Stockfish 10
Threads: 2
Hash Table: 4000
Depth: 30
My question is about ...
1
vote
1answer
139 views
Is there any game where AlphaZero wins against Stockfish thanks to a knight pair?
I have seen some of the games that were published in the match between AlphaZero and Stockfish.
In many games, as when it beats Stockfish as black playing the Berlin Defense, AlphaZero appears to ...
2
votes
1answer
161 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 ...
1
vote
1answer
84 views
Convert Stockfish analysis output to pgn
It seems that there is no way to direct see Stockfish’s analysis in pgn when it evaluates a position. I am looking for a way to convert the SAN or LAN format into a PGN. Maybe it will work in Python. ...
2
votes
3answers
134 views
How to use Arena GUI outputs in a python program
I'm currently developing a self-playing chessboard on which I'd like to implement an Artificial Intelligence (AI) (currently it's Stockfish. I would like to know how I could, if I can, export Arena ...
2
votes
1answer
91 views
Is it possible to play multiple games with Stockfish simultaneously?
I am asking this because Stockfish was accepting different FEN strings through the terminal inbetween a game, of which it is giving best moves. I have compiled Stockfish in the Ubuntu 19.04 terminal.
2
votes
1answer
217 views
Why can Stockfish give different evaluations at the same depth?
When I let Stockfish get to a certain depth (say depth 33), it gives some evaluation. Then I refresh the position (while leaving Stockfish on) and when it gets to the same depth it gives a different ...
4
votes
1answer
135 views
Leaving the score aside, what are the criteria allowing Stockfish to choose its “best move”?
I'm trying to understand how a chess engine like Stockfish works. I use Stockfish 10 directly, without an UI.
For example, for this position (white to move)...
r3n1k1/1bpp2pp/pp2p3/2P1P3/R2P4/3B1rPq/...
3
votes
1answer
179 views
Stockfish on Android Question
I recently downloaded Stockfish 10 on my android phone and after unzipping the rar file, there were three separate engine binaries and I am wondering which one would be the strongest one to use. The ...
15
votes
3answers
6k views
Bad Stockfish evaluation
This is the study
[fen "3B4/1r2p3/r2p1p2/bkp1P1p1/1p1P1PPp/p1P4P/PPBK4/8 w - - 0 1 "]
As you can see, Stockfish gives an absolute decisive win for black, though it is clearly a draw!!
Check it out ...
1
vote
1answer
89 views
How to stop Stockfish analysis?
I am using Chessbase 13. I would like Stockfish to stop analyzing until I make it start again. What happens now is that I make it stop, and as soon as I go on to the next move, it starts analyzing ...
2
votes
1answer
188 views
How to use the Ponder option in stockfish / UCI
I'm trying to understand stockfish Ponder functionality. I'm very interested to let stockfish think when the opponent is thinking. From what I understand you can do it as follows
$> uci
$> ...
9
votes
5answers
424 views
Why does Fishtesting test Stockfish against itself, not other engines?
As I understand the so-called Fishtesting, people write patches, then try the patches against the current version of Stockfish. If the new version performs better, it's promoted to be the main version;...
5
votes
1answer
459 views
Are there any attempts at writing Stockfish MCTS?
As of time of writing, there is one major traditional engine using Monte Carlo Tree Search for its search algorithm - Komodo. The MCTS version of Komodo started out weak but gained strength quickly, ...
1
vote
1answer
280 views
Why does NCM show no progress for Stockfish when each new version has to beat the previous version?
NCM plays each Stockfish dev build 20,000 times against Stockfish 7. This yields an approximate Elo difference and establishes confidence in the strength of the dev builds. As of time of writing, one ...
-3
votes
2answers
121 views
Stockfish 9 giving erroneous reading
Sam Loyd, 1860
[fen "8/8/8/8/B6n/7p/6k1/4K3 w - - 0 1"]
1.Bd7!! h2 2.Bc6 Kg1 3.Bh1!! Kxh1 4.Kf2.
(Ke1, Ba4; Kg2, Nh4, h3) says mate in 54 after 1.Bd7!! h2 2.Bc6 Kg1 3.Bh1!! Kxh1 4.Kf2.
This is a ...
5
votes
1answer
154 views
Combining AlphaZero methods with Stockfish methods [closed]
NOTE: I asked a similar question at the ai stackexchange, but didn't get any satisfying answers, so I will post an updated version of the question here, to see if someone with more of a chess ...
0
votes
1answer
81 views
Standard for current position evaluation via UCIs
I am trying to interact with stockfish via UCI to get a current evaluation of the board. When you do a simple
position startpos
go depth 10
The board will helpfully return
...[previous depths]
...
4
votes
3answers
415 views
Solvable studies that computers fail to crack
Are there chess studies that require an outside of the box thinking that goes beyond the concrete calculation capabilities of today's engines (e.g. Stockfish)?
I have sometimes seen certain endgames ...
4
votes
2answers
255 views
Not in stalemate, but why is this a draw?
I was practicing with stockfish level 8, having two rooks in the endgame whereas stockfish has only one. At the 78th move, it was declared as a draw. But, it was not a stalemate. Can anyone please ...
4
votes
1answer
195 views
How does Stockfish ensure an incremental change made is beneficial?
Does Stockfish's testing framework get the new engine to play the old engine many times in a match? Since Stockfish thinks on each move according to a time limit (and not a depth limit, which gives a ...
2
votes
2answers
161 views
Most complicated mode for chess engines
I have used many chess engines, especially Stockfish and I want to ask you, if it possible to change its mode to the most complicated one. What I mean:
Now, most engines work as following:
1) Mate ...
9
votes
3answers
3k views
Why are Leela's fans so passionate? [closed]
The neural-network engine Leela is a relatively new one. It's also got some extremely passionate fans. For example they write things like this:
Wait 5-6 months, and we will see SF8 on uber-duper ...
3
votes
2answers
365 views
AlphaZero and the revenge of the Artificial Intelligence
Answering this question, @SmallChess offered this answer:
Before Google's chess journey, the chess engine community believed:
AI chess will not beat classical programming because neural networks
...
3
votes
3answers
312 views
Why does AlphaZero evaluate on the order of 1000 times less moves than Stockfish?
According to Deep mind's article, Alpha Zero searches roughly 10,000 moves per decision, while Stockfish is around 10,000,000 moves. I'm aware that Alpha Zero uses Monte Carlo Tree Search while ...
0
votes
1answer
88 views
Importing and analysing games played on chess.com [closed]
How to import entire game from chess.com game to stockfish?
4
votes
2answers
583 views
What is 'Depth' in Lichess game analysis?
I have started analyzing my games in Lichess. I'm wondering what does Depth mean in the Stockfish analysis?
0
votes
1answer
148 views
Is any tool which allow analyse EPD file and add evaluation score per I want specify depth/multi PV
I tested some tools which allow analysis EPD files but they not work like I want:
I can use Arena but it will not annotate back EPD - it create protocol file.
I can use SCID vs PC but it will not ...
1
vote
1answer
509 views
How to use nodestime option in Stockfish 10?
By looking at the uci option file of Stockfish 10 I found this line:
o["nodestime"] << Option(0, 0, 10000);
How exactly does one use nodestime?
1
vote
1answer
239 views
Why is Stockfish giving me this weird move?
When I ask for the best move for this FEN:
1rbq1rk1/b4p2/p2p3p/3Bp3/P3P3/2P4P/R2Q1PP1/4K2R w -- - 0 30
[FEN "1rbq1rk1/b4p2/p2p3p/3Bp3/P3P3/2P4P/R2Q1PP1/4K2R w - - 0 30"]
Stockfish (via Python) ...
5
votes
1answer
882 views
Oscillating Stockfish Evaluation on Laptop
I'm using stockfish-9-bmi2 on my laptop to provide me move by move evaluation of games. I've set Stockfish to evaluate to depth = 25 plys. I find that the evaluation provided oscillates move-on-move ...
4
votes
2answers
226 views
What's the rationale behind chess engines conditionally allowing threefold repetitions when assigning a draw score?
When a chess engine sees a position p repeated once (i.e. position p occurred twice) it immediately assigns the second occurrence of position p a draw score. This makes sense because position p doesn'...
4
votes
1answer
228 views
Why Stockfish 9 fails to see the draw?
I can reach a draw with White in the below position. The Stockfish 9, however, gives 28.1 points for black after Kf3,Ba1,Ke4,Bb2,Kd3.
[FEN "8/p7/kpP5/qrp1b3/rpP2b2/pP4b1/P3K3/8 w - - 0 1"]
1. Kf3 ...
1
vote
2answers
206 views
Android Stockfish communication works differently than on PC? [closed]
How is number of threads to use written on Android versions of Stockfish? Whole communication works but somehow I still can't change number of threads. I even have working code for PC version of ...
2
votes
3answers
427 views
How many moves out do the static board evaluations use?
These days many online chess websites offer a board evaluation rating, often a bar, sometimes a number, sometimes both, as is the case here (see two red circles):
Black will take a pawn soon, so the ...
4
votes
5answers
694 views
Reasonable engines to test against (Not StockFish)
I've built a chess engine in Python which I've been testing against StockFish through the use of the Python-Chess package.
Testing against StockFish seems/is problematic, and as a result I'm ...
-7
votes
1answer
1k views
LICHESS analysis, why did it propose this outrageous move? [closed]
I was playing a game on lichess, and afterwards asked for a computer analysis, where instead of my perfectly fine move XX the computer insisted on another better move YY, why is that, how can I ...
4
votes
1answer
230 views
How are chess engines able to rank a Mate in X above a Mate in X+Y?
According to an engine, a mate in X moves = +infinity, since it is a forced win for it.
Also according to an engine, a mate in X+Y moves = +infinity, since it's a forced win (just more moves, but an ...
0
votes
1answer
123 views
Is there a way to get MANY and FAST (but not deep) position evaluations in javascript?
I am working on a statistical chess project that needs to evaluate many (about 20-30) different positions per turn. They do not need to be deep but fast.
Is there a possibility to use engines (...
4
votes
1answer
592 views
Why does Stockfish give a negative score in a theoretical win for white?
8/3k4/8/3K4/3P4/8/8/8 b - - 0 1
(Black to move)
This is a theoretical win since White has the opposition and the king is in front of the pawn.
I have downloaded the Windows version for Stockfish 9 ...
0
votes
2answers
186 views
Why Qd1 is the best move?
As per subject, why Qd1 is the best move and all other moves for queen like Qd2 and Qd3 are not? I understand that it’s important to cover d column but why 1 and not 2 or 3?
Also why Rd1 is not a ...
