Picture courtesy of ChessBase
Here are the final standings:
1 Rybka USA 10.0
2 Zappa TUR 9.0
3 Loop DEU 7.5
4 Shredder DEU 7.0
5 GridChess DEU 7.0
6 Deep Sjeng BEL 6.0
7 Jonny DEU 5.0
8 Diep NLD 4.5
9 The Baron NLD 4.0
10 IsiChess DEU 3.5
11 The King NLD 2.5
12 micro-Max NLD 0.0
Here is the official website: http://www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr/icga/tournament.php?id=173
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
I love Rybka! I use it to help in analyzing games on my database Chess Assistant. It is also a humbling chess partner. Imagine, I can play with the strongest chess engine in the world, stronger than the present World Champion in fact!
High standard of play I think, with many fine games worthy of study. Interesting that new engines, LOOP and GRIDCHESS, turn up and do well.
SHREDDER lost to GRIDCHESS and, out of the opening, to RYBKA.
MICRO-MAX’s achievement could easily be missed, given that it got zero points. The aim is that MICRO-MAX has 1 ELO point of rating per character of source-code, and it almost achieves that.
Since engines can be in two places at once, FRITZ and JUNIOR could have been there – but weren’t.
The programmer of undefeated 2nd place finisher Zappa is Anthony Cozzie of the U of Illinois. It’s impressive that Zappa did so well on “old” programming, as, per his website, Cozzie has moved on to other things….
can you select rybka chess engine, if you are using Fritz X?
It is very interesting to read the report of this tournament on the Rybka website, by Rybka’s programmer.
Despite the false opinions of many posters on this blog, each computer has its own book (one participant had no book at all), and Rybka was SPECIFICALLY programmed with a “bomb” to use against Shredder.
It is nice to read that Rybka’s programmer states that many of his wins were due to the book he installed, not Rybka’s strength. Also very honest that Rybka did not play many positions properly.
Still, the point of the event was to win games. Rybka always does that; but that does not mean it is the strongest analytical engine available.
-Ken
Hi,
the best programm has won. Junior and Fritz has hidden themselves as Kramnik 🙂 in the period after 2000.
Regards
Pony
Ken,
You imply that Rybka is not the best analytical engine. Why not? What’s your favorite?
R
ken,
Nowhere is it said that Rybka didn’t play many positions properly in the WCCC. There were three positions:
In game vs. Loop, Rybka liquidated when it probably wasn’t the best option.
In game vs. Zappa, Rybka played an absolutely brilliant masterpiece. Rybka chose a materially unbalanced continuation that EVERY other engine strongly disagreed with. But she prover herself right with incredible moves b4! with d6! to follow up in various lines, causing black’s position to collapse. Sadly, Rybka failed to finish the tablebase-like endgame job. Please note, earlier versions would have won here, but a new internal pawn-endgame modulo probably caused the latest version to miss the win. This is a pure temporary technicality, and doesn’t detract from the fact that Rybka played some of the most impressive engine chess ever played in that game.
Finally, Vas mentions that Rybka also preferred black in the book battle vs. Shredder. Big surprise. EVERY engine prefers black here.
Bottom line is that Rybka repeatedly outplayed her opponents in convincing style in this WCCC.
“but that does not mean it is the strongest analytical engine available.”
No, you are right. But incidentally, Rybka IS the best analysis tool available. I should know, since I used her as analysis tool to win the 5th Freestyle final, ahead of corr. GM Arno Nickel who is about to finish second in the corr. WC final. (Just to assure you that I don’t give a crap about whatever corr. credentials you may put forward to advance your argument 😉
The report at Chessbase site is quite pathetic:
“Conspicuously absent were the German/Dutch program Fritz, which in recent years is mainly concerned with improving its strength in human chess; and last year’s winner Junior (from Israel), which had just finished a match against Fritz in Elista and could not make it to the tournament in Amsterdam”.
Yeah right, Mr. Fritz is very CONCERNED and Mr. Junior missed the flight, right? Come on! Don’t be ridiculous and simply say you hid away to try and avoid being humiliated by Rybka.
I own Fritz, Junior and Rybka and I have two computers. It is impressive how repeatedly Rybka smashes those two like two patzers who are completely lost in assessing a position. Rybka is BY FAR the best program.
Susan, please keep us updated on the USD 100K challenge. It has to be clear to the whole computer chess world how scandalously Fritz and Junior’s team keep running away.
It is hard to respond to anony-mouses, posters should at least make up a name…
However it is good to see a strong Rybka user (freestyle) agree that it is not the strongest engine!
Freestyle is played at tournament speeds and has little to do with correspondence anlysis techniques, however. Programs rarely if ever improve analytical results after 10 minutes or so, without substantial human intervention. At some point you realize that if you must constantly double-check analysis and often force the program to look at the best lines, all the program does is blunder-check. At cc where there are no time errors, computers have little impact at the master level for that reason.
At 3 minutes a move in a freestyle event however, an engine which comes to a relevant conclusion fast is the best partner. Even if Shredder is better by a little on 95% of the moves, the one time Rybka finds the great move fast that Shredder needs 10 minutes for (and can’t take) will tip the competitive result to Rybka.
The Rybka write-up by Rybka is very informative, yes of course they comment when Rybka played well! But they are MUCH more honest than many posters here that Rybka misplays positions and often wins out of the pre-set opening before any engine analysis even begins.
Ken
Also it is interesting to read Jeroen’s comments on the games, as he developed the entire “killer book” used by Rybka. He notes that the book caused a clear advantage to Rybka BEFORE ANY ANALYSIS BEGAN in 7 out of the 11 games.
Again, this is mostly to clear up the point with those posters who insist that differences in openings books have no impact on computer tournaments…Certainly both Vas and Jeroen consider that Rybka has both the best book AND the best engine!
Ken
Hi Ken,
What u say of Rybka’s strength is absolutely rubbish. There have been enough tests using common books or 3 move books to suggest that Rybka is stronger than any other engine by a huge huge margin. Please go through tests sites and update yourself.
Rybka is far stronger than any other engine and deserves to be WCCC champion.
So Ken,
Do you believe that Shredder is best at correspondence chess? If not which one?
Ro
Response to an anony-mouse, but hopefully it is in sequential order….
ICCF GM Robin Smith’s book sums all this up much better than I can. Each position has parameters that can make a strong program look dumb but a different program look brilliant. The most important thing when doing serious analysis is to solicit several programs and use your own chess judgement to evaluate each.
A good analysis program for an Advance French may be horrible for that Najdorf. That is why the book used for tournaments is crucial.
Rybka is a very accurate program but does not always differentiate enough between choices, leaving several nearly equal paths. It of course always chooses the one that is +0.01 better than the rest! But the truth to whether a specific position is much better for one side, that is more often noted by Junior or Shredder.
Of course once you start believing that a program is superior to a human in chess understanding you are in trouble. In chess results, of course! And far more accurate and reliable too.
Players who want an analytical tool to develop themselves should probably just use whatever they prefer, and not get too involved regarding ELO numbers.
Ken
Ken,
Thanks for your your response, but there is one thing I suggest you try before you put too much weight into your opening book theory. Run Rybka against Shredder with both engines using Shredder’s opening book, do the same with your other favorite engines using their opening books. When I did that with Shredder and Fritz, Rybka still won big. You might say it made mouse burgers out of your argument.
Rob
Rybka is pound for pound the most accurate engine out there. I formed a small 7-move opening book based off of Rybka’s own natural moves (the moves she would play if without an opening book). She murdered everything in sight, from Fritz, Hiarcs, and Junior on down to Shredder. And all of those engines were playing with their own opening book.
Also the lastest Rybka tops the endgame tests as she solved 74/100 in a measley 56m 28s. Hiarcs came in second with also 74/100solved but in 83m and 53s and Shredder in third with 70/100solved in 79m 13s (see
http://www.ordichec.net/testfinales.html ).
So in WCCC, Rybka already had an advantage against all in engine strength (see all major rating lists) but adding the fact that her opening book was also superior just made her even stronger. Now its bad logic to assume just because one has a superior opening book implies that the engine itself is weaker than engine X. Everyone knows that Rybka is strongest (even with a plain general book). So arguments trying to fool others that she’s not is futile and will be looked upon as suspicious bias (a team member of another engine).