Based on recent improvement of futility pruning by @locutus2 : we lower
the futility margin to apply it for more nodes but as a compensation
we also lower the history threshold to apply it to less nodes. Further
work in tweaking constants can always be done - numbers are guessed
"by hand" and are not results of some tuning, maybe there is some more
Elo to squeeze from this part of code.
Passed STC
LLR: 2.98 (-2.94,2.94) {-1.00,3.00}
Total: 15300 W: 3081 L: 2936 D: 9283
Ptnml(0-2): 260, 1816, 3382, 1900, 290
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5e18da3b27dab692fcf9a158
Passed LTC
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) {0.00,2.00}
Total: 108670 W: 14509 L: 14070 D: 80091
Ptnml(0-2): 813, 10259, 31736, 10665, 831
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5e18fc9627dab692fcf9a180
Bench: 4643972
This patch excludes blockers for king from mobility area. It was tried a couple
of times by now but now it passed. Performance is not enormously good but this
patch makes a lot of sence - blockers for king can't really move until king moves
(in most cases) so logic behind it is the same as behind excluding king square
from mobility area.
STC
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5dec388651219d7befdc76be
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-1.50,4.50]
Total: 6155 W: 1428 L: 1300 D: 3427
LTC
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5dec4a3151219d7befdc76d3
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 120800 W: 19636 L: 19134 D: 82030
Bench: 5173081
This patch simplifies latest @MJZ1977 elo gainer. Seems like PvNode check in
condition of last capture extension is not needed. Note - even if this is a
simplification it actually causes this extension to be applied more often, thus
strengthening effect of @MJZ1977's patch.
passed STC
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5deb9a3eb7bdefd50db28d0e
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 80244 W: 17421 L: 17414 D: 45409
passed LTC
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5deba860b7bdefd50db28d11
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 21506 W: 3565 L: 3446 D: 14495
Bench: 5097036
This patch implements what we have been trying for quite some time -
dependance of kingdanger on balance of attackers and defenders of king
flank, to avoid overestimate attacking power if the opponent has enough
defenders of king position. We already have some form of it in bishop
and knight defenders - this is further work in this direction.
What to do based on this?
1) constant 4 is arbitrary, maybe it is not optimal
2) maybe we can use quadratic formula as in kingflankattack
3) simplification into alrealy existing terms is always a possibility :)
4) overall kingdanger tuning always can be done.
passed STC:
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5dcf40560ebc590256325f30
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-1.50,4.50]
Total: 26298 W: 5819 L: 5632 D: 14847
passed LTC:
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5dcfa5760ebc590256326464
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 30600 W: 5042 L: 4784 D: 20774
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2415
Bench: 4496847
This patch finally introduces something that was tried for years: midgame score
dependance on complexity of position. More precisely, if the position is very
simplified and the complexity measure calculated in the initiative() function
is inferior to -50 by an amount d, then we add this value d to the midgame score.
One example of play of this patch will be (again!) 4 vs 3 etc same flank endgames
where sides have a lot of non-pawn material: 4 vs 3 draw mostly remains the same
draw even if we add a lot of equal material to both sides.
STC run was stopped after 200k games (and not converging):
LLR: -1.75 (-2.94,2.94) [0.50,4.50]
Total: 200319 W: 44197 L: 43310 D: 112812
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d7cfdb10ebc5902d386572c
passed LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 41051 W: 6858 L: 6570 D: 27623
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d7d14680ebc5902d3866196
This is the first and not really precise version, a lot of other stuff can be
tried on top of it (separate complexity for middlegame, some more terms, even
simple retuning of values).
Bench: 4248476
This patch greatly scales down complexity of endgames when the
following conditions are all true together:
- pawns are all on one flank
- stronger side king is not outflanking weaker side
- no passed pawns are present
This should improve stockfish evaluation of obvious draws 4 vs 3, 3 vs 2
and 2 vs 1 pawns in rook/queen/knight/bishop single flank endgames where
strong side can not make progress.
passed STC
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) [0.50,4.50]
Total: 15843 W: 3601 L: 3359 D: 8883
passed LTC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 121275 W: 20107 L: 19597 D: 81571
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2298
Bench: 3954190
==========================
How to continue from there?
a) This could be a powerful idea for refining some parts of the evaluation
function, a bit like when we try quadratics or other equations to emphasize
certain situations (xoto10).
b) Some other combinaison values for this bonus can be done further, or
overall retuning of weight and offset while keeping the formula simple.
Current master code made sence when we had 2 types of bonuses for protected path to queen. But it was simplified so we have only one bonus now and code was never cleaned.
This non-functional simplification removes useless defendedsquares bitboard and removes one bitboard assignment (defendedSquares &= attackedBy[Us][ALL_PIECES] + defendedSquares & blockSq becomes just attackedBy[Us][ALL_PIECES] & blockSq also we never assign defendedSquares = squaresToQueen because we don't need it).
So should be small non-functional speedup.
Passed simplification SPRT.
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d2966ef0ebc5925cf0d7659
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 23319 W: 5152 L: 5034 D: 13133
bench 3361902
-removes wideUnsafeSquares bitboard
-removes a couple of bitboard operations
-removes one if operator
-updates comments so they actually represent what this part of code is doing now.
passed non-regression STC
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d0c1ae50ebc5925cf0aa8db
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 16892 W: 3865 L: 3733 D: 9294
No functional change
Same idea as fisherman's knight protection.
passed STC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.50,4.50]
Total: 17133 W: 3952 L: 3701 D: 9480
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cc3550b0ebc5925cf02dada
passed LTC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 37316 W: 6470 L: 6188 D: 24658
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cc3721d0ebc5925cf02dc90
Looking at this 2 ideas being recent clean elo gainers I have a feeling that we can add also rook and queen protection bonuses or overall move this stuff in pieces loop in the same way as we do pieces attacking bonuses on their kingring... :) Thx fisherman for original idea.
Bench 3429173
Remove overlapping safe checks from kingdanger:
- rook and queen checks from the same square: rook check is preferred
- bishop and queen checks form the same square: queen check is preferred
Increase bishop and rook check values as a compensation.
STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.50,4.50]
Total: 27480 W: 6111 L: 5813 D: 15556
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5c521d050ebc593af5d4e66a
LTC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 78500 W: 13145 L: 12752 D: 52603
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5c52b9460ebc592fc7baecc5
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/1983
------------------------------------------
I have quite a few ideas of how to improve this patch.
- actually rethinking it now it will maybe be useful to discount
queen/bishop checks if there is only one square that they can
give check from and it's "occupied" by more valuable check. Right
now count of this squares does not really matter.
- maybe some small extra bonus can be given for overlapping checks.
- some ideas about using popcount() on safechecks can be retried.
- tune this safecheck values since they were more or less randomly handcrafted in this patch.
Bench: 3216489
Exclude doubly protected by pawns squares when calculating attackers on
king ring. Idea of this patch is not to count attackers if they attack
only squares that are protected by two pawns.
STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 70040 W: 15476 L: 15002 D: 39562
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5c0354860ebc5902bcee1106
LTC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 16530 W: 2795 L: 2607 D: 11128
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5c0385080ebc5902bcee14b5
This is third king safety patch in recent times so we probably need
retuning of king safety parameters.
Bench: 3057978
Tropism in kingdanger was simplified away in this pull request #1821.
This patch reintroduces tropism in kingdanger with using quadratic scaling.
Passed STC http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5bf7c1b10ebc5902bced1f8f
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 52803 W: 11835 L: 11442 D: 29526
Passed LTC http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5bf816e90ebc5902bced24f1
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 17204 W: 2988 L: 2795 D: 11421
How do we continue from there?
I've recently tried to introduce tropism difference term in kingdanger which
passed STC 6 times but failed LTC all the time. Maybe using quadratic scaling
for it will also be helpful.
Bench 4041387
To top the rating lists and get more interesting middle play, it
is a good habit to set the default contempt to the highest value
that does not regress against contempt=0. We recently decreased
PawnValueEg it is logical that to raise a little bit the default
higher contempt because of the following internal dependency in
line 334 of search.cpp :
````
int ct = int(Options["Contempt"]) * PawnValueEg / 100; // From centipawns
````
STC: contempt=24 passed non-regression vs contempt=0
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5bd6d7f80ebc595e0ae21e14
LTC: contempt=24 passed non-regression LTC vs contempt=0
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5bd6e0980ebc595e0ae21f07
On 2018-11-01, we also tested the effects of contempt=21 and contempt=24
against Stockfish 9, and the net result was neutral:
Contempt 21
ELO: 51.68 +-1.9 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 40000 W: 9487 L: 3581 D: 26932
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5bdb1a140ebc595e0ae2620a
Contempt 24
ELO: 52.21 +-2.0 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 40000 W: 9759 L: 3793 D: 26448
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5bdb1b680ebc595e0ae2620d
Bench: 3459874
