The current master applies Eval::Tempo even to leaves evaluated
as draw by some of the static evaluation functions of endgame.cpp
(for instance KNN vs K or stalemates in KP vs K). This results in
some lines being reported as +0.07 or -0.07 when the terminal
position has reached such endgames (0.07 being about the value
of a tempo for Stockfish).
This patch does not apply Eval::tempo to these positions. This leads
to more nodes being evaluated as VALUE_DRAW during search, giving more
opportunities for cut-offs in alpha-beta.
STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,4.00]
Total: 52602 W: 11776 L: 11403 D: 29423
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a8cb8f60ebc590297cc8546
LTC:
LLR: 2.97 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,4.00]
Total: 156613 W: 26820 L: 26158 D: 103635
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a8f452d0ebc590297cc865a
Bench: 4924749
The previous asymmetry measure of the pawn structure only used to
consider the number of pawns on semi-opened files in the position.
With this patch we also increase the measure by the number of passed
pawns for both players.
Many thanks to the community for the nice feedback on the previous
version, with special mentions to Alain Savard and Marco Costalba
for clarity and speed suggestions.
STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 13146 W: 3038 L: 2840 D: 7268
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a91dd0c0ebc590297cc877e
LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 27776 W: 4771 L: 4536 D: 18469
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a91fdd50ebc590297cc879b
How to continue after this patch?
Stockfish will now evaluate more positions with passed pawns, so
tuning the passed pawns values may bring Elo. The patch has also
consequences on the initiative term, where we might want to give
different weights to passed pawns and semi-openfiles (idea by
Stefano Cardanobile).
Bench: 5302866
The previous asymmetry measure of the pawn structure only used to
consider the number of pawns on semi-opened files in the postions.
With this patch we also increase the measure by the number of passed
pawns for both players.
STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 13146 W: 3038 L: 2840 D: 7268
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a91dd0c0ebc590297cc877e
LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 27776 W: 4771 L: 4536 D: 18469
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a91fdd50ebc590297cc879b
How to continue from there: Stockfish will now evaluate more positions
with passed pawns, so tuning the passed pawns values may bring Elo.
The patch also has consequences on the initiative term.
Bench: 5302866
The 'eval' debugging command in Terminal did not initialize the Eval::Contempt
variable, leading to random output during debugging sessions (normal search
was unaffected by the bug).
Example of session where the two 'eval' commands should give the same output,
but did not:
./stockfish
position startpos
d
eval
go depth 20
d
eval
The bug is fixed by initializing Eval::Contempt to SCORE_ZERO in Eval::trace
No functional change.
Set the default contempt value of Stockfish to 20 centipawns.
The contempt feature of Stockfish tries to prevent the engine from
simplifying the position too quickly when it feels that it is very
slightly behind, instead keeping the tension a little bit longer.
Various tests in November 2017 have proved that our current imple-
mentation works well against SF7 (which is about 130 Elo weaker than
current master) and than the Elo gain is an increasing function of
contempt, going (against SF7) from +0 Elo when contempt is set at
zero centipawns, to +30 Elo when contempt is 40 centipawns.
See pull request 1325 for details:
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/1325
This november discussion left open the decision of which "default"
value for contempt we should use for Stockfish, taking into account
the various uses ofStockfish (opening preparation for humans, computer
online tournaments,analysis tool for web pages, human/computer play,
etc).
This pull request proposes to set the default contempt value of SF
to twenty centipawns, which turns out to be the highest value which
is not a regression against current master, as this seemed to be a
good compromise between risk and safety. A couple of SPRT[-3..1]
tests were done to bisect this value:
Contempt 10: http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a5d42d20ebc5902977e2901 (PASSED)
Contempt 15: http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a5d41740ebc5902977e28fa (PASSED)
Contempt 20: http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a5d42060ebc5902977e28fc (PASSED)
Contempt 25: http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a5d433f0ebc5902977e2904 (FAILED)
Surprisingly, a test at "very long time control" hinted that using
contempt 20 is not only be non-regressive against contempt 0, but
may actually exhibit some small Elo gain, giving a likehood of superio-
rity of 88.7% after 8500 games:
VLTC:
ELO: 2.28 +-3.7 (95%) LOS: 88.7%
Total: 8521 W: 1096 L: 1040 D: 6385
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a60b2820ebc590297b9b7e0
Finally, there was some concerns that a contempt value of 20 would
be worse than a value of 7, but a test with 20000 games at STC was
neutral:
STC:
ELO: 0.45 +-3.1 (95%) LOS: 61.2%
Total: 20000 W: 4222 L: 4196 D: 11582
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a64d2fd0ebc590297903868
See the comments in pull request 1361 for the long, nice discussion
(180 entries :-)) leading to the decision to propose contempt 20 as
the default value:
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/1361
Whether Stockfish should strictly adhere to the Komodo and Houdini
semantics and add the UCI commands to force the contempt to be White
in the so-called "analysis mode" is still under discussion, and may
be or may not be the object of a future commit.
Bench: 5783344
* A better contempt implementation for Stockfish
The round 2 of TCEC season 10 demonstrated the benefit of having a nice contempt implementation: it gives the strongest programs in the tournament the ability to slow down the game when they feel the position is slightly worse, prefering to stay in a complicated (even if slightly risky) middle game rather than simplifying by force into a drawn endgame.
The current contempt implementation of Stockfish is inadequate, and this patch is an attempt to provide a better one.
Passed STC non-regression test against master:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 83360 W: 15089 L: 15075 D: 53196
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a1bf2de0ebc590ccbb8b370
This contempt implementation is showing promising results in certains situations. For instance, it obtained a nice +30 Elo gain when playing with contempt=40 against Stockfish 7, compared to current master:
• master against SF 7 (20000 games at LTC): +121.2 Elo
• this patch with contempt=40 (20000 games at LTC): +154.11 Elo
This was the result of real cooperative work from the Stockfish team, with key ideas coming from Stefan Geschwentner (locutus2) and Chris Cain (ceebo) while most of the community helped with feedback and computer time.
In this commit the bench is unchanged by default, but you can test at home with the new contempt in the UCI options. The style of play will change a lot when using contempt different of zero (I repeat: not done in this version by default, however)!
The Stockfish team is still deliberating over the best default contempt value in self-play and the best contempt modeling strategy, to help users choosing a contempt value when playing against much weaker programs. These informations will be given in future commits when available :-)
Bench: 5051254
* Remove the prefetch
No functional change.
Add the -fno-exceptions flag to the Makefile to avoid the unecessary exceptions support in the executable (we do not use any exception in Stockfish at the moment).
This change gives a 9.2% reduction in size for the executable binary.
Before : executable size = 376956 bytes
After: executable size = 347652 bytes
No functional change.
Avoid constructing, passing as a parameter and binding a useless empty tuple of pointers in the qsearch move picker constructor.
Also reformat the scoring function in movepicker.cpp and do some cleaning in evaluate.cpp while there.
No functional change.
This patch puts the evaluation helper functions inside EvalInfo struct, which simplifies a bit their signature and (most importantly, IMHO) makes their C++ code much cleaner and simpler to read (by removing the "ei." qualifiers all around in evaluate.cpp).
Also rename the EvalInfo struct into Evaluation class to get a natural invocation v = Evaluation(p).value() to evaluation position p.
The downside is an increase of 20 lines in evaluate.cpp (for the prototypes of the helper functions). The upsides are better readability and a speed-up of 0.6% (by generating all the helpers for the NO_TRACE case together, which helps the instruction cache).
No functional change
Closes#1135
The previous patch has added a fraction of the king danger score to the
endgame score of the tapered eval, so it seems natural to perform the
king danger computation later in the endgame.
With this patch we extend the limit of such check analysis down to the
material of Rook+Knight, when we have at least two pieces attacking the
opponent king zone.
Passed STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 7446 W: 1409 L: 1253 D: 4784
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/591c097c0ebc59035df3477c
and LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 14234 W: 1946 L: 1781 D: 10507
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/591c24f10ebc59035df3478c
Bench: 5975183
Closes#1121
In current master the size of the king ring varies abruptly from eight
squares when the king is in g8, to 12 squares when it is in g7. Because
the king ring is used for estimating attack strength, this may lead to
an overestimation of king danger in some positions. This patch limits
the king ring to eight squares in all cases.
Inspired by the following forum thread:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/fishcooking/xrUCQ7b0ObE
Passed STC:
LLR: 2.97 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 9244 W: 1777 L: 1611 D: 5856
and LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 87121 W: 11765 L: 11358 D: 63998
Bench: 6121121
Closes#1115
This patch removes the empty rows at the beginning and at the end of
MobilityBonus[] and Protector[] arrays:
• reducing the size of MobilityBonus from 768 bytes to 512 bytes
• reducing the size of Protector from 1024 to 512 bytes
Also adds some comments and cleaner code for the arrays in pawns.cpp
No speed penalty (measured speed-up of 0.4%).
No functional change.
Closes#1018
By defining "strongly protected" as "protected by a pawn, or protected
by two pieces and not attacked by two enemy pieces".
Passed STC:
LLR: 2.97 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 17050 W: 3128 L: 2931 D: 10991
Passed LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 120995 W: 15852 L: 15343 D: 89800
Bench : 6269229
Closes#1016
Positions with pawns on only one flank tend to be more drawish. We add
a term to the initiative bonus to help the attacking player keep pawns
on both flanks.
STC: yellowish run stopped after 257137 games
LLR: -0.92 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 257137 W: 46560 L: 45511 D: 165066
LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 15602 W: 2125 L: 1956 D: 11521
Bench : 6976310
Closes#1009
Add asserts to check for overflow in Score * int multiplication.
There is no overflow in current master, but it would be easy to
create one as the scale of the current eval does not leave many
spare bits. For instance, adding the following unused variables
in master at the end of evaluate() (line 882 of evaluate.cpp)
overflows:
Score s1 = score * 4; // no overflow
Score s2 = score * 5; // overflow
Assertion failed: (eg_value(result) == (i * eg_value(s))),
function operator*, file ./types.h, line 336.
Same md5 checksum as current master for non debug compiles.
No functional change.
This patch tweaks some pawn values to favor flank attacks.
The first part of the patch increases the midgame psqt values of external pawns to launch more attacks (credits to user GuardianRM for this idea), while the second part increases the endgame connection values for pawns on upper ranks.
Passed STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,4.00]
Total: 34997 W: 6328 L: 6055 D: 22614
and LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,4.00]
Total: 13844 W: 1832 L: 1650 D: 10362
Bench: 5884767
Anonymous struct inside anonymous unions are a GCC extension.
This patch uses named structs to stick to the C+11 standard.
Avoids a string of warnings on the Clang compiler.
Non functional change (same bench and same MD5 signature,
so compiled code is exactly the same as in current master)
Rename shift_bb() to shift(), and DELTA_S to SOUTH, etc.
to improve code readability, especially in evaluate.cpp
when they are used together:
old b = shift_bb<DELTA_S>(pos.pieces(PAWN))
new b = shift<SOUTH>(pos.pieces(PAWN))
While there fix some small code style issues.
No functional change.
Use the following transformations:
- to check that A is included in B, testing "(A & ~B) == 0" is faster
than "(A & B) == A"
- to remove the intersection of A and B from A, doing "A &= ~B;" is as
fast as "if (A & B) A &= ~B;" but is simpler.
Overall, the simpler patch version is 0.3% than current master.
No functional change.
Instrumentation shows that in make_score(mg, eg) calls, the mg value is
zero in 25,9% of the calls while the eg value is zero in 36,8% of the
calls.
Swapping the internal fields of mg and eg in the internal
representation of Score allows the compiler to optimize away the shift
in (eg << 16) + mg in more cases, thus resulting in a 0.3% speed-up
overall.
No functional change
Rescales the king danger variables in evaluate_king() to
suppress the KingDanger[] array. This avoids the cost of
the memory accesses to the array and simplifies the non-linear
transformation used.
Full credits to "hxim" for the seminal idea and implementation,
see pull request #786.
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/786
Passed STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 9649 W: 1829 L: 1689 D: 6131
Passed LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 53494 W: 7254 L: 7178 D: 39062
Bench: 6116200
If the opponent has a cramped position, opening a file often
helps him/her to exchange pieces, so it makes sense to reduce
the space bonus if there are open files.
Credits: Leonardo Ljubičić for the strategic idea, Alain Savard for the
implementation of the open files calculation, "CrunchyNYC" for the
compensation of the numerator.
STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 49112 W: 9239 L: 8900 D: 30973
LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 89415 W: 12014 L: 11601 D: 65800
Bench: 7591630
This greately simplifies usage because hides to the
search the implementation specific CheckInfo.
This is based on the work done by Marco in pull request #716,
implementing on top of it the ideas in the discussion: caching
the calls to slider_blockers() in the CheckInfo structure,
and simplifying the slider_blockers() function by removing its
first parameter.
Compared to master, bench is identical but the number of calls
to slider_blockers() during bench goes down from 22461515 to 18853422,
hopefully being a little bit faster overall.
archlinux, gcc-6
make profile-build ARCH=x86-64-bmi2
50 runs each
bench:
base = 2356320 +/- 981
test = 2403811 +/- 981
diff = 47490 +/- 1828
speedup = 0.0202
P(speedup > 0) = 1.0000
perft 6:
base = 175498484 +/- 429925
test = 183997959 +/- 429925
diff = 8499474 +/- 469401
speedup = 0.0484
P(speedup > 0) = 1.0000
perft 7 (but only 10 runs):
base = 185403228 +/- 468705
test = 188777591 +/- 468705
diff = 3374363 +/- 476687
speedup = 0.0182
P(speedup > 0) = 1.0000
$ ./pyshbench ../Stockfish/master ../Stockfish/test 20
run base test diff
...
base = 2501728 +/- 182034
test = 2532997 +/- 182034
diff = 31268 +/- 5116
speedup = 0.0125
P(speedup > 0) = 1.0000
No functional change.
Give more weight to the pawns number and
the vertical king distance in evaluate_initiative()
Passed STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 26729 W: 5067 L: 4825 D: 16837
and LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 60480 W: 8338 L: 8016 D: 44126
Bench: 8295162
Resolves#594
This change in the Makefile restores the possibility to compile
Stockfish on Mac OS X 10.9 and 10.10 after the C++11 has been merged.
To use the default (fastest) settings, compile with:
make build ARCH=x86-64-modern
To test the clang settings, compile with
make build ARCH=x86-64-modern COMP=clang
Beware that the clang settings may provide a slightly slower (6%)
executable.
Backported from master.
No functional change
Resolves#275
This change in the Makefile restores the possibility to compile
Stockfish on Mac OS X 10.9 and 10.10 after the C++11 has been merged.
To use the default (fastest) settings, compile with:
make build ARCH=x86-64-modern
To test the clang settings, compile with
make build ARCH=x86-64-modern COMP=clang
Beware that the clang settings may provide a slightly slower (6%)
executable.
No functional change
Resolves#275
Use the max_threat() helper function to estimate more precisely the
best hanging piece threat. Also retunes the Threat array using SPSA.
STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-1.50,4.50]
Total: 7598 W: 1596 L: 1468 D: 4534
LTC
LLR: 2.97 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,6.00]
Total: 7896 W: 1495 L: 1350 D: 5051
Bench: 6816504
Resolves#73
We add a penalty for each pawn which is not protected by another pawn
of the same color.
Passed both short TC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-1.50,4.50]
Total: 12107 W: 2411 L: 2272 D: 7424
And long TC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,6.00]
Total: 9204 W: 1605 L: 1458 D: 6141
bench: 7682173
