Don't forget OpenTal

I was running a bullet tourney with some aggressive engines, fisherov, lg evolution, komodo aggressive, open tal etc, and i found a very unique game, where opental, an engine very much around 24-2500 ccrl, nearly beat lg evolution on its default settings, thats a nearly 1000 elo gap. i think this game is why opental should never be forgotten
[pgn][Event "bullet aggressive engines"]
[Site "Lucas Chess R 2.10a"]
[Date "2023.11.28"]
[White "Open Tal v1.2"]
[Black "LG Evolution 3.16"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "2400"]
[BlackElo "3300"]
[ECO "B99"]
[Opening "Sicilian Defence: Najdorf, 7...Be7 Main Line"]
[Termination "Adjudication"]
[PlyCount "72"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7 8.Qf3 Qc7
9.O-O-O Nbd7 10.g4 b5 11.Bxf6 gxf6 12.a3 Rb8 13.Na2 Bb7 14.h4 h5 15.Nc3 Qb6
16.g5 b4 17.axb4 Qxb4 18.f5 e5 19.Nb3 fxg5 20.hxg5 Bxg5+ 21.Kb1 Nf6 22.Bd3 Ke7
23.Qf2 Ba8 24.Bxa6 Nxe4 25.Qa7+ Kf8 26.Nb5 Kg7 27.Rhg1 Rxb5 28.Bxb5 Qxb5 29.Qe7
Bd5 30.Rxg5+ Kh6 31.Rdg1 Rb8 32.Kc1 Rc8 33.Rg6+ Kh7 34.Rg7+ Kh8 35.R7g2 Qxb3
36.Rg8+ Kh7
[/pgn]

it was winning but maybe it didnt see that but it still found a way to force a draw brilliantly

also interesting to note is
1. i think its funny crafty can struggle to get a draw vs cstal but opental can draw something +900,
2. i had rebel tal in my bullet tournament, ccrl with multiple 100 game matches has it at 2900 ccrl , however, within a few games, we can see it clearly overperforming in this pool even a win vs lg evolution
3. the openings i used just went to 8 moves/16 ply of gm games
Rebel Tal results:

cstal was on max eval correct hence the draw

texium wrote:

also interesting to note is
1. i think its funny crafty can struggle to get a draw but opental can draw something +900,
2. i had rebel tal in my bullet tournament, ccrl with multiple 100 game matches has it at 2900 ccrl , however, within a few games, we can see it clearly overperforming in this pool even a win vs lg evolution
3. the openings i used just went to 8 moves/16 ply of gm games
Rebel Tal results:

Curious, what is Dragon Maxed, is it special settings?

Nezhman wrote:

texium wrote:

also interesting to note is
1. i think its funny crafty can struggle to get a draw but opental can draw something +900,
2. i had rebel tal in my bullet tournament, ccrl with multiple 100 game matches has it at 2900 ccrl , however, within a few games, we can see it clearly overperforming in this pool even a win vs lg evolution
3. the openings i used just went to 8 moves/16 ply of gm games
Rebel Tal results:

Curious, what is Dragon Maxed, is it special settings?

it is!! i turned off nnue and changed some things and it just happened to be around the same strength as komodo aggressive, but actually even more sacrificial, and slightly less drawish than it. ill send the changes, though im sure it can be further improved

Just upped dynamism, king safety, and variety ( which doesn't really change style but from what i understand is supposed to let it look at more moves)

Results:

Engines with modified from default settings:
CSTal NNUE
Arasan
Dragon maxed
Komodo kinghunter

texium wrote:

Just upped dynamism, king safety, and variety ( which doesn't really change style but from what i understand is supposed to let it look at more moves)

Very interesting! I'm surprised contempt is "only" at +20. I would be tempted to push it a little higher than that. I'll try to experiment with it...

Thanks for sharing!