Positional Version of Patricia?

I saw Ed's post in the "Enough is Enough" thread and couldn't escape the thought that caring about the Elo charts is really against his (And Chris') programming philosophy anyway!

Both Ed and Chris have shown that they still have the skills to create a top ten (or better) chess engine, but now that this has been shown, why pursue further?

You guys were always the "mad scientists" of Chess Programming from my perspective.

Both had programs aimed at the end user for sparring and stylish play back when the entire industry was just chasing Elo.

Now Patricia has come along with some brilliant new ideas for creating an attacking menace over the board.

She rewards so basically all situations where dynamism is present (material imbalances, sacrifices, development advantage etc etc) and so on.

We could call Patricia the "mini-Kasparov" of engines.

Now wouldn't it be cool if somebody made something very similar, but it was like a mini-Karpov?

Imagine if it almost completely disregarded dynamic stuff, and focussed on strategy.

No king attacks unless VERY shallow in the search (more like a human).

Instead, it rewards more aggressively stuff like certain winning structures, pawn weaknesses (of opponent), open poNositions with bishop, and closed position for knight, good knight vs bad bishop, space advantages, blocked passed pawns (of opponent), etc, etc.

To the point where it is very very positional and wins by mostly squeezing people to death or transitioning into endgames (it knows from knowledge) are winning?

If games come up in training the net which are too aggressive/dynamic, you tweak it down again.

Not sure if you guys know what I mean, but here's an example of how a game *might* look.

[pgn][Event "New Repertoire Drills"]
[Site "DESKTOP-Q1QR5FU"]
[Date "2024.08.22"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Frenzee 3.5.19"]
[Black "Komodo 14.1 Ultra Positional"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B12"]
[WhiteElo "2200"]
[BlackElo "2200"]
[PlyCount "79"]
[EventDate "2024.??.??"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. Ne2 Nc6 5. Bf4 e6 6. Nbc3 f6 7. Qd2 cxd4 8. Nxd4
Nxe5 9. Bb5+ Kf7 10. O-O-O a6 11. Be2 Bd6 12. Kb1 Ne7 13. Nb3 h5 14. Ne4 Bc7
15. Qc1 N5g6 16. Be3 e5 17. h4 a5 18. Nc3 b6 19. g3 a4 20. Na1 Be6 21. Nb5 d4
22. Bf3 Rc8 23. Na7 Rb8 24. Nb5 Bd5 25. Bxd5+ Qxd5 26. Nxc7 Qc4 27. Bd2 Qxc7
28. Rde1 Qc6 29. Qd1 b5 30. Qe2 b4 31. f4 Nf5 32. fxe5 Nxe5 33. Rhf1 g6 34. Bf4
Rhe8 35. Qe4 Qxe4 36. Rxe4 Rbc8 37. Re2 Ng4 38. Rxe8 Rxe8 39. Rg1 Re2 40. Bc1
0-1

[/pgn]

You'll notice that despite the large difference in strength, Komodo (which I tweaked by making "style" positional, king safety + dynamism to zero, plus some other tweaks) doesn't make a single strike on the white king, despite opposite castling and plenty of chances to do so.

Instead he gained space in the center, reduced his opponent's mobility and massaged pawn weaknesses until white was all tied up.

A "Patricia"-like engine that plays positionally by design would really be awesome.

The perfect companion to Pat actually.

Brendan wrote:

Both had programs aimed at the end user for sparring and stylish play back when the entire industry was just chasing Elo.

Apologies if my memory is playing tricks, but at the WMCCC at Alexandra Palace, London 2000, I remember Ed saying, "We came here to win!".




As best I remember, the adjudicator was consulting about taking extra time for a playoff, or something like that, and this was his explanation for a negative response to that.

TheSelfImprover wrote:

Brendan wrote:

Both had programs aimed at the end user for sparring and stylish play back when the entire industry was just chasing Elo.

Apologies if my memory is playing tricks, but at the WMCCC at Alexandra Palace, London 2000, I remember Ed saying, "We came here to win!".




As best I remember, the adjudicator was consulting about taking extra time for a playoff, or something like that, and this was his explanation for a negative response to that.

Sure. But I don't get your implication.

Ed had "anti-human" mode, strength options, style options etc going all the way back to Rebel 6 or earlier, didn't he?

So aiming to win a computer chess tournament in no way negates what I have said.

Most of his customers (I would say) chose Rebel over others for the features.

A customer at "Chess Discount Sales" in Surry Hills, Sydney (this place had, and successfully sold ALL the top programs) back in the 1990s knew nothing about computer chess championships, they just look at the box and say "Cool! It has levels and even styles! Oh! Anti-human mode? I HAVE to try!"

This being said, beating Vishy in the Rapid match back in 1998 certainly helped gain credibility in the strength department as well.

Those games were awesome!

TBH I wish there was still something like Aegon's man vs Machine tournaments these days!

Imagine Patricia set at 2500 Elo vs some titled players at LTC. Would be awesome!

TheSelfImprover wrote:

Brendan wrote:

Both had programs aimed at the end user for sparring and stylish play back when the entire industry was just chasing Elo.

Apologies if my memory is playing tricks, but at the WMCCC at Alexandra Palace, London 2000, I remember Ed saying, "We came here to win!".

As a commercial you have to say that, anything else is stupidity

@Brendan, with the current new trend of the new boys in town style remains the only fun left.

Working on it.