Human-like play in Hiarcs and overall support in explorer

[horizon]

Hello,

I wanted to ask regarding HIARCS' human like play capabilities.
My goal is to play some tabiyas against a computer to build experience in positions I haven't encountered in my games yet. However I need the engine to play at adjustable level, playing against 3000+ Elo will only help getting crushed fast. The range I am targeting is 2000-2300.

So I don't plan to do analysis with chess explorer/HIARCS nor e.g. openings research, the only goal is to practice tabiyas.

Q1) Does chess explorer allow creating a position (FEN?) DB where it is possible to tag tabiyas with keys? E.g. say one position will have keys ( "technical endgame", "isolani" ) and the other one will have ( "semi-slav", "shabalov", "position 1" ) ?

Q2) Can Hiarcs style be customized / does Hiarcs have personalities ( like e.g. the old Chessmaster software used to have ) ? So that I can play a given tabiya against opponents of different styles, e.g. an opponent that likes to enter unclear position, an opponent that prefers static advantages etc

Q3) In practice, how well does the Elo rescaling of the engine work? I wouldn't want e.g. 15 moves straight like it's Kasparov and then a gross positional blunder

Q4) How well does it fare in closed positions?, esp the Elo rescaled versions, which if they work with narrower horizons, may never get to "see" in their calculations an open position which engines typically calculate very accurately

Q5) for the above do I need "explorer pro" or the simpler "explorer"?

[oddg]

Hi.
My use of HCE pro is mainly to play sparring games with it. What I have is three databases with sparring positions (endgame, middlegame and opening). It is very easy to start a game from a position, maybe the best program for this. And since it is a database of positions, you can name it what you want, I use each column for different informations. I try to add a picture for my endgame setup (if it works).
I use Hiarcs as an engine for all of these positions except for technical endgames where I use another engine. I haven't tried Hiarcs for these technical positions so I don't know if it is suitable. You need an engine that don't play 'inhuman' moves when all moves draws or loses.
How good it is? Well I use it but haven't tried too many engines for it so other have to comment on this. I find it useful and give me something to learn from and it easy to adjust the level and playing style: Active, Aggresive, and Positional that could be something like Capablanca, Tal, and Petrosian. There is some other adjustment so maybe you could add some other personalities too.
It don't play like old version of Fritz with blundering and thereafter plays at full strength. It could be that it plays a little weaker in the endgame than the elo level should suggest but I have too little data to confirm this.
Hope other could fill in more about the engine, maybe only Marc know this fully.
There is some work going on with the latest (15.x) engine (in Pro) when it comes to this (level). I have no knowledge version 14.x which is in HCE.

Here I just select the position and start a new game.

[oddg]

The image did only show up with Firefox, try it as an attatchement.

Hiarcs1.jpg (99.01 KiB) Viewed 1133 times

[larryadler]

I think a review by Darius may be of some help to you:

https://www.chessengeria.com/post/hiarc ... pro-review

Kind regards,
larryadler

[horizon]

Hi.
My use of HCE pro is mainly to play sparring games with it. What I have is three databases with sparring positions (endgame, middlegame and opening). It is very easy to start a game from a position, maybe the best program for this. And since it is a database of positions, you can name it what you want, I use each column for different informations. I try to add a picture for my endgame setup (if it works).
I use Hiarcs as an engine for all of these positions except for technical endgames where I use another engine. I haven't tried Hiarcs for these technical positions so I don't know if it is suitable. You need an engine that don't play 'inhuman' moves when all moves draws or loses.
How good it is? Well I use it but haven't tried too many engines for it so other have to comment on this. I find it useful and give me something to learn from and it easy to adjust the level and playing style: Active, Aggresive, and Positional that could be something like Capablanca, Tal, and Petrosian. There is some other adjustment so maybe you could add some other personalities too.
It don't play like old version of Fritz with blundering and thereafter plays at full strength. It could be that it plays a little weaker in the endgame than the elo level should suggest but I have too little data to confirm this.
Hope other could fill in more about the engine, maybe only Marc know this fully.
There is some work going on with the latest (15.x) engine (in Pro) when it comes to this (level). I have no knowledge version 14.x which is in HCE.

Here I just select the position and start a new game.

Thank you ! Looks very similar to what I want to do. Three different playing styles is sufficient.

While practicing your middlegame positions, how well does the strength adjusted HIARCS play closed positions?

Does having the pro Vs single core make a difference for this type of use?

Also, which engine do you use for technical endgames?

[oddg]

Also, which engine do you use for technical endgames?

While I thought I had found the ultimate engine to spar technical endings, I see this fail too in pure winning endings. It is hard to demonstrate that you know the Lucena endgame, because it just let you queen the pawn without any need to build a bridge.
I have been sparring the endgame algorithm found in the Dojo training program lately and here I have to use 3 engines on each position to give some training.
I use Dragon 3.2 MC, Hiarcs 15.1, and Stockfish 15.1, no tablebase installed. This isn't ideal so if someone have some other suggestion, it is welcome. Maybe using an engine with reduced strength (still high) setting will give more 'human' like counterplay.

[mrudolf]

Q1) Does chess explorer allow creating a position (FEN?) DB where it is possible to tag tabiyas with keys? E.g. say one position will have keys ( "technical endgame", "isolani" ) and the other one will have ( "semi-slav", "shabalov", "position 1" ) ?

You can add extra tags for each position, like "Theme" or "Keys".
You can then search for them using quick search: Theme:isolani or Theme:"technical endgame".

1.2 will autocomplete recent extra tags and their recent values.