CCRL update (4th January 2008)

[Graham Banks]

The January 4th update of the CCRL Rating Lists and Statistics is now available for viewing at:
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/

The list gets updated periodically during the week and these updates can be viewed here:
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040.live/
Please be aware that no game downloads are available from this live link.

The links to the various rating lists can be found just beneath the default Best Versions list.
For example there is a 32-bit Single CPU list.

Our standard testing is at 40 moves in 40 minutes repeating while our current blitz testing is at both 40 moves in 4 minutes repeating and 40 moves in 12 minutes repeating, all adjusted to the AMD64 X2 4600+ (2.4GHz).

Currently active testers in our team are:
Graham Banks, Ray Banks, Shaun Brewer, Kirill Kryukov, Dom Leste, Tom Logan, Andreas Schwartmann, Charles Smith, George Speight, Chris Taylor, Chuck Wilson, Gabor Szots and Martin Thoresen.

A big thanks to all testers as usual for their efforts this week.


40/40 Notes

There currently 96,267 games in our 40/40 database.

Many engines on our list have few games and in many cases their ratings are likely to fluctuate (markedly for some) until a lot more games are played. Therefore no conclusions should be drawn about their strength yet.
To illustrate this point, when an engine has 200 games played, the error margin is still approximately +-40 ELO, after 500 games +-25 ELO, after 1000 games +-17 ELO and even after 2000 games there is a +-13 ELO error margin!
This of course highlights the importance of looking at other rating lists that are also available in order to draw comparisons and get a more accurate overall picture.


4CPU 64-bit Engines

Rybka 2.3.2a is over 50+ ELO stronger than Zappa Mexico.
The update to Zappa Mexico seems to add little, if any strength.

Deep Shredder 11 lies 40+ points further back in third spot.

Naum 2.2 comes in fourth, not too far behind Deep Shredder 11, but ahead of Deep Fritz 10.1 and Hiarcs 11.1.
Deep Fritz 10.1 is a 60+ ELO improvement over Deep Fritz 10.
Hiarcs 11.1 is ahead of both Hiarcs 11.2 and Hiarcs 11.

The remaining well tested engines in order of rating are Loop M1-T, Glaurung 2.0.1, Deep Junior 10, Deep Sjeng 2.7 and Scorpio 2.0.

Bright 0.2c is still in the early stages of testing.


2CPU Engines

With the emphasis of our multi-cpu testing on 4CPU as opposed to 2CPU, there are gaps in this category and some of the engines also require further games.
However, the order of strength is almost identical to the 4CPU list.


Single CPU Engines

Rybka 2.3.2a is clearly a class apart at 120+ ELO ahead of Fritz 11, Shredder 11 and Zappa Mexico.

20 ELO further back, Naum 2.2, Toga II 1.3.1 and Hiarcs 11.1 have a slight edge over Loop M1-T and Fruit 2.3.1.
Fruit 2.3.1 and Fruit 051103 seem to be fairly even in strength despite their different playing styles.
Toga II 1.3.1 is stronger than Toga II 1.3.4 and Hiarcs 11.1 is likewise stronger than Hiarcs 11.2.

A further 20 ELO back, Spike 1.2 Turin, Deep Sjeng 2.7, Glaurung 2.0.1 and Junior 10 are very close in strength.
Junior 10 is stronger than Junior 10.1.

Then comes a 40 ELO jump back to Ktulu 8.0, Chess Tiger 2007.1, SmarThink 1.00 and Bright 0.2c.

Chessmaster 11 is 40+ ELO stronger than CM10th Default and is also a little stronger than the best CM10th settings.
Ray has started putting various CM11 settings through extensive blitz testing, so look out for progress reports!

Movei 00.8.438 and Alaric 707 are fairly closely matched in strength, but the Movei 00.8.438 (10 10 10) settings add another 20+ ELO to the default settings.

Scorpio 2.0 continues to be disappointing and lies 30+ ELO adrift of the previous versionamongst the group of engines that includes SlowChess Blitz WV2.1, Delfi 5.2, Ruffian 2.1.0 and WildCat 7.
Delfi 5.2 seems to be similar in strength to the earlier Delfi 5.1.

Gandalf 6 has sadly fallen behind many of the top amateur engines.


Free Single CPU Engines

Rybka 1.0 64-bit is still the top free engine ahead of Toga II 1.3.1.

Fruit 2.3.1 comes in third ahead of Spike 1.2 Turin and Glaurung 2.0.1.

Naum 2.0 and Bright 0.2c are 40+ ELO further back, but with a good edge over Movei 00.8.438 (10 10 10), Alaric 707 and the chasing pack that includes SlowChess Blitz WV2.1, Delfi 5.2, Scorpio 2.0, Zappa 1.1 and WildCat 7.

After 200+ games, it remains doubtful whether Pro Deo 1.6b is stronger than Pro Deo 1.2 at this time control.

Some other recent releases worthy of mention are:
Colossus 2007d - continues to go from strength to strength. This latest version is on a par with Pharaon 3.5.1.
After 400+ games, Hamsters 0.6 has risen to the same level of strength as Colossus 2007d. In fact Alessandro seems to have made a 400 ELO improvement as he has progressed from Hamsters 0.0.6 through to the latest version in roughly two years!
BugChess2 1.5.2 - Francois has also made astounding progress and this latest version is 200+ ELO ahead of BugChess2 1.4.1 which is just over one year old.
Sloppy 0.1.1 and Cyrano 0.2f are newer engines to keep an eye on!

We test a very extensive range of amateur engines through our Amateur Championship divisions (32-bit 1CPU) plus other tournaments, all of which can be followed in our public forum.

Our aim is of course to ensure that all engines lower on our lists get 200+ games.


Blitz Notes

There are currently 225,117 games in our 40/4 database.

The 40/4 update is usually done separately to our 40/40 update.
The latest ratings can be found at one of the following links:
http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/
http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404.live/

An enormous amount of work goes into the blitz list and it is well worth a visit.


FRC Notes

There are currently 25,200 games in the FRC 40/4 database.

Ray tests only those engines that can play FRC through the Shredder Classic GUI.
If engine authors have a new and stable version of their engine that will run under this GUI, they should contact Ray if they wish to see it tested.

There is nothing new to report at this stage.

Although Rybka 2.3.2 FRC is in top spot, it is a private engine.
Therefore Shredder 11 is the strongest available FRC engine, an impressive 80 ELO ahead of Hiarcs 11.1 and Naum 2.2.

For FRC the best list to look at is the pure list.
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/


Stats/Presentation Notes

The LOS stats to the right hand side of each rating list are "likelihood of superiority" stats. They tell you the likelihood in percentage terms of each engine being superior to the engine directly below them.

A list of games played this week per engine can be found in the update thread in the CCRL public forum, accessible through the link given at the top of this post.

All games are available for download through the link given at the top of this post. They can be downloaded by engine or by month.
ELO ratings are now saved in all game databases for those engines that have 200 games or more.

Clicking on an engine name will give details as to opponents played plus homepage links where applicable.

Custom lists of engines can be selected for comparison.

An openings report page (link at bottom of index page) lists the number of games played by ECO codes with draw percentage and White win percentage. Clicking on a column heading will sort the list by that column.
Games can now be downloaded by ECO code.