HIARCS Chess Forums

spacious_mind · Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 10:04 pm Post subject: Horvath Play Styles

A little while ago I used my Test Game 1 (15th Century Master) to try out the different play styles that can be set in Gyula Horvath's chess computers.

Horvath's typically have 9 built-in play styles which range from ultra cautious to ultra aggressive. The standard out of the box play style is 5. You will always reset to play style 5 when you do the reset at the back of the computer or change batteries:

Here is what the manual says:

In addition to the 9 built-in play styles you can also create your own play styles from 7 configurable style settings ranging in value from 00 to 99 (100 settings per style setting). This configuration means that you have One Hundred Thousand Billion (100,000,000,000,000) possible configurations.

Here are the 7 configurable style settings:

If you read this carefully, then you should find this interesting as it explains a lot about Horvath's tendency to play a more passive game on your Horvath chess computer which the next chart will show in more details:

Now back to the 9 standard built-in style settings. If you change the style on a Horvath and then go and look inside the configurable style option, you will see the following parameter settings:

The standard out of the box parameter is style 5 which everyone plays with. If you notice the settings for style 5, every parameter is set to the value 10.

If you have read about FEATURE # 4 and FEATURE # 5 earlier, you would have seen it explained for both White and Black as "A big weighting will encourage a player's pieces to attack more than normal"!

Well since the standard out of the box setting has the values of 10 for every style with a low being 00 and a high being 99, it would stand to reason that the game style of Horvath computers would have a passive tendency!

Since I wanted to also rate the Horvath computers for a rating list, I also decided to compare the 9 different built-in styles to see how strong they are. I also used this opportunity to compare all the Horvath computers that I have, suspecting of course that each one of them would be identical.

The computers I tested were:

CXG SPHINX CONCERTO - 1992

CXG SPHINX LEGEND - 1992

EXCALIBUR LEGEND II - 1993

KRYPTON CHALLENGE - 1994

SYSTEMA CHALLENGE - 1994

Needless to say, Krypton Challenge and System Challenge played absolutely identical. So did CXG Sphinx Concerto and CXG Sphinx Legend. Therefore in the charts below they are lumped together.

The level I played was level 23 which is a 30 second per move fixed time level, which I think provides the best accuracy for this particular clone test. I played both white and black moves by every time taking back the computer move and reentering each move irrespective if the computer chose the same move as the test game. This kept everything constant and exactly the same for every move and every contestant.

HORVATH PLAY STYLES 9, 8 & 7

To my surprise after playing the first play style with these computers I saw that they are not all the same! In fact there are a few pattern and trends that can be seen very quickly.

White performs best at the highest aggressive setting. Black performs worst at the highest aggressive setting. Standard out of the Box style # 5 does seem to be the most balanced for both Black and White.

On the most passive settings White worsens whereas Black performs here better than at the most aggressive settings.

BEST SETTINGS TEST GAME 1

WHITE = STYLE 9
BLACK = STYLE 5
BEST OVERAL SETTING = STYLE 5

I think I am going to have to repeat this with Test Game 2 as well to get a better overall picture.

If you look at the charts above, you will also notice that there are 3 Horvath versions and they can be categorized by date:

Version 1 = 1992 = CXG Concerto & CXG Legend
Version 2 = 1993 = Excalibur Legend II
Version 3 = 1994 = Krypton/System Challenge

Legend 2 and Challenge most closely resemble each other, but there are very minor game differences which do repeat themselves.

I would have liked to include Krypton Regency to the above test but unfortunately my Regency is beginning to fail, not allowing me to take back moves or get to the feature screens. Other than that it plays fine.

Therefore missing to complete this Horvath Test are the following computers. If someone would volunteer that would be great!!!! as this would complete the Horvath comparison.

Krypton Regency
CXG Accolade
Excalibur Avenger.

If I were a betting man then I would bet that Accolade ends up being exactly the same as Concerto & Legend. Regency possibly exactly the same as Challenge. With Avenger I don't know but might be the same as Legend II or maybe Challenge. I doubt if it were the same as Concerto or Legend.

Best regards,

Nick
_________________
Nick

Reinfeld · Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 8:27 am Post subject:

Wonderful stuff, Nick - again.

Based on this (admittedly limited) dataset, you've established that the ultra-aggressive style in this clone pod is stronger (as White) than the out-of-the-box setting of style 5 (which is better as Black). You are showing adjusted elo variations as wide as 444 points (1601 to 2075) in the same game.

Strikes me that there are really only 5 pre-programmed styles; 1, 2, 3 and 4 mirror 6, 7, 8 and 9 with opposite colors.

So now comes the real question: Is it possible to "tune" these Horvath models (using the programmable evaluation function) in a manner that yields a stronger player than any of the preprogrammed styles? That strikes me as the next level of your testing suite.

Just one for-instance outlier: what happens if you set all values to zero, or max them out? Will these be other versions of style 5?

You'll need more games for clarity, obviously. But the weighting of factors is pretty interesting from a chess standpoint. Picture a tuned style that values rooks on open files more than doubled pawns, for example. That would be my primitive instinct.

Looking forward to more results regards,

- R.
_________________
"You have, let us say, a promising politician, a rising artist that you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic and unreliable - but teach him, inoculate him with chess."
– H.G. Wells

pr1uk · Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 8:54 am Post subject:

Fantastic work there Nick
Well Done
_________________
Mephisto Exclusive MMIV
Mephisto ESB II (ESB 6000 board)
RFT Chess-Master 4MHz

paulwise3 · Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2015 11:15 pm Post subject:

Nick,
Great test! I specially liked your diagram showing the parameter settings for the 9 playing styles. That is great material for analysis and searching for one's own personal playing style.
After some thinking I wonder if the 10-values for style 5 imply passive play (although it actually plays rather passive). It could well be that it is not the value, but the ratio between the parameter values that determines the priority. For instance, I suspect that setting all parameter values to 50 instead of 10, the playing style would be exactly the same, as long as they are all equal. But setting them all at 10 gives the user more easy flexiblity in assigning his own priorities. We should test that. Since a month I own a Concerto, so if I can find the time I will do some testing and let you know.

Anyway, this gives much food for thought! Wink

Regards, Paul

spacious_mind · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 4:34 pm Post subject:

paulwise3 · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 8:32 pm Post subject:

Hi Nick,
Thanx for your reply. This result is very encouraging for me to do further testing. But the thing I am missing in this diagram is the resulting elo-score for the 50- and 90-parameter settings! Could you please add this? Are they better or worse than the standard 10?
(A while ago I downloaded your testsheet, but it needs a password to be really able to use it. I will post my moves in the appropriate thread shortly.)

Regards, Paul.

spacious_mind · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 9:53 pm Post subject:

paulwise3 · Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 10:40 pm Post subject:

Hi Nick,
After an inspiring meeting with Hein Veldhuis and Luuk Hofman (they were very interested in this experiment, also they did an interesting discovery about another machine), I gave this style test a new try. I started with all features at weight 20, and that seems to be a good one. I have to mention though, that I tested at level 53 (30s average) as opposed to your tests with level 23 (30s fixed). Tonight I did testgames 1 to 3. In game 1 it scores better than all your tried settings (features at 10, 50 and 99).
In game 1 and three it also scores better then the Excalibur Grandmaster, game 2 it is weaker. So I am very curious how testgame 4 and 5 will come out! Wink

Here the global results so far:

spacious_mind · Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2015 12:00 am Post subject:

spacious_mind · Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2015 10:24 am Post subject:

paulwise3 · Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2015 11:33 am Post subject:

Hi Nick,

Thanx for listing the score of the Carnelian II. Hope you have time to put the Grandmaster results that I sent you there too.
As for Hein and Luuk, they are working very hard on their own site documenting their machines and posting new items from Hein's overwhelming documentation. But I agree a post from them here would be nice.
The discovery I mentioned above was about the Chess King Counter Gambit. One thing was that it appears to play a lot stronger then is assumed here and there. The other thing was a difference with the pictures Mike Watters shows on his site: this one has an AC/DC connection, and Mike's machine has not. Interesting stuff for those looking for special ones.
To end with: the latest items of Hein's documentation are always shown on http://schaakcomputers.nl/ in the middle of the page under "Laatste items Heins database".

Best regards,
Paul.

paulwise3 · Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 12:18 pm Post subject:

paulwise3 · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:16 am Post subject:

paulwise3 · Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:44 pm Post subject:

spacious_mind · Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 10:42 pm Post subject:

Hi Paul,

Well it sounds like you are having fun trying out the styles. It is not so easy understanding them. I was confused the other day when I played Regency at level 53 and it score was a lot less than what I showed for Legend/Concerto. Soon I will have to compare it closer to Challenge, because after maybe they are not exactly the same as previously suspected.

Best regards
_________________
Nick