If the elapsed time is close to the available time, the time management thread can signal that the next iterations should be searched at the same depth (Threads.increaseDepth = false). While the rootDepth increases, the adjustedDepth is kept constant with the searchAgainCounter.
In exceptional cases, when threading is used and the master thread, which controls the time management, signals to not increaseDepth, but by itself takes a long time to finish the iteration, the helper threads can search repeatedly at the same depth. This search finishes more and more quickly, leading to helper threads that report a rootDepth of MAX_DEPTH (245). The latter is not optimal as it is confusing for the user, stops search on these threads, and leads to an incorrect bias in the thread voting scheme. Probably with only a small impact on strength.
This behavior was observed almost two years ago,
see https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/2717
This patch fixes#2717 by ensuring the effective depth increases at once every four iterations,
even in increaseDepth is false.
Depth 245 searches (for non-trivial positions) were indeed absent with this patch,
but frequent with master in the tests below:
https://discord.com/channels/435943710472011776/813919248455827515/994872720800088095
Total pgns: 2173
Base: 2867
Patch: 0
it passed non-regression testing in various setups:
SMP STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/62bfecc96178ffe6394ba036
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-2.25,0.25>
Total: 37288 W: 10171 L: 10029 D: 17088
Ptnml(0-2): 75, 3777, 10793, 3929, 70
SMP LTC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/62c08f6f49b62510394be066
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-2.25,0.25>
Total: 190568 W: 52125 L: 52186 D: 86257
Ptnml(0-2): 70, 17854, 59504, 17779, 77
LTC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/62c08b6049b62510394bdfb6
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) <-2.25,0.25>
Total: 48120 W: 13204 L: 13083 D: 21833
Ptnml(0-2): 54, 4458, 14919, 4571, 58
Special thanks to miguel-I, Disservin, ruicoelhopedro and others for analysing the problem,
the data, and coming up with the key insight, needed to fix this longstanding issue.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4104
Bench: 5182295
First things first...
this PR is being made from court. Today, Tord and Stéphane, with broad support
of the developer community are defending their complaint, filed in Munich, against ChessBase.
With their products Houdini 6 and Fat Fritz 2, both Stockfish derivatives,
ChessBase violated repeatedly the Stockfish GPLv3 license. Tord and Stéphane have terminated
their license with ChessBase permanently. Today we have the opportunity to present
our evidence to the judge and enforce that termination. To read up, have a look at our blog post
https://stockfishchess.org/blog/2022/public-court-hearing-soon/ and
https://stockfishchess.org/blog/2021/our-lawsuit-against-chessbase/
This PR introduces a net trained with an enhanced data set and a modified loss function in the trainer.
A slight adjustment for the scaling was needed to get a pass on standard chess.
passed STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/62c0527a49b62510394bd610
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.00,2.50>
Total: 135008 W: 36614 L: 36152 D: 62242
Ptnml(0-2): 640, 15184, 35407, 15620, 653
passed LTC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/62c17e459e7d9997a12d458e
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.00>
Total: 28864 W: 8007 L: 7749 D: 13108
Ptnml(0-2): 47, 2810, 8466, 3056, 53
Local testing at a fixed 25k nodes resulted in
Test run1026/easy_train_data/experiments/experiment_2/training/run_0/nn-epoch799.nnue
localElo: 4.2 +- 1.6
The real strength of the net is in FRC and DFRC chess where it gains significantly.
Tested at STC with slightly different scaling:
FRC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/62c13a4002ba5d0a774d20d4
Elo: 29.78 +-3.4 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 10000 W: 2007 L: 1152 D: 6841
Ptnml(0-2): 31, 686, 2804, 1355, 124
nElo: 59.24 +-6.9 (95%) PairsRatio: 2.06
DFRC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/62c13a5702ba5d0a774d20d9
Elo: 55.25 +-3.9 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 10000 W: 2984 L: 1407 D: 5609
Ptnml(0-2): 51, 636, 2266, 1779, 268
nElo: 96.95 +-7.2 (95%) PairsRatio: 2.98
Tested at LTC with identical scaling:
FRC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/62c26a3c9e7d9997a12d6caf
Elo: 16.20 +-2.5 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 10000 W: 1192 L: 726 D: 8082
Ptnml(0-2): 10, 403, 3727, 831, 29
nElo: 44.12 +-6.7 (95%) PairsRatio: 2.08
DFRC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/62c26a539e7d9997a12d6cb2
Elo: 40.94 +-3.0 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 10000 W: 2215 L: 1042 D: 6743
Ptnml(0-2): 10, 410, 3053, 1451, 76
nElo: 92.77 +-6.9 (95%) PairsRatio: 3.64
This is due to the mixing in a significant fraction of DFRC training data in the final training round. The net is
trained using the easy_train.py script in the following way:
```
python easy_train.py \
--training-dataset=../Leela-dfrc_n5000.binpack \
--experiment-name=2 \
--nnue-pytorch-branch=vondele/nnue-pytorch/lossScan4 \
--additional-training-arg=--param-index=2 \
--start-lambda=1.0 \
--end-lambda=0.75 \
--gamma=0.995 \
--lr=4.375e-4 \
--start-from-engine-test-net True \
--tui=False \
--seed=$RANDOM \
--max_epoch=800 \
--auto-exit-timeout-on-training-finished=900 \
--network-testing-threads 8 \
--num-workers 12
```
where the data set used (Leela-dfrc_n5000.binpack) is a combination of our previous best data set (mix of Leela and some SF data) and DFRC data, interleaved to form:
The data is available in https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1S9-ZiQa_3ApmjBtl2e8SyHxj4zG4V8gG?usp=sharing
Leela mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JUkMhHSfgIYCjfDNKZUMYZt6L5I7Ra6G/view?usp=sharing
DFRC: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17vDaff9LAsVo_1OfsgWAIYqJtqR8aHlm/view?usp=sharing
The training branch used is
https://github.com/vondele/nnue-pytorch/commits/lossScan4
A PR to the main trainer repo will be made later. This contains a revised loss function, now computing the loss from the score based on the win rate model, which is a more accurate representation than what we had before. Scaling constants are tweaked there as well.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4100
Bench: 5186781
The speedup is around 0.25% using gcc 11.3.1 (bmi2, nnue bench, depth 16
and 23) while it is neutral using clang (same conditions).
According to `perf` that integer division was one of the most time-consuming
instructions in search (gcc disassembly).
Passed STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/628a17fe24a074e5cd59b3aa
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.00,2.50>
Total: 22232 W: 5992 L: 5751 D: 10489
Ptnml(0-2): 88, 2235, 6218, 2498, 77
yellow LTC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/628a35d7ccae0450e35106f7
LLR: -2.95 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.00>
Total: 320168 W: 85853 L: 85326 D: 148989
Ptnml(0-2): 185, 29698, 99821, 30165, 215
This patch also suggests that UHO STC is sensible to small speedups (< 0.50%).
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4032
No functional change
This patch provides command line flags `--help` and `--license` as well as the corresponding `help` and `license` commands.
```
$ ./stockfish --help
Stockfish 200522 by the Stockfish developers (see AUTHORS file)
Stockfish is a powerful chess engine and free software licensed under the GNU GPLv3.
Stockfish is normally used with a separate graphical user interface (GUI).
Stockfish implements the universal chess interface (UCI) to exchange information.
For further information see https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish#readme
or the corresponding README.md and Copying.txt files distributed with this program.
```
The idea is to provide a minimal help that links to the README.md file,
not replicating information that is already available elsewhere.
We use this opportunity to explicitly report the license as well.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4027
No functional change.
train a net using training data with a
heavier weight on positions having 16 pieces on the board. More specifically,
with a relative weight of `i * (32-i)/(16 * 16)+1` (where i is the number of pieces on the board).
This is done with the trainer branch https://github.com/glinscott/nnue-pytorch/pull/173
The command used is:
```
python train.py $datafile $datafile $restarttype $restartfile --gpus 1 --threads 4 --num-workers 12 --random-fen-skipping=3 --batch-size 16384 --progress_bar_refresh_rate 300 --smart-fen-skipping --features=HalfKAv2_hm^ --lambda=1.00 --max_epochs=$epochs --seed $RANDOM --default_root_dir exp/run_$i
```
The datafile is T60T70wIsRightFarseerT60T74T75T76.binpack, the restart is from the master net.
passed STC:
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.00,2.50>
Total: 22728 W: 6197 L: 5945 D: 10586
Ptnml(0-2): 105, 2453, 6001, 2695, 110
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/625cf944ff677a888877cd90
passed LTC:
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.00>
Total: 35664 W: 9535 L: 9264 D: 16865
Ptnml(0-2): 30, 3524, 10455, 3791, 32
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/625d3c32ff677a888877d7ca
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3989
Bench: 7269563
Official release version of Stockfish 15
Bench: 8129754
---
A new major release of Stockfish is now available at https://stockfishchess.org
Stockfish 15 continues to push the boundaries of chess, providing unrivalled
analysis and playing strength. In our testing, Stockfish 15 is ahead of
Stockfish 14 by 36 Elo points and wins nine times more game pairs than it
loses[1].
Improvements to the engine have made it possible for Stockfish to end up
victorious in tournaments at all sorts of time controls ranging from bullet to
classical and even at Fischer random chess[2]. At CCC, Stockfish won all of
the latest tournaments: CCC 16 Bullet, Blitz and Rapid, CCC 960 championship,
and the CCC 17 Rapid. At TCEC, Stockfish won the Season 21, Cup 9, FRC 4 and
in the current Season 22 superfinal, at the time of writing, has won 16 game
pairs and not yet lost a single one.
This progress is the result of a dedicated team of developers that comes up
with new ideas and improvements. For Stockfish 15, we tested nearly 13000
different changes and retained the best 200. These include the fourth
generation of our NNUE network architecture, as well as various search
improvements. To perform these tests, contributors provide CPU time for
testing, and in the last year, they have collectively played roughly a
billion chess games. In the last few years, our distributed testing
framework, Fishtest, has been operated superbly and has been developed and
improved extensively. This work by Pasquale Pigazzini, Tom Vijlbrief, Michel
Van den Bergh, and various other developers[3] is an essential part of the
success of the Stockfish project.
Indeed, the Stockfish project builds on a thriving community of enthusiasts
to offer a free and open-source chess engine that is robust, widely
available, and very strong. We invite our chess fans to join the Fishtest
testing framework and programmers to contribute to the project[4].
The Stockfish team
[1] https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/625d156dff677a888877d1be
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish_(chess)#Competition_results
[3] https://github.com/glinscott/fishtest/blob/master/AUTHORS
[4] https://stockfishchess.org/get-involved/
