As Stockfish developers, we aim to make our code as legible and as close
to simple English as possible. However, one of the more notable exceptions
to this rule concerns operations between Squares and Bitboards.
Prior to this pull request, AND, OR, and XOR were only defined when the
Bitboard was the first operand, and the Square the second. For example,
for a Bitboard b and Square s, "b & s" would be valid but "s & b" would not.
This conflicts with natural reasoning about logical operators, both
mathematically and intuitively, which says that logical operators should
commute.
More dangerously, however, both Square and Bitboard are defined as integers
"under the hood." As a result, code like "s & b" would still compile and give
reasonable bench values. This trap occasionally ensnares even experienced
Stockfish developers, but it is especially dangerous for new developers not
aware of this peculiarity. Because there is no compilation or runtime error,
and a reasonable bench, only a close review by approvers can spot this error
when a test has been submitted--and many times, these bugs have slipped past
review. This is by far the most common logical error on Fishtest, and has
wasted uncountable STC games over the years.
However, it can be fixed by adding three non-functional lines of code. In this
patch, we define the operators when the operands are provided in the opposite
order, i.e., we make AND, OR, and XOR commutative for Bitboards and Squares.
Because these are inline methods and implemented identically, the executable
does not change at all.
This patch has the small side-effect of requiring Squares to be explicitly
cast to integers before AND, OR, or XOR with integers. This is only performed
twice in Stockfish's source code, and again does not change the executable at
all (since Square is an enum defined as an integer anyway).
For demonstration purposes, this pull request also inverts the order of one AND
and one OR, to show that neither the bench nor the executable change. (This
change can be removed before merging, if preferred.)
I hope that this pull request significantly lowers the barrier-of-entry for new
developer to join the Stockfish project. I also hope that this change will improve
our efficiency in using our generous CPU donors' machines, since it will remove
one of the most common causes of buggy tests.
Following helpful review and comments by Michael Stembera (@mstembera), we add
a further clean-up by implementing OR for two Squares, to anticipate additional
traps developers may encounter and handle them cleanly.
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2387
No functional change.
Simplify the king ring initialization and make it more regular, by just
moving the king square off the edges and using PseudoAttacks by king from
this new square.
There is a small functional difference from the previous master, as the
old master excludes the original ksq square while this patch always includes
the nine squares block (after moving the king from the edges). Additionally,
master does not adjust the kingRing down if we are on relative rank 8,
while this patch treats all of the edges the same.
STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 13263 W: 2968 L: 2830 D: 7465
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5db872830ebc5902d1f388aa
LTC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 72996 W: 11819 L: 11780 D: 49397
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5db899c20ebc5902d1f38b5e
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2384
Bench: 4959244
- Cleanups by Alain
- Group king attacks and king defenses
- Signature of futility_move_count()
- Use is_discovery_check_on_king()
- Simplify backward definition
- Use static asserts in move generator
- Factor a statement in move generator
No functional change
Previously, we used various control statements and ternary operators to divide
Outpost into four bonuses, based on whether the outpost was for a knight or
bishop, and whether it was currently an Outpost or merely a potential ("reachable")
one in the future. Bishop outposts, however, have traditionally been worth far
less Elo in testing. An attempt to remove them altogether passed STC, but failed LTC.
Here we include a narrower simplification, removing the reachable Outpost bonus
for bishops. This bonus was always suspect, given that its current implementation
conflicts directly with BishopPawns. BishopPawns penalizes our bishops based on the
number of friendly pawns on the same color of square, but by definition, Outposts
must be pawn-protected! This PR helps to alleviate this conceptual contradiction
without loss of Elo and with slightly simpler code.
On a code level, this allows us to simplify a ternary operator into the previous
"if" block and distribute a multiplication into an existing constant Score. On a
conceptual level, we retire one of the four traditional Outpost bonuses.
STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 22277 W: 4882 L: 4762 D: 12633
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d9aeed60ebc5902b6cf9751
LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 51206 W: 8353 L: 8280 D: 34573
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d9af1940ebc5902b6cf9cd5
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2352
Bench: 3941591
Remove the RookOnPawn logic (for rook on rank 5 and above aligning with pawns
on same row or file) which was overlapping with a few other parameters.
Inspired by @31m059 interesting result hinting that a direct attack on pawns
instead of PseudoAttacks might work.
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d89a7c70ebc595091801b8d
After a few attempts by me and @31m059, and some long STC greens but red LTC,
as a proof of concept I first tried a local SPSA at VSTC trying to tune related
rook psqt rows, and mainly some rook related stuff in evaluate.cpp.
Result was STC green, but still red LTC,
Finally a 100M fishtest SPSA at LTC proved successful both at STC and LTC.
All this was possible with the awesome fishtest contributors.
At some point, I had 850 workers on the last test !
Run as a simplification
STC
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d8d68f40ebc590f3beaf171
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 7399 W: 1693 L: 1543 D: 4163
LTC
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d8d70270ebc590f3beaf63c
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 41617 W: 6981 L: 6894 D: 27742
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2329
bench: 4037914
This patch replaces the obscure expressions mapping files ABCDEFGH to ABCDDCBA
by explicite calls to an auxiliary function:
old: f = min(f, ~f)
new: f = map_to_queenside(f)
We used the Golbolt web site (https://godbolt.org) to check that the current
code for the auxiliary function is optimal.
STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 30292 W: 6756 L: 6651 D: 16885
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d8676720ebc5971531d6aa1
Achieved with a bit of help from Sopel97, snicolet and vondele, thanks everyone!
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2325
No functional change
Author: @nickpelling
We replace in the code the obscure expressions mapping files ABCDEFGH to ABCDDCBA
by an explicite call to an auxiliary function :
old: f = min(f, ~f)
new: f = map_to_queenside(f)
We used the Golbolt web site (https://godbolt.org) to find the optimal code
for the auxiliary function.
STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 30292 W: 6756 L: 6651 D: 16885
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d8676720ebc5971531d6aa1
No functional change
When scoring the connected pawns, replace the intricate ternary expressions
choosing the coefficient by a simpler addition of boolean conditions:
` value = Connected * (2 + phalanx - opposed) `
This is the map showing the old coefficients and the new ones:
```
phalanx and unopposed: 3x -> 3x
phalanx and opposed: 1.5x -> 2x
not phalanx and unopposed: 2x -> 2x
not phalanx and opposed: 1x -> 1x
```
STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 11354 W: 2579 L: 2437 D: 6338
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d8151f00ebc5971531d244f
LTC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 41221 W: 7001 L: 6913 D: 27307
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d818f930ebc5971531d26d6
Bench: 3959889
blah
This patch decreases the endgame scale factor using the 50 moves counter.
Looking at some games with this patch, it seems to have two effects on
the playing style:
1) when no progress can be made in late endgames (for instance in fortresses
or opposite bishops endgames) the evaluation will be largely tamed down
towards a draw value.
2) more interestingly, there is also a small effect in the midgame play because
Stockfish will panic a little bit if there are more than four consecutive
shuffling moves with an advantage: the engine will try to move a pawn or to
exchange a piece to keep the advantage, so the follow-ups of the position
will be discovered earlier by the alpha-beta search.
passed STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.50,4.50]
Total: 23017 W: 5080 L: 4805 D: 13132
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d7e4aef0ebc59069c36fc74
passed LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 30746 W: 5171 L: 4911 D: 20664
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d7e513d0ebc59069c36ff26
Pull request: https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2304
Bench: 4272173
This patch finally introduces something that was tried for years: midgame score
dependance on complexity of position. More precisely, if the position is very
simplified and the complexity measure calculated in the initiative() function
is inferior to -50 by an amount d, then we add this value d to the midgame score.
One example of play of this patch will be (again!) 4 vs 3 etc same flank endgames
where sides have a lot of non-pawn material: 4 vs 3 draw mostly remains the same
draw even if we add a lot of equal material to both sides.
STC run was stopped after 200k games (and not converging):
LLR: -1.75 (-2.94,2.94) [0.50,4.50]
Total: 200319 W: 44197 L: 43310 D: 112812
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d7cfdb10ebc5902d386572c
passed LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 41051 W: 6858 L: 6570 D: 27623
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d7d14680ebc5902d3866196
This is the first and not really precise version, a lot of other stuff can be
tried on top of it (separate complexity for middlegame, some more terms, even
simple retuning of values).
Bench: 4248476
This patch greatly scales down complexity of endgames when the
following conditions are all true together:
- pawns are all on one flank
- stronger side king is not outflanking weaker side
- no passed pawns are present
This should improve stockfish evaluation of obvious draws 4 vs 3, 3 vs 2
and 2 vs 1 pawns in rook/queen/knight/bishop single flank endgames where
strong side can not make progress.
passed STC
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) [0.50,4.50]
Total: 15843 W: 3601 L: 3359 D: 8883
passed LTC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 121275 W: 20107 L: 19597 D: 81571
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2298
Bench: 3954190
==========================
How to continue from there?
a) This could be a powerful idea for refining some parts of the evaluation
function, a bit like when we try quadratics or other equations to emphasize
certain situations (xoto10).
b) Some other combinaison values for this bonus can be done further, or
overall retuning of weight and offset while keeping the formula simple.
This is another functional simplification to Stockfish passed pawn evaluation.
Stockfish evaluates some pawns which are not yet passed as "candidate" passed pawns, which are given half the bonus of fully passed ones. Prior to this commit, Stockfish considered a passed pawn to be a "candidate" if (a) it would not be a passed pawn if moved one square forward (the blocking square), or (b) there were other pawns (of either color) in front of it on the file. This latter condition used a fairly complicated method, forward_file_bb; here, rather than inspect the entire forward file, we simply re-use the blocking square. As a result, some pawns previously considered "candidates", but which are able to push forward, no longer have their bonus halved.
Simplification tests passed quickly at both STC and LTC. The results from both tests imply that this simplification is, most likely, additionally a small Elo gain, with a LTC likelihood of superiority of 87 percent.
STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 12908 W: 2909 L: 2770 D: 7229
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d2a1c880ebc5925cf0d9006
LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 20723 W: 3591 L: 3470 D: 13662
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d2a21fd0ebc5925cf0d9118
Bench: 3377831
Current master code made sence when we had 2 types of bonuses for protected path to queen. But it was simplified so we have only one bonus now and code was never cleaned.
This non-functional simplification removes useless defendedsquares bitboard and removes one bitboard assignment (defendedSquares &= attackedBy[Us][ALL_PIECES] + defendedSquares & blockSq becomes just attackedBy[Us][ALL_PIECES] & blockSq also we never assign defendedSquares = squaresToQueen because we don't need it).
So should be small non-functional speedup.
Passed simplification SPRT.
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d2966ef0ebc5925cf0d7659
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 23319 W: 5152 L: 5034 D: 13133
bench 3361902
In Stockfish, both the middlegame and endgame bonus for a passed pawn are calculated as a product of two factors. The first is k, chosen based on the presence of defended and unsafe squares. The second is w, a quadratic function of the pawn's rank. Both are only applied if the pawn's relative rank is at least RANK_4.
It does not appear that the complexity of a quadratic function is necessary for w. Here, we replace it with a simpler linear one, which performs equally at both STC and LTC.
STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 46814 W: 10386 L: 10314 D: 26114
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d29686e0ebc5925cf0d76a1
LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 82372 W: 13845 L: 13823 D: 54704
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d2980650ebc5925cf0d7bfd
Bench: 3328507
We recently added a bonus for double pawn attacks on unsupported enemy pawns,
on June 27. However, it is possible that the unsupported pawn may become a passer
by simply pushing forward out of the double attack. By rewarding double attacks,
we may inadvertently reward the creation of enemy passers, by encouraging both of
our would-be stoppers to attack the enemy pawn even if there is no opposing
friendly pawn on the same file.
Here, we revise this term to exclude passed pawns. In order to simplify the code
with this change included, we non-functionally rewrite Attacked2Unsupported to
be a penalty for enemy attacks on friendly pawns, rather than a bonus for our
attacks on enemy pawns. This allows us to exclude passed pawns with a simple
& ~e->passedPawns[Us], while passedPawns[Them] is not yet defined in this part
of the code.
This dramatically reduces the proportion of positions in which Attacked2Unsupported
is applied, to about a third of the original. To compensate, maintaining the same
average effect across our bench positions, we nearly triple Attacked2Unsupported
from S(0, 20) to S(0, 56). Although this pawn formation is rare, it is worth more
than half a pawn in the endgame!
STC: (stopped automatically by fishtest after 250,000 games)
LLR: -0.87 (-2.94,2.94) [0.50,4.50]
Total: 250000 W: 56585 L: 55383 D: 138032
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d25795e0ebc5925cf0cfb51
LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 81038 W: 13965 L: 13558 D: 53515
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d25f3920ebc5925cf0d10dd
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2233
Bench: 3765158
-removes wideUnsafeSquares bitboard
-removes a couple of bitboard operations
-removes one if operator
-updates comments so they actually represent what this part of code is doing now.
passed non-regression STC
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d0c1ae50ebc5925cf0aa8db
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 16892 W: 3865 L: 3733 D: 9294
No functional change
This is a functional simplification. This is NOT the exact version that was tested. Beyond the testing, an assignment was removed and a piece changes for consistency.
Instead of rewarding ANY square past an opponent pawn as an "outpost," only use squares that are protected by our pawn. I believe this is more consistent with what the chess world calls an "outpost."
STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 23540 W: 5387 L: 5269 D: 12884
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cf51e6d0ebc5925cf08b823
LTC
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 53085 W: 9271 L: 9204 D: 34610
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cf5279e0ebc5925cf08b992
bench 3424592
Stockfish evaluates passed pawns in part based on a variable k, which shapes the passed pawn bonus based on the number of squares between the current square and promotion square that are attacked by enemy pieces, and the number defended by friendly ones. Prior to this commit, we gave a large bonus when all squares between the pawn and the promotion square were defended, and if they were not, a somewhat smaller bonus if at least the pawn's next square was. However, this distinction does not appear to provide any Elo at STC or LTC.
Where do we go from here? Many promising Elo-gaining patches were attempted in the past few months to refine passed pawn calculation, by altering the definitions of unsafe and defended squares. Stockfish uses these definitions to choose the value of k, so those tests interact with this PR. Therefore, it may be worthwhile to retest previously promising but not-quite-passing tests in the vicinity of this patch.
STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 42344 W: 9455 L: 9374 D: 23515
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cf83ede0ebc5925cf0904fb
LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 69548 W: 11855 L: 11813 D: 45880
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cf8698f0ebc5925cf0908c8
Bench: 3854907
This is a non-functional simplification. Since our file_bb handles either Files or Squares, using Square here removes some code. Not likely any performance difference despite the test.
STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 6081 W: 1444 L: 1291 D: 3346
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5ceb3e2e0ebc5925cf07ab03
Non functional change.
We evaluate defended and unsafe squares for a passed pawn push based on friendly and enemy rooks and queens on the passed pawn's file. Prior to this patch, we further required that these rooks and queens be able to directly attack the passed pawn. However, this restriction appears unnecessary and worth almost exactly 0 Elo at LTC.
The simplified code allows rooks and queens to attack/defend the passed pawn through other pieces of either color.
STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 29019 W: 6488 L: 6381 D: 16150
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cdcf7270ebc5925cf05d30c
LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 54224 W: 9200 L: 9133 D: 35891
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cddc6210ebc5925cf05eca3
Bench: 3415326
Same idea as fisherman's knight protection.
passed STC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.50,4.50]
Total: 17133 W: 3952 L: 3701 D: 9480
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cc3550b0ebc5925cf02dada
passed LTC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 37316 W: 6470 L: 6188 D: 24658
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cc3721d0ebc5925cf02dc90
Looking at this 2 ideas being recent clean elo gainers I have a feeling that we can add also rook and queen protection bonuses or overall move this stuff in pieces loop in the same way as we do pieces attacking bonuses on their kingring... :) Thx fisherman for original idea.
Bench 3429173
We can remove the values in Pawns if we just use the piece arrays in Position. This reduces the size of a pawn entry. This simplification passed individually, and in concert with ps_passedcount100 (removes passedCount storage in pawns.).
STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 19957 W: 4529 L: 4404 D: 11024
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cb3c2d00ebc5925cf016f0d
Combo STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 17368 W: 3925 L: 3795 D: 9648
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cb3d3510ebc5925cf01709a
This is a non-functional simplification.
The kingDanger term is intended to give a penalty which increases rapidly in the middlegame but less so in the endgame. To this end, the middlegame component is quadratic, and the endgame component is linear. However, this produces unintended consequences for relatively small values of kingDanger: the endgame penalty will exceed the middlegame penalty. This remains true up to kingDanger = 256 (a S(16, 16) penalty), so some of these inaccurate penalties are actually rather large.
In this patch, we increase the threshold for applying the kingDanger penalty to eliminate some of this unintended behavior. This was very nearly, but not quite, sufficient to pass on its own. The patch was finally successful by integrating a second kingDanger tweak by @Vizvezdenec, increasing the kingDanger constant term slightly and improving both STC and LTC performance.
Where do we go from here? I propose that in the future, any attempts to tune kingDanger coefficients should also consider tuning the kingDanger threshold. The evidence shows clearly that it should not be automatically taken to be zero.
Special thanks to @Vizvezdenec for the kingDanger constant tweak. Thanks also to all the approvers and CPU donors who made this possible!
STC:
LLR: -2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,4.00]
Total: 141225 W: 31239 L: 30846 D: 79140
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cabbdb20ebc5925cf00b86c
LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,4.00]
Total: 30708 W: 5296 L: 5043 D: 20369
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cabff760ebc5925cf00c22d
Bench: 3445945
Adding a clamp function makes some of these range limitations a bit prettier and removes some #include's.
STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 28117 W: 6300 L: 6191 D: 15626
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5c9aa1df0ebc5925cfff8fcc
Non functional change.
This is a functional simplification of the Outposts array
moving it to a single value. This is a duplicate PR because
I couldn't figure out how to fix the original one.
The idea is from @31m059 with formatting recommendations by @snicolet.
See #1940 for additional information.
STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 23933 W: 5279 L: 5162 D: 13492
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5c3575800ebc596a450c5ecb
LTC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 41718 W: 6919 L: 6831 D: 27968
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5c358c440ebc596a450c6117
bench 3783543
