Chess for Android: Time Control is coming!

Xcellent news for tournament freaks!
Aart's Blog: Time Control: it is coming!

Strongest Android chess engine, again please?

You've got a handy Android mobile and you wanna know which engine is the strongest of all?

I've been answering in an older post, stating Stockfish DD is the king. But two newer Stockfish versions have been released so far and Komodo 8 came by as an MP version to cause trouble too.

Still no Houdini, no Gull for Android in horizon yet. Critter 1.6 is too old to compete with updated fishes and newcomers like Firenzina, Black Mamba, Texel, Senpai are still behind.

Then there was one thing left to do for me. I decided to test SF5 vs Komodo 8 in a separate match but i wanted to push the latest Stockfish development version 121014 into the battlefield too. A threesome then...

This 121014 was exclusively bundled with Droidfish v1.55 and is not related to Stockfish official site.

The results were surprising for me in two ways:

1) In contrast with what's happening on Windows, Komodo can't resist against Stockfish on Android at least without tablebases,

2) SF5 overcomes SF121014, which is totally illogic but true. Maybe compiler matters, i donno.

The head-to-head matches were played at 15 sec/move on an Asus tablet with Intel Z3745 quad core cpu running at 1.86 Ghz. All three engines were based on their x86 compiles and not Arm v7, as usual for Intel.

To be fair on openings, i've used all 32 positions of TCEC-6 superfinal played twice by both sides, for a total of 64 games on each encounter.

Stockfish 121014 vs Komodo 8 v1.6:

34 - 27 (+22 -12 =30) gives 83 ELO gap

Stockfish 5 vs Komodo 8 v1.6:

39.5 - 24.5 (+24 -9 =30) gives 55 ELO gap

Stockfish 5 vs Stockfish 121014:

34 - 27 (+18 -8 =38) gives 55 ELO gap

Ok, 55 + 55 is not 83 but that's not the issue. The ranking is visible to the eye. The father fish beats its son, its son beats K8 and the father beats K8. Logical enuff.

In Rapidroid event that i'm conducting with same conditions on Exynos 4412 cpu, the gap between SF5 and K8 is currently 56 ELO with Bayes and 62 with Elostat.

Not still fully convinced, i've filtered SF5 vs K8 games from Rapidroid and i've seen +13 -4 =13 which makes 107 ELO. Similar superiority.

It's clear now. Stockfish 5 is still the strongest engine available for Android. Uh, dot, finito, done, gone...

SSDF's rating list update of 11 Dec 2014

SSDF has just published an update to World's unique multiplatform computer rating list.

I noticed that popular topers like Stockfish 5, Komodo 8, Houdini, Gull are still missing but i repeat again what SSDF is doing since almost the birth of computer chess is an admirable work.

I simply disagree with harsh critics appearing in some forums and chatrooms.

To me, they deserve respect for maintaining a list which is:
> multiplatform, not only uci engines but mobiles, DOS progs and tabletop machines,
> based on 2h/40m tournament time controls, which largely overtakes bullet lists made with faster cpu's,
> using pondering by default thanks to connected computers, meaning closer to real life chess games.

Indeed it's very difficult to finance such big garage of PC's nowadays. Be it from commercial software developers in the past or not, they still survive and do the job for free still in these days when nobody is paying you for testing their programs.

Well enough said, here's SSDF Top-10:

1	Komodo 7.0 MP x64 2GB Q6600 2,4 GHz	3295	41	-36	476	78%	3073
2	Komodo 5.1 MP x64 2GB Q6600 2,4 GHz	3254	28	-26	792	71%	3099
3	Deep Rybka 4 x64 2GB Q6600 2,4 GHz	3209	24	-23	1048	73%	3038
4	Stockfish 3 MP x64 2GB Q6600 2,4 GHz	3207	25	-23	958	70%	3060
5	Deep Hiarcs 14 2GB Q6600 2,4 GHz	3200	23	-22	1020	68%	3071
6	Deep Rybka 3 x64 2GB Q6600 2,4 GHz	3194	22	-21	1371	75%	3001
7	Naum 4.2 MP x64 2GB Q6600 2,4 GHz	3147	21	-21	1083	61%	3071
8	Naum 4 x64 2GB Q6600 2,4 GHz	3119	21	-20	1276	66%	3002
9	Deep Junior Yokoh x64 2GB Q6600 2,4 GHz	3119	30	-30	530	55%	3082
10	Deep Junior 13.3 2GB x64 Q6600 2,4 GHz	3113	23	-22	926	54%	3083

Full list can be downloaded at their page at: http://ssdf.bosjo.net/list.htm

RAPIDROID: The unique Android chess engines rating list gets a big update

Wow, this one should rock indeed. It's been a while since a first release which introduced rapid time controls and replaced the blitz ranking. No sound came since first two rounds have placed Komodo on top but extended silence didn't mean gears were not turning.

Now it makes two tortured devices working simultaneously since 3 months at full speed, almost without interruption to help build the unique Android rapid chess rating list.

Working in a safe zone, inside Android, staying away from Windows and from any competition doesn't mean i can allow myself giving up accuracy of the experiment. I do this not only to explore the strength of mobile chess programs but also to challenge the barriers of statistics science, in a Don Quichotte fashion! Who knows i can't break down a wind mill?

True... in the beginning, the sceptical engineering mind of mine pushed me hard toward an impossible mission, to obtain a reliable list with only 20 games per engine. I admit i simply lost that bet. No way!

The need for enough samples could not be avoided, despite my efforts to vary openings and opponents and randomize things at maximum to simulate a long run. Unfortunately, i've had to extend the experiment up to 150 games per engine to start seeing something speaking. 100 games seem to be the minimum where error margins fit into +/-60 ELO. Then, fluctuations seem to stabilize significantly. If you take a look at the graphical elo trends by rounds shown in the image below, you will visualize what's happening in the long run, among a wide population of engines.

Nothing is clear before 100 games played.
Grrr! Why do they always keep moving up n down!?

This was anoher lessons learnt case of statistics for me. Regarding the ranking, it has definitely shrank compared to my previous 5 sec/move blitzoid list. I think it's quite reasonable because more thinking time helps weaker engines resist more against stronger ones or said in a different way, it makes life a little bit harder for top engines.

I've also found out that engines with bigger gap between blitz and rapid, often refer to technical reasons or bugs. For instance, Ivanhoe performed worse in rapid and after deep analysis it came obvious that this engine can't use any hash memory, probably due to a bad compile. It just needs more help from hash tables when using more time per move but there's none used in fact and logically the performance is going down.

My final comment is about Komodo 8 which simply disappointed. I'm sure it can't be "statistical noise" (Oh! What a popular term nowadays!) anymore. Android looks different than Windows here. My guess is that it's somehow linked to how the engine binary is compiled. Komodo looks strong enough to threaten the crown of Stockfish in TCEC at present on 16 cores of a double-Xeon monster-PC but here in the modest Android 32-bit arena, Stockfish 5, the already outdated May-2014 code, is still clearly ruling against all other engines.

If you ask me which is the strongest Android engine today, the confident answer is Stockfish 5!

I must hereby claim that even the development version of 12-Oct-14, delivered with Droidfish 1.55, plays weaker than Stockfish 5 (details to come soon). On Windows 20-25 ELO increase over SF5 is confirmed and true. However, Android side shows an opposite panorama, maybe due to different compiling tools used.

Now, time to stop blah blah and let the list talk. You will notice this time, the number of cores and the operating system infos are added. Would it be a prior warning about intruders from other op systems? My wink of an eye here...

BAYES ELO RATINGS BASED ON 4036 GAMES BY 56 PROGRAMS
## Name                   c O/S   elo  +  -  gam sco oppo drw
01 Stockfish 5            4 And32 3139 51 49 142 76% 2959 36%
02 Komodo 8               4 And32 3083 48 46 142 67% 2971 44%
03 Critter 1.6a           4 And32 3004 45 45 142 55% 2972 50%
04 Firenzina 2.4.1        4 And32 2982 45 45 142 48% 2992 48%
05 BlackMamba 2.0         4 And32 2906 47 47 148 56% 2857 43%
06 RobboLito 0.085e4l     1 And32 2855 49 49 148 51% 2834 32%
07 Senpai 1.0             4 And32 2854 50 49 142 57% 2802 35%
08 Komodo32 3 AB          1 And32 2845 48 48 144 50% 2849 42%
09 Texel 1.05a8           1 And32 2794 49 49 148 56% 2745 28%
10 Gaviota v1.0-d         4 And32 2763 47 48 144 47% 2792 38%
11 Toga II 3.0            1 And32 2682 47 47 146 49% 2683 37%
12 Arasan 15.2 JA         4 And32 2664 47 47 152 53% 2646 34%
13 Deuterium v14.3.34.130 1 And32 2639 45 45 168 52% 2622 30%
14 DiscoCheck 4.3         1 And32 2623 47 47 156 47% 2649 28%
15 GNU Chess 5.50-32      1 And32 2613 47 47 148 51% 2610 36%
16 IvanHoe 9.46b          4 And32 2609 47 47 156 49% 2612 33%
17 Rhetoric 1.4.1         1 And32 2571 47 47 148 48% 2584 34%
18 RedQueen 1.1.3 TCEC JA 4 And32 2524 49 50 144 43% 2578 27%
19 Crafty_23.4.JA         1 And32 2508 49 49 144 48% 2520 25%
20 Rodent 1.00            1 And32 2488 49 48 148 51% 2472 26%
21 Alfil 12.10            1 And32 2485 49 48 140 51% 2474 29%
22 Daydreamer 1.75 JA     1 And32 2467 48 48 148 44% 2513 28%
23 Rotor 0.7a             1 And32 2448 48 48 140 50% 2450 31%
24 cheng3 1.07 JA         1 And32 2422 49 49 146 53% 2399 25%
25 GarboChess 3           1 And32 2393 48 48 144 46% 2426 28%
26 DanasahZ_0.4.JA_xb     1 And32 2392 50 50 144 48% 2405 26%
27 Sloppy_0.23.JA_xb      1 And32 2386 48 48 146 52% 2369 33%
28 Scorpio_2.7.JA_xb      1 And32 2381 48 48 146 51% 2374 25%
29 GNU Chess 6.0.2        1 And32 2373 49 48 144 55% 2338 24%
30 Tucano_1.04.AB_xb      1 And32 2324 51 51 142 54% 2297 17%
31 Pepito v1.59           1 And32 2295 47 47 150 48% 2317 29%
32 BetsabeII_1.30.JA_xb   1 And32 2289 51 50 150 57% 2234 15%
33 GreKo_9.0.JA_uci       1 And32 2286 47 48 150 47% 2308 28%
34 Typhoon_1.0.r358.JA_xb 1 And32 2275 48 49 146 49% 2281 26%
35 Diablo 0.5.1b JA       1 And32 2252 50 50 144 51% 2243 18%
36 Sungorus 1.4 JA        1 And32 2203 50 51 146 43% 2256 21%
37 Phalanx_XXIII.JA_xb    1 And32 2195 53 52 144 57% 2131 13%
38 Olithink_5.3.2.JA_xb   1 And32 2170 52 53 144 51% 2139 20%
39 TJchess 1.1U           1 And32 2134 50 51 140 46% 2158 21%
40 Natwarlal_0.14.JA_xb   1 And32 2133 52 52 142 52% 2106 19%
41 Myrddin_0.86.JA_xb     1 And32 2110 50 51 144 46% 2142 21%
42 Jazz 6.40 JA           1 And32 2091 50 51 144 48% 2107 23%
43 Scidlet_2.61b2.JA_xb   1 And32 2067 53 53 140 55% 2013 18%
44 KmtChess_1.21.JA_xb    1 And32 2049 52 52 140 50% 2044 21%
45 AdroitChess0.4 JA      1 And32 1952 54 54 138 52% 1926 17%
46 Sjeng_1.12.JA_xb       1 And32 1877 57 58 138 47% 1899 12%
47 BikJump v1.8           1 And32 1860 55 55 138 53% 1812 20%
48 ZCT-0.3.2500           1 And32 1780 60 61 138 51% 1753  9%
49 Leonidas_r83.JA_xb     1 And32 1771 57 57 138 56% 1696 14%
50 Sjaak_4.68.JA_xb       1 And32 1735 58 58 138 54% 1669 13%
51 Zzzzzz_3.5.1.JA_xb     1 And32 1566 58 58 138 51% 1569 22%
52 Tscp_1.8.1.AB_xb       1 And32 1536 60 60 138 45% 1577 12%
53 Rocinante 2.0 JA       1 And32 1518 62 62 138 49% 1535  7%
54 VIRUTOR CHESS 1.1.1    1 And32 1372 59 60 138 42% 1447  9%
55 Chess for Android      1 And32 1283 58 61 138 33% 1448 13%
56 Simplex 0.9.8          1 And32 1062 73 85 138 11% 1496  5%

Rapidroid test platform specification:
* Samsung Galaxy Note II @ 1.6 Ghz x 4 cores + 256MB hash for SP & MP Android programs,
* Polypad 1010IPS tablet @ 1.6 Ghz x 2 cores + 128MB hash for SP Android programs,
* HTC Diamond @ 528Mhz to be used for Windows Mobile programs, with 16MB hash size,
* i7 M620 @ 2.67 Ghz + Arena 3.5 + 2GB hash tables for Windows X64 programs
* iPod Touch 64G @ 600 Mhz to be used for Windows Mobile programs
* DosBox 1.74 used to run DOS programs,
* WinVICE used to run Commodore-64 programs,
* Messtiny UCI adapters or CB-Emu2014 used to emulate Mephisto programs,
* Own books disabled and replaced by 20 ply openings taken from Adam Hair's 10 move book, whenever possible.
* Openings selection for max variety, queens on board, no check or capture at last ply, preferably rated between +0.15 to +0.39 by Stockfish and Komodo.
* Opening positions played twice with different colors, whenever possible,
* Repeating openings and twin games avoided between two programs,
* Tablebases and pondering off,
* Time control: 15 to 30 sec/move or closest possible, identical for both programs.

Deuterium 14.3.34.130 Android: 2633 ELO after 168 games!

Here's the results obtained by the most recent Android chess engine Deuterium. Close to Arasan and Toga, the elo outcome is in line with PC engine rankings, bearing in mind the gap between Android and reference Windows hardware, usually 120 to 180 ELO. We may conclude the code was ported very well without loss and that deserves congratulations.

By the way i wish this potentially good engine adopts multi processing too. Not yet included, not even under Windows.

The gauntlet was conducted according to the specs of my RAPIDROID ranking. Thus, Deuterium joins the competition starting from round 15, to be released soon with an update.

New Android engine: Deuterium 14.3.34.130

Ferdinand Mosca, the author of Deuterium chess engine, kindly included an Android version of his engine in the latest release numbered 14.3.34.130. It's really fun to meet with another new engine on the battlefield.

Deuterium Android is a 32-bit compile like all others available. The interesting point is that this one is already verified to work without problem under Android Lollipop 5.0.

For those who plan to upgrade their devices and accordingly their Android versions, it must be known that Lollipop, the first 64 bit Android release incorporates deep changes, beyond the ramp up to 64 bits, various internal functional changes (ie. security policies) that would probably make existing 32 bit chess engine binaries fail to work.

At present i'm happy with my portable chess environment and i'm not really willing to go forward yet. I'd say precaution and patience first versus Lollipop.

Regarding Deuterium, it's rated about 2800 elo on popular rankings. It's not an MP engine. On our Android devices, it will use only one core as well. After first quick tests, i expect it to perform 2600-2650 on a Galaxy Note II 1.6Ghz.

180 second test shows 139Knps but it doesn't
look reliable as a benchmark as reported
nodes fluctuate from one depth to the next

Those who want to download it may visit the homepage: HERE
In case of access problem, a mirror copy is uploaded to my engine collection repository: HERE
The complete archive folder with many other engines is: HERE

Stockfish smashed by Junior reveals an exciting case study

250+ ELO difference may come irrelevant in a specific position where a wrong calculation quickly tears you down. No more tears please...

This applies to all human chess players... and chess engines too hopefully. Even the strongest ones still don't play perfect chess and can be trapped like in the game below which resulted to an unexpected loss by latest development version of Stockfish facing Junior 13.3. This one has been played in TCEC Season 7, round 20.

Stockfish is currently the strongest engine worldwide, slightly ahead of Komodo 8 in all rankings. Though, nobody can yet be sure whether TCEC superfinal will confirm the same, given that TCEC competition is played at tournament time controls using 2 x 8 cores Xeon CPU's, under conditions that Komodo is known to benefit better. Anyway, we'll soon see about this but i can't guess how many more surprises are waiting ahead.

According to game logs, Stockfish has analyzed about 1.2 billion positions before playing 59.Rg6 and not 59.Qe5. It was simply not a good one and lost the game quickly after Junior's rook sacrifice on h4.

After 59.Rg6, white loses quickly with Rxh4

Consequently, 60.Rxh4 followed as a punishment from ICGA's 2013 World Chess Champion. For those who don't remember, IGCA is an outdated organization which used to be something like FIDE of the computer chess. Junior had won their last world championship tourney in 2013, in Yokohama, Japan.

Although move 59 is clearly losing, one wonders whether the game was already lost, way before that.

Some friends have already focused on 56.Re1 which looked weak. Qc8+ is the suggested one by other engines but can't bring too much hope. Move 56 may not even be the beginning of the trouble. Further analysis is necessary to reveal where's the real breakpoint of this interesting game. It's probably starting earlier.

56.Re1

The bishop sacrifice on 15.Bxg6 is a serious decision in the game and remains to investigate in details, for sceptical binary diggers like us, to eventually expose a mistakenly over-evaluated confidence.

 Junior's 14...g6

...and Stockfish's courageous 15.Bxg6

Watch TCEC competition at: http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php

Man vs Machine: Cooperation takes over competition

Where have gone the good times when humans could quickly (b)eat machines on chessboards?

Who could foresee the day when no GM would be interested (dare?) to challenge a synthetic monster?

(Un)fortunately, human power is severely outplayed by human-made binaries since long ago. Today, chess engines are considered to play stronger than humans. Anyone disagrees?

Then what is the next step? A cooperation? Sound logical the same way you'd better drive a car instead of failing to overtake it. 

But of course, the taste of a nice walk is something different to preserve. It's emotional, healtier, natural, more socializing, less thrilling, authentic. Similarly, we may expect human chess will survive forever no matter how stronger machines will play.

On another track, i can't keep myself from dreaming about Formula-1 type of chess competitions where GMs, wearing pilot helmets, will drive their custom tailored engines to outperform their rivals.

 Levon Aronian searching for the bad move just after losing an important game 

Andoid UCI engine update: Komodo 8 v1.6

Now we've got the reptile running much faster. The new v1.6 brings apparently a kind of fat-apk which is supposed to install the suitable version to each device. Good news is that a wider range of Android devices (basically all!) are covered.

Previous versions used to install a 32-bit Arm7 compile only, while the updated one, beyond compatibility with all available devices, promises to deliver its full performance.

Note that Intel cpu's could run older compiles of Komodo 8 but compatiblity was paid off with severely suffered chess performance, due to on-the-run translations to i686 instructions.

From now on, it's OK for all and the reasonably priced engine can be purchased at: GOOGLE PLAY STORE

In case my words are not enough to describe how impressive is the boost, i have two screenshots to tell the truth with numbers:

 ARM7 version running on Intel Z3745: 166 knps

i686 version running on Intel Z3745: 518 knps

Hawk Chess 1.1.2: A chess GUI both for the casual player and the pro

A real 3D chess GUI full of serious features

One of last month's nice surprises for me was Hawk Chess, a chess app very well balanced between nice looking and complex It targets not only the casual online players who prefer to play quick games with people on internet and have fun, but also the elo-maniacs interested in strongest engines for analysis, self-torture or engine games.

This app looks like satisfying both parties. If you know enough about GooglePlay community, you will understand how difficult is to achieve this. You respond to one part of users and others give you 1 star, unfairly.

Hawk Chess provides us with:
- Online & Offline play
- A great 3D layout which is usually a sign of a weak chess ai with toy levels. Not this time...
- Own chess engine, Hawk.
- UCI engine importing (Wow!)
- Time controls (2nd wow!)
- Opening book! Even polyglot! (Louder 3rd wow!)
- Tablebases! (4th shock!)
- Engine-to-Engine games (Loudest wow!)

This last feature is really amazing. After running the app for the first time and seeing how good the graphics are, i was not expecting this to work that flawlessly. I can't believe even the engine settings are available.

To be sure, i quickly ran some bullets between Fire, Stockfish and Komodo3 engines. They all worked fine, battled fine. Thumbs up for the engine implementation.

The PV and the scores are not shown the way we're used to see. No digital values, no algebraic moves either. But that doesn't matter at this stage for me.

Regarding the tournament play, i know it's too premature to expect it from such beautiful app. It's really an extreme feature targeting few users, but it should not be very difficult to include a code for batching engine games and stack the results into a specific PGN file. I've already written to the author about this and maybe he will be implementing things in time.

I didn't experiment any online game but user feedbacks are positive about it. Hawk is managing games via a chess server as usual and users are logging in to start play.

It's a paid app with a very reasonable price at GOOGLE PLAY. A piece worth buying.

How many more ELO's for double time?

This is not a new question indeed. One would google it and easily find countless topics.

Well, the question being numeric, the answers are countless too. If you would force me to give a unique answer, i could only say "More..."

Frankly, the ELO gain by doubling the thinking time of a chess engine seems to depend on various factors. The most decisive one, according to programmers, is the search depth which itself increases with more thinking time. Due to continously widening search tree, the increase however, is not linear, rather reversely exponential. This means the increase is significant in lower depths but tends to diminish beyond a treshold which is different from an engine to another.

Simply speaking with fictive numbers for a typical average engine may be:
1 min/game: 2500 ELO
2 min/game: 2600 ELO
4 min/game: 2650 ELO
8 min/game: 2675 ELO
16 min/game: 2688 ELO
32 min/game: 2694 ELO
64 min/game: 2697 ELO
128 min/game: 2699 ELO
256 min/game: 2700 ELO

It was just an example to visualize things. Without any doubt, steps and gains vary in real cases but always in similar trendline, quickly up, slowly closer to the maximum and bump!

Many results from the huge chess history suggest that doubling the thinking time would deliver as high as +200 ELO at lower depths and after "diminishing returns" along deeper plies, falls as low as +50 ELO starting from 20 ply depth. I've just taken a very rough average of hundreds of results i've been reading during years. If you may find different results out of range, no problem. They are already part of the database as rare cases.

Recently i had to conduct my own modest experiment, not because i wanted to add another silly test to the internet database but to my own purpose, i've had to make sure whether one of my Android engines is really using 1 second extra per move or not. A great opportunity to save the world, isn't it?

Discocheck is an abandoned engine after v5.2 and it had no updated compile for Android, only v4.3 available. I didn't use it in my previous 1 sec/move bullet tournaments because it's PV's were always reporting 2 sec/move time usage, for no reason. And when i raised to TC to 5 secs, it used 6 sec, 11 secs vs 10 secs, 16 vs 15 and so on. Always 1 second more than the setting. Weird stuff... Was it a safety overhead or real time usage for searching moves?

I've just had the idea to make this compile play with the other compile of the same version made by Jim Ablett. The latter used to fully respect the time usage but intermittently disconnected from the GUI which makes it impossible to include in tournaments. But in a head-to-head duel, this might be manageable.

I was succesfull in installing two different compiles of the same version under Chess for Android by renaming each under different suffixes and they were able to run simultaneously in a match.

They should tie but double time usage mattered.

At the end, a test of 100 games resulted in 66-34 score in favor of the 2 seconds version vs 1 second version. Once again, the world is saved thanks to my valuable effort and two fantastic findings can now be shared publicly with the humanity:

1) Doubling the time from 1 sec/move to 2 sec/move increases the ELO by 115 when experimented with Discocheck 4.3 engine under Android. Elo difference formula is 400*log(66/34).

2) Discocheck 4.3 compile by Aart Bik is still not eligible for time controlled tournaments under 15 seconds/move.

Beyond all above blah blah from the center of an insane dedication, more importantly, it feels good to see the pratice meets the theory. Kind of a statistical enjoyment...

Chess for Android 4.5.1

I feel happy to start using the new version of my favorite GUI Chess for Android, developed by Aart J. Bik. It's good to see him not giving up a wonderful project.

Be it not cosmetic enough to convince casual chess beginners unable to recognize en-passant capture is not a bug, i usually care about functions before the look. This app is 10 stars for me, even though i can fill pages with a list of missing options. For sure, additional feature requests never end but what counts here is the options that no other app, even in paid version, is providing.

CfA is THE ONLY CHESS GUI FOR ANDROID if you want to:
- Import and use Xboard engines,
- Conduct engine to engine tournaments.

The new 4.5.1 version doesn't introduce major changes. In the menu there are voice localizations (i never use the option) and minor UCI engine management improvements like log files cleaning tool.

Anyways, i didn't hesistate to look for trouble and i've installed it. So far, so good for my neverending engine tournaments.

The standard version is available at GOOGLE PLAYSTORE

For the version with remote PC connection you should go to AART'S OWN PAGE. This version is even more interesting for its ability to drive a UCI engine installed on your PC exactly the same way as it resides in your Android device, with the help of an interfacing tool (details in Aart's blog). This is like importing a engine from your PC into your tablet. Therefore, it's a great opportunity to have Android engines playing with their PC rivals.

Android UCI engine update: Stockfish 121014 dev't version

For all who wish to use the development version of Stockfish engine under a GUI other than Droidfish, i've uploaded several binaries to the collection.

Depending on your Android device, choose from below links to download:
ARM-V5 devices
ARM-V7 devices
i686 devices (Intel Atom only)

Remember that Intel devices will not refuse to run Arm versions, at least Arm5. However, they must be avoided when i686 versions are available because of poor performance down to 30%, due to translation of Arm instructions to Intel ones by the cpu. It's exactly an emulation that chess doesn't like :-)

To access the entire Android engines collection, use: THIS LINK

Previous versions of Stockfish are also in that archive, in different CPU versions.

Android UCI engine update: Texel 1.05a8

I was wondering whether Peter Österlund has released the latest version 1.05a8 of his strong engine Texel. This is the version playing in TCEC Season-7 and before the tournament started i was not aware of an update.

Although i was thinking it's a TCEC version which would be released after the tournament, i've seen a link in one of the chatroom messages of TCEC.

I instantly took a look at link. Yep, it was not the GooglePlay site but that page forwarded me to the market, where i found the released package.

The package is coming in a different self-installing app format that needs a little manipulation to extract the engine file from. I tried to import it to Chess for Android and verified it works correctly. Hooray!

To download the self-installing package, you may visit the official page at GooglePlay.

In case you need the engine binary file, you may download it from my ANDROID ENGINES COLLECTION.

Complementary info on Oct, 13th: I currently replay all Texel 1.04 games to replace it with 1.05a8 in my RAPIDROID list. Due to 30 sec/move time control and ~80 moves/game, the experiment needs time to reveal something trustable. I hope to release an overall update based on 60-70 games only per engine during next week.

Looking for more kNps with Snapdragon 800: Mission fails!

"Higher frequency for less nodes"

A new item introduced in my series of Droidfish tests in retail stores was SAMSUNG TAB-S 8.4. It has the Snapdragon's quad-core 800 CPU clocked at 2.26 Ghz.

Although the values look attractive, the performance lacked under Droidfish and Stockfish5 engine. My standard 1 minute analysis test at initial position with 4 cores and 64MB hash size has only run at 480kNps. Another big disappointment with Snapdragon.

Where have all these higher Ghz gone???

Due to limited time and conditions of a store, it's not possible to root the device and ask for performance governor to force the CPU to run at full speed. Thus, it's an "out-of-the-box" result which could be improved by tweaking. Maybe... but i can't imagine how much.

For the moment, JUST STAY AWAY from Snapdragon if you expect stronger chess play. Even the Intel Atom's, after all their internal translations from ARM instructions to X86 ones, perform well with Stockfish engine. This is an exact case for "theory fails vs reality".

Now i wanna find an opportunity to repeat the same test with Snapdragon-801 and Intel 3770.

Below are the results i've collected so far. All except Exynos were done with factory CPU settings.

MAKER   MODEL            CPU         GHz    kNps
------- ---------------- ----------- ------ ----
Asus    MemoPad ME176C   Atom 3745   4x1.86  747
Samsung N7100            Exynos 4412 4x1.60  700
Samsung SM-T320 8.4"     SD-800      4x2.26  480
LG      V500 GPad        SD-600      4x1.70  439

Android chess engines collection: Updated

"So many files, so little time"

I think now it's a complete collection. All working engines must be HERE.

Latest updates:
* Added Firenzina 2.4.1 xTreme
* Added Rhetoric 1.4.1
* Renamed Daydreamer from 0.75 to correct version number 1.75

I'll be glad to add any missing working Android UCI/XB engine to that collection if you report it.

I know Komodo 8 is missing. But it's normal for two reasons:
1) It's commercial and it's not allowed to distribute it freely.
2) It doesn't work if installed offline. Downloading from Google Play is a must, even for registrated users.

Android UCI engine update: Rhetoric 1.4.1

The whispering spy birds told me this morning that Rhetoric engine is updated from 1.4 to 1.4.1 version.

The package can be downloaded at http://www.chessrhetoric.com/index.php/downloads/viewdownload/1-rhetoric/22-rhetoric

An Android compile is included as well. Enjoy!

Due to my Rapidroid games ongoing non-stop, i will wait for tests for a while.

Rapidroid: First Release

"Give them more time, they'll play better" had whispered to my ear, an old n' wise guy who'd come to my dream.

Just after a couple of months elapsed, today i can finally issue the first outcome of RAPIDROID experiment. It's premature but shareable.

Rapidroid brings more demanding and time consuming improvements over Blitzoid project, suspended after about 16000 games by 93 programs, due to stabilized ranking.

Now it's time to search for more fun, more complexity, (more headache?). No doubt, similarities with famous SSDF rankings may be found. However my main concern is to add more colour with unseen combinations and pairings, more free programs and take good care of all programs, not only the toppers and recent releases. By default, Rapidroid is free from most of the critics SSDF had recieved in time.

So what's new in the menu?
> Six times longer time control, at 30 seconds/move or similar. Simply better chess!
> A true multiplatform, not limited to Android UCI/XB engines. Instead, all DOS, Windows Mobile, IOS programs, as well as tabletops are welcome.
> Travel in time: We can't forget the old goodies. They can still play chess, no matter how weak. By the way, we will see how weak they were.
> A device-based ranking to measure how much force can be gained by using modern hardware with older programs especially. Experiments like Commodore-64 @ 100X or Fritz 5.32 on Intel-i7 or old Mephisto's running at full PC speed via emulators should be interesting to try.
> Android UCI/XB engines which didn't work in automated tournament mode of Chess for Android can be included by playing manual games under Droidfish!
> And finally we can rate all standalone programs, not only Android versions of Shredder, Chess Genius etc but also Mobialia, CNVCS, Senior Chess and many others. They all claim to be the best in the market (?) but none was seriously tested and rated. So, i take this job.

The first ranking below is the result of just two rounds and 16 to 20 games per engine. For the moment, i started the same way as Blitzoid, with only Android UCI/XB engines. Once the error margins go below +/-100, other programs will join the ranking one by one, via gauntlets of 10 to 20 games.

We have Komodo 8, Firenzina 2.41 and Discocheck 4.3 as new engines introduced. Seeing the brand new Komodo 8 taking first place here should not be alarming. Only a few games have been played yet and it may be temporary, just related to a specific opening.

The list is calibrated in parallel to Blitzoid in such a way to ensure minimum overall difference between two lists. This gives an offset of 2306 for 56 engines included so far.

Ra Name                    Elo    +   - Ga Sco Oppo Dra
 1 Komodo 8               3199  125 114 20 73% 3069 45%
 2 Stockfish 5            3186  125 116 20 70% 3071 40%
 3 Critter 1.6a           3118  114 112 20 55% 3085 50%
 4 Firenzina 2.4.1 xTreme 3071  110 112 20 45% 3094 60%
 5 BlackMamba 2.0         3061  129 124 18 58% 3003 39%
 6 Komodo32 3 AB          3022  130 130 18 53% 2986 39%
 7 Senpai 1.0             2952  133 128 16 63% 2884 50%
 8 Gaviota v1.0-d         2930  135 145 18 39% 3006 11%
 9 RobboLito 0.085e4l     2924  125 135 18 31% 3033 39%
10 Texel 1.04             2845  147 139 16 59% 2788 19%
11 Arasan 15.2 JA         2828  132 135 16 47% 2851 31%
12 DiscoCheck 4.3         2825  134 135 16 47% 2851 31%
13 Toga II 3.0            2748  125 125 16 50% 2748 50%
14 Crafty_23.4.JA_xb      2747  127 124 16 56% 2720 50%
15 GNU Chess 5.50         2722  124 125 16 50% 2726 50%
16 RedQueen 1.1.3 TCEC JA 2710  132 128 16 59% 2671 44%
17 Rhetoric 1.4           2665  127 129 16 47% 2682 44%
18 Daydreamer 1.75 JA     2651  134 130 16 56% 2604 38%
19 Rodent 1.00            2642  132 133 16 47% 2660 31%
20 IvanHoe 9.46b          2640  141 164 16 19% 2839 25%
21 Rotor 0.7a             2623  133 128 16 59% 2565 44%
22 Sloppy_0.23.JA_xb      2618  130 130 16 50% 2613 38%
23 GarboChess 3           2553  124 121 16 56% 2530 63%
24 Alfil 12.10            2541  126 130 16 41% 2586 44%
25 cheng3 1.07 JA         2506  134 129 16 59% 2457 44%
26 GNU Chess 6.0.2        2452  132 131 16 53% 2419 44%
27 Scorpio_2.7.JA_xb      2428  128 133 16 41% 2476 44%
28 Pepito v1.59           2420  130 132 16 47% 2427 44%
29 DanasahZ_0.4.JA_xb     2364  137 138 16 50% 2356 25%
30 GreKo_9.0.JA_uci       2316  135 134 16 53% 2295 31%
31 Olithink_5.3.2.JA_xb   2295  132 132 16 50% 2300 38%
32 Tucano_1.04.AB_xb      2271  148 144 16 53% 2243  6%
33 BetsabeII_1.30.JA_xb   2177  146 141 16 56% 2128 13%
34 Diablo 0.5.1b JA       2171  144 147 16 47% 2195  6%
35 DoubleCheck 2.7        2161  150 163 16 34% 2270  6%
36 Typhoon_1.0.r358.JA_xb 2124  135 137 16 47% 2141 31%
37 Sungorus 1.4 JA        2110  141 141 16 50% 2110 13%
38 TJchess 1.1U           2104  131 131 16 50% 2112 38%
39 Natwarlal_0.14.JA_xb   2060  143 143 16 50% 2058 13%
40 Phalanx_XXIII.JA_xb    2059  153 142 16 66% 1942 19%
41 KmtChess_1.21.JA_xb    1971  148 146 16 53% 1938 19%
42 Jazz 6.40 JA           1962  145 146 16 53% 1940 19%
43 Myrddin_0.86.JA_xb     1953  147 151 16 47% 1968  6%
44 Scidlet_2.61b2.JA_xb   1940  158 149 16 63% 1830 13%
45 AdroitChess0.4 JA      1743  151 151 16 50% 1756 13%
46 Leonidas_r83.JA_xb     1691  148 135 16 69% 1564 25%
47 ZCT-0.3.2500           1669  149 160 16 38% 1774 13%
48 BikJump v1.8           1642  142 147 16 41% 1700 31%
49 Sjeng_1.12.JA_xb       1638  149 154 16 44% 1701 25%
50 Sjaak_4.68.JA_xb       1584  163 158 16 66% 1409 19%
51 Tscp_1.8.1.AB_xb       1478  157 166 16 50% 1435 13%
52 Zzzzzz_3.5.1.JA_xb     1428  164 162 16 56% 1355 13%
53 VIRUTOR CHESS 1.1.1    1330  157 165 16 44% 1380 13%
54 Rocinante 2.0 JA       1226  166 166 16 50% 1224  0%
55 Chess for Android      1085  158 143 16 28% 1259  6%
56 Simplex 0.9.8           900  214 -20 16  6% 1305  0%

Rapidroid test platform:
* Samsung N7100 @ 1.6Ghz * 4 cores, 256MB hash for SP & MP Android programs,
* Polypad 1010IPS @ 1.6Ghz * 2 cores + 128MB hash for SP Android programs,
* HTC Diamond @ 528Mhz + 16MB hash for Windows Mobile programs,
* i7 M620 @ 2.67 Ghz + Arena 3.5 + 2GB hash for Windows programs
* iPod Touch 64G @ 600 Mhz for IOS programs,
* DosBox 1.74 used to run DOS programs,
* WinVICE used to run Commodore-64 programs,
* Messtiny UCI adapters or CB-Emu2014 used to emulate Mephisto programs,
* Openings selected from Adam Hair's 10 move book for continous variety, without queens exchange & verified between -0.10 and +0.40 cp evaluation.
* Opening positions played twice with different colors, whenever possible.
* Repeating openings and twin games are not allowed between two programs.
* Tablebases and pondering are disabled.
* Time control: 1/30 or 15'+10" or 1800" or closest rapid chess timings.

Komodo 8: First gauntlet under Android

I've just finished a quick bullet gauntlet with Komodo 8 Android vs 4 top engines of my BLITZOID ranking. Looks like Komodo 8 is number 2 after Stockfish but not a serious chaser.

I'm a little bit surprised to face a gap bigger than expected. Even the "dusty" Critter 1.6a easily stood still against the new Komodo.

Below results are not calibrated in order to give just an idea of the gaps and a rough impression about Komodo's level of improvement against Stockfish especially. Thus i can't yet defend Komodo 8 is around 3130 ELO vs 3264 ELO of Stockfish.

These are just bullet games at 1 sec/move yet. I think at 30 sec/move things may slightly be different. Maybe in favor of Komodo...

To my side, i'll be waiting for the first release of RAPIDROID ranking to tell more.

# Program                   Elo   +  - Gam Score

1 Stockfish 5            :  139  57 56 100 69.0%
2 Komodo 8 32-bit        :    0  28 28 400 54.8%
3 Critter 1.6a 32-bit    :  -24  55 56 100 46.5%
4 BlackMamba 2.0 32bit   : -119  57 58 100 33.5%
5 Firenzina 2.4.1 xTreme : -131  60 61 100 32.0%

Komodo 8 32-bit          : 400 (+153,=132,-115), 54.8%
------------------------ -----------------------------
Stockfish 5              : 100 (+ 13,= 36,- 51), 31.0%
Critter 1.6a 32-bit      : 100 (+ 36,= 35,- 29), 53.5%
Firenzina 2.4.1 xTreme   : 100 (+ 54,= 28,  18), 68.0%
BlackMamba 2.0 32bit     : 100 (+ 50,= 33,- 17), 66.5%


New Android engine: KOMODO 8 released

Gets to your King slowly and patiently...

Feeling great to see the latest version of Komodo released for Android as well. It's not free but at that attractive price i see no reason to decline the offer.

Search for Komodo Chess in Google Play or use this link to buy it:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.komodochess.komodo&hl=en

Now i can't wait to introduce Komodo 8 in my RAPIDROID project and see how much headache will it cause to top Android engines like Stockfish, Critter and Firenzina.

Meanwhile, it must be notified that due to the method implemented to copy-protect it, it's not possible to take Komodo, put it somewhere on your internal memory or sd card and use it under another GUI (ex: Droidfish). Only the 3 GUIs specified by the developer, Chessbase, Chess for Android (hopefully, for tournament mode!) and PGN Master can import Komodo.

You don't even install it in these GUIs, Komodo engine, during its setup, adds everything necessary into the registry lines of the GUIs. At least, that's what i've observed clearly with Chess for Android.

Blitzoid chess engine ratings for Android: Update Round 20 of 50

Althout it makes two months since the last release, the poor Galaxy Note II did not stop playing tournaments since, towards an insane endurance level where its OLED screen finally got hit by a permanent chess board shadow. Something i didn't expected happens, though it's highly preferable to a cpu failure.

Below list is the result of ~16000 games played and seems accurate enough to me now. I don't see any big interest in going any further, up to all 50 Silversuite positions. It's better to stop here and switch to another experiment.

Reasons are:
> Starting from round-17, the list is not inflating or shrinking. It's arithmeticallly proven by the mean elo average of 92 programs fixed at 475 elo! The ranking is accurate and the whole bunch must have reached to a balance.
> Elo changes of each round dropped to as low as +/- 1 to 5. A very few engines take two digit updates.
> ...and a psychological reason: I wanna start something multi-platform with longer time controls, to cover a larger timeframe of the computer chess history, something partly retroactive.

I have also tried to align the whole list according to CCRL 40/4. A comparison between CPU power of the reference devices between Blitzoid and CCRL, revealed that Exynos-4412 running on 1.6Ghz x 4 cores is not a toy at all. In terms of nodes per second, Exynos is able to deliver about 1/4 to 1/3 search power compared to the Athlon that CCRL is using as reference CPU.

I knew i was too harsh about Android ratings since the beginning. Because being safe is better than exaggerating numbers.

But at this point i conclude the project earlier than expected, a calibration remains a must. I needed to add 250 elo to all the engines in order to obtain a comparable level.

Even after this, Blitzoid is around 200 ELO below CCRL, which should be quite reasonable. If Stockfish versions have slighly less gaps than other engines, this must be related to elo distortion of ~20 elo at the top. If we had only one Stockfish version playing, let's say v5, it would collect less ELO. This is because Stockfish versions obviously reach better elo against their predecessors compared to other engines. This is a known and common behaviour in computer chess.

Therefore, this is probably the final Blitzoid list to be published, before i go for the RAPIDROID project, mentioned before in other posts. My guess is that Rapidroid thing will bring much more fun.

BLITZOID RANKING / 03-SEP-2014
15968 GAMES PLAYED BY 92 PROGRAMS
COMPUTED WITH BAYESELO, OFFSET: 2367! (WAS 2117)
#  Name                    elo  +  - gam sco oppo drw  CCRL(gap)
01 Stockfish 5            3264 33 32 358 77% 3064 34%  3369(+105)
02 Stockfish DD           3227 31 31 358 73% 3066 41%  3310(+83)
03 Stockfish 4            3154 28 28 386 59% 3088 48%  3266(+112)
04 Stockfish 3            3147 29 29 386 58% 3088 38%  3231(+84)
05 Stockfish 2.3.1        3118 28 28 384 54% 3082 47%  3216(+98)
06 Critter 1.6a           3115 28 28 384 55% 3081 45%  3230(+115)
07 Critter 1.4            3112 29 29 384 55% 3070 43%
08 Critter 1.2            3051 31 31 380 58% 2973 36%  3204(+153)
09 Stockfish 2.0          3037 31 31 382 51% 3018 31%  3162(+125)
10 BlackMamba 2.0         3037 32 32 370 63% 2917 35%
11 RobboLito 0.085e4l     2972 31 31 372 48% 2977 35%
12 Komodo32 2.03 JA       2959 31 31 378 46% 2983 30%  3066(+107)
13 RobboLito 0.085g3l     2940 31 31 370 51% 2922 32%
14 Komodo32 3 AB          2920 32 32 370 48% 2925 27%  3104(+184)
15 Senpai 1.0             2893 31 31 372 44% 2936 31%  3102(+209)
16 Texel 1.04             2851 34 34 354 51% 2839 23%  2988(+137)
17 Komodo32 1.3 JA        2831 32 32 366 47% 2852 27%  2987(+156)
18 Gaviota v1.0           2830 32 32 366 56% 2785 29%  2961(+131)
19 Texel 1.03             2801 33 33 354 46% 2829 26%  2936(+135)
20 IvanHoe 9.46b          2748 33 33 358 54% 2717 23%  3082(+334)
21 Toga II 3.0            2744 33 33 366 50% 2754 23%  2878(+134)
22 Gaviota v0.86          2677 33 33 352 48% 2696 24%
23 Arasan 15.2 JA         2655 33 33 356 47% 2682 22%
24 Toga II 2.0 JA         2635 32 32 356 48% 2664 26%
25 Toga II 1.4.1SE        2635 32 32 358 44% 2692 28%  2822(+187)
26 DiscoCheck 3.7.1       2591 32 32 352 47% 2618 26%  2737(+146)
27 Texel 1.01             2590 32 32 360 45% 2636 24%  2795(+205)
28 Arasan 13.4            2572 32 32 350 48% 2593 26%
29 Arasan 14.0.1          2542 31 31 356 47% 2564 28%
30 GNU Chess 5.50         2539 31 32 352 47% 2562 28%  2770(+231)
31 DiscoCheck 4.0.1       2539 31 31 354 47% 2560 27%
32 Crafty_23.4.JA_xb      2533 32 32 352 51% 2535 23%  2779(+246)
33 gaviota v0.84          2520 32 32 348 51% 2522 22%
34 Crafty_23.5.JA_xb      2505 33 33 352 45% 2550 19%  2793(+288)
35 Rhetoric 1.4           2504 33 33 320 0.5 2503 26%  2720(+216)
36 RedQueen 1.1.2         2502 32 33 354 45% 2549 19%
37 Alfil 12.10 w32        2498 32 32 346 51% 2491 24%  2639(+141)
38 RedQueen 1.1.3 TCEC    2494 33 34 350 46% 2536 19%
39 Rodent 1.00            2486 31 31 344 53% 2465 32%  2690(+204)
40 Rotor 0.7a             2448 31 31 350 49% 2455 27%  2621(+173)
41 Rodent 0.18.0          2442 31 31 344 55% 2406 31%
42 Daydreamer 1.75 JA     2428 32 32 348 48% 2439 26%  2675(+247)
43 cheng3 1.07 JA         2426 32 32 344 49% 2437 22%  2659(+233)
44 GarboChess 3           2424 32 32 346 53% 2402 24%
45 Scorpio_2.7.JA_xb      2419 32 32 344 0.5 2422 23%  2774(+355)
46 Rotor 0.8              2417 32 32 342 49% 2425 27%  2613(+196)
47 gaviota v0.83          2400 33 33 342 48% 2415 21%
48 Sloppy_0.23.JA_xb      2376 31 31 344 48% 2386 28%  2621(+245)
49 Pepito v1.59           2349 33 33 340 49% 2356 22%  2516(+167)
50 Tucano_1.04.AB_xb      2336 33 33 340 51% 2326 21%  2547(+211)
51 Danasah_4.88.JA_xb     2330 32 32 342 48% 2339 26%  2541(+211)
52 DanasahZ_0.4.JA_xb     2319 32 32 338 49% 2328 28%
53 GNU Chess 6.0.2        2312 32 32 340 48% 2323 25%
54 DoubleCheck 2.6 JA     2311 33 33 340 51% 2301 19%
55 Danasah_5.06.JA_xb     2295 32 32 336 54% 2262 29%
56 DoubleCheck 2.7        2293 34 34 340 49% 2295 15%
57 BetsabeII_1.30.JA_xb   2269 33 33 340 52% 2247 17%  2367(+98)
58 Danasah_4.66.JA_xb     2265 33 33 338 53% 2240 24%  2532(+267)
59 Diablo 0.5.1b JA       2257 32 32 340 53% 2235 25%  2385(+128)
60 Typhoon_1.0.r358.JA_xb 2245 33 33 340 51% 2231 19%  2416(+171)
61 GreKo 9.0 JA           2227 33 33 340 53% 2203 19%
62 Greko 8.2              2216 32 32 336 55% 2181 26%  2525(+309)
63 Olithink_5.3.2.JA_xb   2216 34 34 340 52% 2201 17%  2407(+191)
64 GreKo 9.8 AB           2211 33 33 340 48% 2221 23%  2477(+266)
65 Phalanx_XXIII.JA_xb    2200 34 34 340 48% 2217 13%  2373(+173)
66 GreKo_10.0.JA_xb       2190 32 32 340 51% 2182 23%  2491(+301)
67 Sungorus 1.4 JA        2166 34 34 340 48% 2174 16%  2311(+145)
68 TJchess 1.1U           2100 33 34 340 51% 2082 23%  2334(+234)
69 BetsabeII_1.22.JA_xb   2094 35 35 336 56% 2041 16%
70 Natwarlal_0.14.JA_xb   2089 34 34 340 51% 2068 14%  2266(+177)
71 Myrddin_0.86.JA_xb     2080 35 34 340 55% 2030 15%  2366(+286)
72 DoubleCheck 2.3        2075 35 35 340 50% 2065 16%
73 KmtChess_1.21.JA_xb    2047 34 34 340 49% 2050 18%  2286(+239)
74 Jazz 6.40 JA           2047 34 34 340 47% 2064 20%
75 Scidlet_2.61b2.JA_xb   2003 35 35 340 50% 1997 17%
76 Jazz v444 JA           1984 35 35 340 49% 1989 17%  2213(+229)
77 Jazz v5.01 JA          1971 35 35 340 54% 1940 21%  2226(+255)
78 Sjeng_1.12.JA_xb       1830 37 37 338 51% 1808 10%
79 BikJump v1.8           1828 36 36 338 51% 1811 14%
80 AdroitChess0.4 JA      1802 38 38 334 49% 1803 11%  1978(+176)
81 AdroitChess 0.3        1749 38 38 330 50% 1728 14%  2001(+252)
82 Leonidas_r83.JA_xb     1744 37 38 334 53% 1702 16%  1956(+212)
83 ZCT-0.3.2500           1729 39 39 328 51% 1702 11%  2026(+297)
84 BikJump v2.1P          1698 38 38 330 49% 1689 14%  2102(+404)
85 Sjaak_4.68.JA_xb       1698 40 39 324 57% 1608 11%
86 Tscp_1.8.1.AB_xb       1612 40 40 324 50% 1598 10%  1704(+92)
87 Zzzzzz_3.5.1.JA_xb     1572 38 39 322 48% 1578 19%
88 Rocinante 2.0 JA       1512 40 40 318 49% 1519 12%  1602(+90)
89 VIRUTOR CHESS 1.1.4    1368 40 41 314 38% 1479 11%
90 VIRUTOR CHESS 1.1.1    1359 40 41 314 36% 1480 12%
91 Chess for Android      1220 45 47 314 22% 1498  8%
92 Simplex 0.9.8           995 65 14 314  7% 1527  3%  2413(+1418)

Blitzoid test platform:
* Samsung Galaxy Note II @ 1.6 Ghz without downscaling
* 64MB hash tables where selectable
* 4 cpu threads where selectable
* Own books disabled and replaced by Silver Opening Suite positions (20 of 50 played)
* Opening positions played twice with different colors
* Tablebases and pondering off
* GUI: Aart Bik's Chess for Android
* Time control: 5 sec/move


Looking for more kNps with Snapdragon 600: Mission fails!

LG's G2 tablet incorporates a Snapdragon 600 CPU clocked @ 1.7 Ghz. It's not a recent tablet for sure and was commercialized since almost one year.

I feel sorry for my late news because i, just had the opportunity to test this one with Droidfish and Stockfish 5 in the same electronics store.

Snapdragon 600 has 4 cores x 1.7Ghz but very surprisingly it performs much worse compared to Samsung Galaxy Note II with Exynos 4412.

Aritmetics fail here because 1.7 Ghz x 4 cores clearly below 1.6 x 4 cores.

I ran the same test of chess analysis under Droidfish for one minute from intitial position. The result is awful only 439 kNps with LG vs 700 kNps of my Galaxy Note II.

Goodbye LG... Goodbye Snapdragon 1.7 quad core... Goodbye x 4...

Therefore, my latest results with Stockfish 5 are:
Asus Memo Pad with Intel 3745 @ 4x1.33: 747 kNps
Galaxy N7100 with Exynos 4412 @ 4x1.6: 700 kNps
LG G pad with SD600 @ 4x1.7: 439 kNps

Waiting for Intel 3785 now...

Blitzoid chess engine ratings for Android: Calibration time

If i've posted nothing after round 15 doesn't mean the gears were not turning. The overall trend appears to be less elo fluctuations, better score percentages between 45% and 55% and what's more catchy is that the list does not shrink or inflate since round 17.

This means obviously that the experiment is almost at the end and there's nothing more but smallest fine tunings which will only narrow the error margins of the elo calculation.

Maybe it's clever to stop blitzing soon and concentrate to longer time controls and more programs from various platforms using all this testing experience. Yes, that's shifting to RAPIDROID project, based on 30 minutes games or similar.

Meanwhile, soon before the Blitzoid round 20 is finished, i've thought it's time to give an overall update to the only blitz rating list of Android engines available worldwide!

I'd written about my doubt about the possibility that the list is completely underevaluated and might possibly need an uplift.

I've been looking around at SSDF and CCRL lists to extact the engine versions i could compare between Android and Windows.

It appears that there is less power gap between the reference cpu's they are using to test Windows engines and my humble Exynos 4412 running at 1.6ghz x 4 cores.

The power ratio seems to be roughly 3 to 4 times. So, even after adding 250 elo points to Blitzoid, there's still 100 to 200 elo gap remaining.

Some other games played against oldies and tabletop chess computer have also supported this adjustment.

Therefore, i will very soon publish a new list based on around 16K games with a/m +250 points and will probably stop at 20th position on 50 Silver Suite Openings.

I think RAPIDROID will be much more apoealing because it will cover not only Android uci engines but many other programs and machines, from various operating systems and various times. I won't give up remembering the fossiles of computer chess history.