OpenChess

I'd like to see the a lot of options in future Ivanhoe/Houdini versions - the one that allows the testers to change piece values properly like the one in Chessmaster.

One of the tester tweaked Ivanhoe piece values to get 4 extra right moves in STS 3 and reported 19 elo increase over the normal version and he's excited to experiment with other STS to get optimised strength.

For 3200+ engines and finding it *real* hard to improve further, it may be a good idea to play with piece values.

-----> Robust Design!

I'd like to see the a lot of options in future Ivanhoe/Houdini versions - the one that allows the testers to change piece values properly like the one in Chessmaster.

How does Chessmaster do it? Rybka and IvanHoe both now have the ability to change piece values separately for each colour. However, neither allows two pieces of the same colour and type (except bishops) to be given different values (that is, the white knights on b1 and g1 must be given the same material value). IvanHoe has a few more weighting options: material, king safety, and pawns (though perhaps "static" and "mobility" are missing here).

BB+ wrote:

I'd like to see the a lot of options in future Ivanhoe/Houdini versions - the one that allows the testers to change piece values properly like the one in Chessmaster.

How does Chessmaster do it? Rybka and IvanHoe both now have the ability to change piece values separately for each colour. However, neither allows two pieces of the same colour and type (except bishops) to be given different values (that is, the white knights on b1 and g1 must be given the same material value). IvanHoe has a few more weighting options: material, king safety, and pawns (though perhaps "static" and "mobility" are missing here).

This is Chessmaster 11 parameters:

• Kings Pawn (myp)
  Kings Knight (myn)
  Kings Bishop (myb)
  Kings Rook (myr)
  Kings Queen (myq)
  Opponents Pawn (opp)
  Opponents Knight (opn)
  Opponents Bishop (opb)
  Opponents Rook (opr)
  Opponents Queen (opq)
  
  Kings Center Control (mycc)
  Kings Mobility (mymob)
  Kings King Safety (myks)
  Kings Passed Pawns (mypp)
  Kings Pawn Weakness (mypw)
  Opponents Center Control (opcc)
  Opponents Mobility (opmob)
  Opponents King Safety (opks)
  Opponents Passed Pawns (oppp)
  Opponents Pawn Weakness (oppw)
  
  Attacker vs. Defender (avd)
  Strength of Play (sop)
  Randomness of Play (rnd)
  Selective Search (sel)
  Contempt for Draw (cfd)
  Max Search Depth (md)