Stockfish customization...

[royb]

I've spent a fair amount of time analyzing positions and games with Stockfish 1.7.1 and have found that the modifications I've made (spelled out below) seem to help the engine spot tactics even more quickly than the default settings. Aggressiveness speaks for itself (value of 185) for helping to spot tactics quickly. However I found that Middlegame and Endgame Mobility helped in a few positions where positional considerations were the issue (avoid taking a pawn because the bishop gets hemmed in (not trapped)).

I have not yet tested these settings in engine vs engine matches to see how many ELO these settings may reduce the playing strength of the engine so please don't think these are going to help in that department.

The settings:

Middlegame Mobility: 110
Endgame Mobility: 110
Aggressiveness: 185

If anyone else finds these useful, fantastic. If not, no harm done!

Roy

[stvs]

hello any suggestion for anti-stonewall or closed positions settings? for example like rybka 3 contemt 40-50 to avoid closed positions with
chain pawns.

[royb]

I have not tried to find settings that avoid getting into closed positions. My guess is that this is best left to the engine authors but that's more of a guess than anything else and it may be that Stockfish has the right set of knobs to do this via these knobs. I will try to play around with this and see where it goes. I suspect that if such settings exist that it may dramatically drop the playing strength for engine vs engine games. That said, it may be very useful for play against humans that try to obtain such positions vs engines.

Roy

[royb]

hello any suggestion for anti-stonewall or closed positions settings? for example like rybka 3 contemt 40-50 to avoid closed positions with
chain pawns.

Another way to combat anti-computer play is to use a gambit opening book. This usually forces the type of position that computers do quite well at...

Roy