How do I weaken Stockfish in Chessbase?

[Hagen]

I'm playing with Stockfish 2.01 64bit in Chessbase Fritz 10 interface. I'd like to know if there's anybody here who can tell me how to weaken Stockfish considerably so I can play a reasonable game? Friend mode works fine but I'd like the chance to play Stockfish using only one color either White or Black in game after game. In any case, I'd love to know which parameters I need to change to make Stockfish weaker. Any ideas? Thanks.

[HumbleProgrammer]

I play Stockfish for fun during lunch, and have found that using WinBoard's "Time Odds" feature works well for me. I typically using 5:1 odds, which means that if I'm playing "Game in 15min + 5sec", StockFish only gets "3min + 1sec" for the game. Obviously, the best ratio will depend on your playing strength and the horsepower of the machine you play on...your mileage may vary.

Cheers!
Humble Programmer
,,,^..^,,,

[Jeremy Bernstein]

I play Stockfish for fun during lunch, and have found that using WinBoard's "Time Odds" feature works well for me. I typically using 5:1 odds, which means that if I'm playing "Game in 15min + 5sec", StockFish only gets "3min + 1sec" for the game. Obviously, the best ratio will depend on your playing strength and the horsepower of the machine you play on...your mileage may vary.

Cheers!
Humble Programmer
,,,^..^,,,

You could give yourself improved odds by creating a start position in which Stockfish is down material. Stockfish then plays at normal strength (which is what you actually want, right? You don't want Stockfish to intentionally blunder, human-like or no).

Jeremy

[Hagen]

Actually, I *do* want to start games from the initial position. So, and I'm using Chessbase, not Winboard or Arena. There's got to be parameters that helps me weaken it considerably so I can create personalities that I can choose from. Does anybody know which parameters in Stockfish weakens its playing style? I would really appreciate that. Thanks.

[bhandelman]

Actually, I *do* want to start games from the initial position. So, and I'm using Chessbase, not Winboard or Arena. There's got to be parameters that helps me weaken it considerably so I can create personalities that I can choose from. Does anybody know which parameters in Stockfish weakens its playing style? I would really appreciate that. Thanks.

The features you are looking for need to be built into the engine, and they are not present in Stockfish. The Fritz gui just talks to the engine using the UCI protocol, it can't limit the engine if the engine does not contain the limit strength setting. You will need to use a different engine if you want that feature.

[Hagen]

I disagree that Stockfish hasn't been built with those capabilities. Because I've successfully tested Stockfish using Friend mode in Chessbase Fritz. If you're correct then Friend mode shouldn't work. I remember Fritz 6 a long time ago was supposed to obey the Friend mode level after playing the engine a few times and adjust it's playing strength relative to your own. Fritz 6 didn't adjust it's strength and continued to bash me without hesitation. After they issued the bug fix Fritz 6 obeyed the Friend mode level setting. So it's been built into the engine. Otherwise Stockfish should simply disregard Friend mode and play at full strength. So the parameters are in there in Stockfish...I'm just waiting for someone to tell me which one adjusts the playing strength so I can manually adjust it to my liking to create personalities.

[Macarel]

I would advise using Arena but since you insist on using fritz I seem to recall (sorry I'm on to fritz12 on my windows comp and use it very rarely) there should be a fixed depth option, lower the number of half-moves to weaken it, I think it is in the "Game" menu (sorry for the vague memories also mine was the french translation. I hope someone who actually uses it can tell you more).