Is there an engine that plays too aggressively?

[alext180]

Because if there is, I want it. Does anyone know of a UCI engine that plays speculative sacrifices or plays like Tal? I know there are "aggressive" engines like Junior or Stockfish, but they are reasonably aggressive, they hardly ever play sacrifices or speculative moves unless it leads to mate or a material gain, I'm looking for an engine that will give up an advantage for the chance to crush someone by opening up the position with a sacrifice, one that understands compensation well. Even engines with "Suicidal" play styles rarely play speculative sacrifices. I've only seen it once, and it was beautiful. I heard Gambit Tiger 2.0 was pretty aggressive, but I never found a UCI version anywhere.

Preferably an engine that works with Arena.

Thanks!

[Jeremy Bernstein]

Try Glass: http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/glass/index.htm

I don't know if the Aggressive personality is going to "play like Tal", but it's highly configurable and you can probably have some fun with it.

jb

[Jeremy Bernstein]

Try Glass: http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/glass/index.htm

I don't know if the Aggressive personality is going to "play like Tal", but it's highly configurable and you can probably have some fun with it.

jb

Thanks Jeremy . Is there like a maximum "aggression" value in the configuration file for the personalities? Default is 100, aggressive sets it to 150, can I set it to like 500 or is there a maximum for aggressive play?

No idea, but they have a fairly comprehensive manual which should document the value ranges. If not, well, experimentation is half the fun, right?

Also maybe check out ProDeo 1.85: http://www.top-5000.nl/prodeo185.htm. Ed supplies a "Tal" personality. again, no idea how it compares to the original.

jb

[lucasart]

Try Glass: http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/glass/index.htm

I don't know if the Aggressive personality is going to "play like Tal", but it's highly configurable and you can probably have some fun with it.

jb

Thanks Jeremy . Is there like a maximum "aggression" value in the configuration file for the personalities? Default is 100, aggressive sets it to 150, can I set it to like 500 or is there a maximum for aggressive play?

EDIT: Wow that's amazing... After giving this engine a few tests on aggressive mode, it actually plays like Tal. It values completely losing positions as good because it has an opportunity to attack, like in this position from a Tal game I give to supposedly aggressive engines to see what they would play here, every engine I've tested this with goes for Nb3 or Nf3, valuing whites position as superior. However, Tal played Ne6 and the opponent didn't take because of the scary looking Qh5+ and dxe6, but it's actually safe to take because in the end black's king escapes. But the Glass engine, seeing the opportunity to attack, plays Ne6 here.

The reason why engines do not like Ne6 is because it is objectively inferior. Today's engines are far superior to even Mikhail Tal, especially in tactics. Ne6 is simply met with fxe6, and despite the complications it creates, there's no forceful win for white. In fact black stands better with best play after Ne6 and fxe6. The problem is that it's very hard to find the "best play" in black's position, and it's very easy for a human, playing over the board, to blunder here with the black pieces here. That's why Tal played such moves with great success.
[FEN "r1b1k2r/1pq1bpp1/p6p/3Pp3/2BN4/8/PPP1Q1PP/2KR3R w 0 1"]
1. Ne6? fxe6
Probably a better move here is the simple and boring Nf3. But if I was playing a blitz game on freechess, I would choose Ne6 without a doubt

[Breevido]

how did you manage to play the engine? I have downloaded it and in the folder there are 4 application file to be runned. But each of them simply open a prompt window and do anything, what should i do?