There are some secret settings when applied to Firebird 1.1 that make it much stronger:
the first is what Dr. W. D suggested which is:
PH=64 Pawn=120,knight=bishop=325,rook=600,queen=1170,bish pair=65 Verification Reduction=8
Then there is my CS_6 settings which are:
PH=64, pawnvalue=100,knight=bishop=300,rook=500, queen=900,bishppair=66,Verification Reduction=8
In nunn 20 positions suite +3s per move on Arena 4 cpu ponder=off , results are:
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FireBird_11_in_CS6 - Rybka 4 w32 : 20.5/40 10-9-21 (=====1110===0000=====0=11=1=11=0==0==110) 51%
FireBird_11_DrWD - Rybka 4 w32 : 21.0/40 12-10-18 (=10101===10=10==10=10===010=0=11=1=1==0=) 53%
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FireBird_11_DrWD - Rybka 4 w32 : 10.5/19 4-2-13 (1===1=1=0======10==) 55%
-----------------FireBird_11_in_CS6-----------------
FireBird_11_in_CS6 - Rybka 4 w32 : 11.5/19 6-2-11 (=0=1======1111=10==) 61%
All tests above 4 cpu p=ff 32 bit. 256Hash
Just 2 more games to go and rybka 4 has already lost both matches.
I know .. not enough games but Dr W D has done his own testing and confirmed much better results than the default.
My theory is that Firebird 1.1 was strong but needed to be tuned , while FB1.2, FB1.3 changes were not necessarily for the better.