Andrea's perfect performance

At least I know the clan is developing. Or at least, Mr. Darwin's theory is applicable to my genes.

Because I wasn't able to do it when I was still studying. Yeah, of course, she does not have Ms. Goloy or Mr. Balog as teachers. But, heck. She's just 6.

Turns out, she perfected all her exams. Every single one of them. Even the goddarn PE. Just joking.

What I don't understand is how she gets these things. When all she does all day is watch Spongebob, Mr. Bean, El Tigre, Dora, Spongebob. Oh, I mentioned that already. There are times I worry about her because instead of studying her lessons, she would tinker on my laptop, trying to find "what's new in encarta", or "Where's my stronghold (her own designed castle in the Stronghold game?"

Forgive the proud parent.

Eventually you'll get there.

Just be smarter than your kids, or else....

...they will come to you one day and ask something you aren't able to answer immediately, and they will retort "I thought you're intelligent.... (bangs the door).... You ruined my day! It was a wonderful day. Now, you ruined it."

That's Andrea. Some days, you want to strangle her. Some days, you are on top of the world.

It's true. Rybka 3 > Cyclone 2.3

I organized a chess engine tournament in my laptop. It featured 24 of my chess engines. Hosted in Fritz 11 environment, it followed the chessbase swiss tournament format of nine rounds. As a result, of course, not all engines will be paired against each other. Here is the top 10:

engines Sta. Rosa City, Laguna 2009

1 Fritz 11 8.5/9
2 Cyclone 2.3 7.0/7
3 Rybka 3 32-bit 7.0/8
4 Hydra v.8 7.0/9
5 Rybka 2.1c 32-bit 6.0/9
6 Rybka 3 Dynamic 32-bit 5.5/7
7 Fruit 2.3.1 5.5/7
8 Fritz 10 5.0/6
9 Twisted Logic 20080620 5.0/7 (a young Filipino engineer wrote this program)
10 Twisted Logic 0.065e37 5.0/7

Other engines that were included:

Glaurung 1.2.1 4.5/8
Toga II 1.3x4 4.5/9
Glaurung 1.2.1 SMP 3.5/7
Zappa Mexico II 3.5/8
Rybka 2.3 32-bit 3.0/7
Grapefruit 1.0 beta 2.5/8
Naum 2.0 2.0/7
Twisted Logic 0.065e35 1.0/6
Toga II 1.4 beta5c 1.0/8
Gambit Fruit 1.0 Beta 4bx 1.0/9
Comet B68 0.5/6
Crafty 20.14 w32 0.5/7
Rybka 2.2 32-bit 0.0/6
Fritz 5.32 0.0/6

Because according to most lists, Rybka 3 is the strongest engine today with elo reaching more than 3190, it is an odd thing for Cyclone 2.3 to be at number 2. Fritz 11's firts place finish can be forgiveable, considering that the environment is Chessbase. Also, Fritz 11's rating (3008) is usually second or third to Rybka 3 and Deep Shredder. Naum 4 (release last December 2008 is recently seen at number 2. Deep Shredder 11 wasn't included in the tournament because I got my DS11 late already.

Therefore, I staged an engine match between Rybka 3 and Cyclone 2.3 in this manner: 6 games, with hash table and opening book controlled. The result is clear. Rybka won 4 games and drawn 2 games with Cyclone 2.3, for a +280 elo rating. According to a recent CEGT list, Cyclone's (version 2.2) rating is at 2862.

Another limitation here is that the uci engine allowed at Fritz 11 can only accommodate the 32-bit version of the engines.