How to use Arena3.5.1 Novag Chessboard Option: While Diamond II playing Stockfish 8.

This video highlights a game between a Novag Diamond II ( circa 1997 ) vs. Stockfish 8 ( circa 2016 ) using the software Arena Chess 3.5.1 ( circa 2016 ). Going into technical details of the output information of the software and hardware involved, while using the "Novag-Chessboard" option.
DELL E6500 Windows 10: Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53 GHz 2.54 GHz
RAM 4 GB
Referee ON allows Manual Press of GO key on Novag Board
Human mode requires manual move in Arena GUI board.
Timeline of video:
Option U1H ( Referee on, Human Mode ) start 1:07
Option U1V ( Referee on, Video Mode ) start 8:39
Option U0H ( Referee off, Human Mode ) start 10:55
Option U0V ( Referee off, Video Mode ) start 14:10
Resign display at 15:36
Checkmate display at 16:00
Other Arena Commands at 16:26
The PNG file of the first 27 moves ( until Whites Rook is trapped )
[Event "Computer Match"]
[Site "KZbin"]
[Date "2016.12.16"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Novag Diamond II ( 2s/move )"]
[Black "Stockfish 8 ( 2s/move)"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteELO "~1500"]
[BlackELO "~2300"]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. cxd5 exd5 6. Bg5 Nbd7 7. e3 O-O 8. Bd3 h6 9. Bh4 c5 10. O-O Bxc3 11. bxc3 c4 12. Bf5 Re8 13. Qc2 Qc7 14. Bg3 Qc6 15. Rfb1 Ne4 16. Bf4 Nb6 17. Bxe4 dxe4 18. Ne5 Qd5 19. a4 f6 20. Rb5 Qe6 21. Qxe4 Bd7 22. d5 Qe7 23. d6 Qe6 24. Ra5 Bc6 25. Qd4 fxe5 26. Bxe5 Nd7 27. f4 b6
0-1

[@josephhaas6373]

Thanks for the great video. I just got Arena and Stockfish and am learning how it all works. It was neat to see what you can do with it.

[@paulc1562]

I agree its neat, in 1998 I purchased the Novag Diamond II and when I discovered Arena and Stockfish years later it opened up a whole new world for me. The biggest being I could play a game on Novag II on a level near my strength, then I could export the game into Arena and have stockfish analyze my every move.

[@adibgbs3136]

sir i uploaded my game to arena (stockfish engine) , clicked on analyse, but it did nothing, I saw calculations down the screen but not in the list of moves any solution please ? (thank you for this vid)

[@paulc1562]

How did you import the game into Arena ? ( did you use a cable like in my video I will link ) please the watch video below maybe it will give you some tips to help: importing and analyzing. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaaofWWvgs-efq8

[@dannygjk]

I want to see how the old dedicated chess computer software will do now on today's PC's. The rating boost is what I'm interested in. That machine would probably be rated about 2200 on it's original hardware. On a PC today I bet it would be about 2400.

[@paulc1562]

Yes that's a very good question, first of all you are accurate in your assessment of Novag II's rating its actual ELO rating is around 2108 from this website. And David Kittenger wrote the code on a 8 bit processor. schach-computer.info/wiki/index.php/Novag_Diamond_II So I am sure if same code was put on a current PC, it would process more nodes per second, and thus potentially find better moves given the same amount of time. If you find any answers on the internet, please post in these comments Thanks for the feedback!!

[@billmorrigan386]

Great video that interlinks an old machine with the Arena program. A couple of points. I'm surprised that Novag computes only 4000 nodes per second. It's too low a number. This machine was evaluated in old chess computer magazines at Elo 2170 while Saitek G2100 was evaluated at 100 points Elo below (2020-2050 Elo). Maybe it has to do with hashtables and openings but it looks to me they are basically at the same level of performance, which is no more than 50 Elo apart. Now than, I totally disagree with Wiki ratings of chess programs, as I think they are undervalue actual ratings by 200 points! This also means that Novag at 2 seconds per move is not Elo 1500 in my opinion but around 1700 Elo points. My second point is Stockfish 8 on your PC computes around 500,000 nodes per two seconds (=250,000 N/s) but its a new engine architecture in terms of selectivity upon brute force and its far more advanced. What I mean is that to go depth 15 or 20 plies (half-moves) is just one second for Stockfish engines. They trim variations more efficiently. An old machine would need millions to billions of nodes to reach such depth. So, they are impossible to compare by nodes per second because new engines are far more selective: At the same number of nodes per second, modern engines will totally destroy old engines. The number of nodes or speed of computing is tied mainly to the CPU frequency. On my PC, when 7 CPUs (clocked at 4 GHz x 7=28 GHz) are all engaged, the speed of Stockfish engines is around 10,000,000 N/s. At 250,000 N/s Stockfish 8 should perform at Elo around 2700!!! I'm not kidding it should be around Elo 2700!!! Not at Elo 2300!!! However, if Novag computes 500,000 nodes per second, it would be equivalent to Elo 2350.

[@paulc1562]

The time is coming and maybe is now here, that ELO ratings will be obsolete because they are relative ratings based on wins and losses in games with other chess players, rather than an absolute rating. The absolute rating will be coming when computers gets so good that they can rate each of our games, and hence a career of games based on quality of moves compared to "perfection". In this way we will be finally be able to say who played the best chess Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, Magnus Carlsen, ect... So I just looked on this website: ccrl.chessdom.com/ccrl/4040/ And it says Stockfish has a ranking of 3494 ( as of 8/15/2020 ) are you saying this ELO is really 3700 in compared with human rankings?

[@billmorrigan386]

@@paulc1562 Yeah, great points. Indeed, I think a program can rate people much better than Elo (or its improved Glicko version). In fact, they've already implemented such a system on chesscom. It's called CAPS. It evaluates the accuracy of moves over many games. CAPS is of course not perfect at all. Still, I like the job they did although I did criticize a few points. Yet, win/lose points that Elo systems uses are not very bad either. At the end of the day, all types of sports need rating systems. I don't think that these should go away but improvements are probably needed. I fully agree with this. As to engine ratings, yes, that's exactly what I meant. Stockfish 9 is probably around 3700 FIDE Elo; Stockfish 6 would be below that, probably around 3550. And we are on Stockfish 11 at this moment. Their CCRL ELO of Stockfish engines is roughly 200 points below that of human FIDE. So it became not 'directly comparable to humans', as they put it. I don' t like the way they put it. It's misleading to most of the people, even to professional players.

[@paulc1562]

@@billmorrigan386 Yes, I never understood what they meant by "not directly comparable to humans", I am glad you enlightened me on that. Now about the 4,000 node per second of the Novag Diamond II that you say seemed "too low", is there anyway we can go to a website for an approximate nodes per second of the old dedicated computer hardware like Novag Diamond II? I tried this website but it does not give any information: www.schach-computer.info/wiki/index.php?title=Novag_Diamond_II What would your guess be as to the NPS of Novag Diamond II?, I guess it can never change because it can't be ported to new hardware like Stockfish can, and why do you think that Novag is telling us its 4,000 NPS when its not? Or maybe we have to add up all the NPS from the screen at 4:47 which would be about 4000x7 = 28,000 NPS???

[@billmorrigan386]

​@@paulc1562 I think everything is correct: Novag computes 4000 nodes (=positions) per second on average. In my opinion it is pretty decent as far as dedicated chess computers go. It will compute about 40,000 positions (nodes) in ten seconds. It's good. Mine computes about 3000 N/s (the Saitek GK2100). The King Performance (new powerful dedicated chess computer), for example, allows to set level on the overall nodes computed. That is, if 5000 nodes for one move is too strong (it will take it 0.1 sec. to compute that much), it can be set to no more than 2000 nodes (positions) and all the way to 125 nodes (positions). At the highest setting the King Performance computes 16,000 positions (or nodes), then you have to choose a different type of level, say, seconds per move but the King Performance computes about 40000 positions per second (or N/s) and there will be too big a jump in strength for amateurs, which I don't care about. Anyway it's targeting serious players or, to be honest, it is just targeting aficionados who collect things since it will be too strong for them. If you are a FIDE Candidate Master, you definitely need a stronger machine like the King Performance or just Shredder/Fritz, otherwise (below FIDE 2000) Novag should be fine in my opinion. Stockfish is no good to play against. Shredder and Fritz are better. They simulate Elo and human play well but not really well. At low levels they are too weak, and at the highest levels they are slightly above of what they are supposed to be (for Shredder the highest rating simulation is 2600, for my Fritz it is around 2700 but I don't think grandmasters with the same Elo would be able to play successfully against such settings). Stockfish is just for analysis of games and for researching openings and preparing for tournaments. It can be installed to any software to play against. It's just that I don't see any point in playing against it. The standard shells (interfaces) on top of Stockfish engine are usually bad in my opinion. Yours, Arena, is probably the best, excluding Fritz and Chessbase. I prefer the latter two options. Also, I don't see any real need to connect a dedicated chess machine to a PC but opinions differ. And a funny note: it's actually difficult to find a weak engine nowadays to play against!!! Even the King Performance is a bit intimidating to me. I think it will play as a grandmaster! As of now I can't even beat my Saitek GK2100 (Kasparov Travel Champion 2100) at its higher settings. It also has a decent opening library. And I'm not that good at openings. I mean, usually my opening knowledge is inferior to that of the GK2100 that has certain openings up to 15 moves ahead in its library. Yours have even a bigger library. If I'm not mistaken it is about 100,000 positions. More than enough in my opinion before we go to a highly professional level of opening libraries. Of course, I need the full library for preparations and I have it but I will never want to play against it. I don't think any grandmaster will fancy himself (even a champion) playing against the full opening library that exists nowadays.

[@billmorrigan386]

I guess I also need to make it clear why I like old engines and dedicated chess computers. Why not simply use Fritz and Shredder all the time? Indeed, we can simply slide the Elo toggle to any setting we like. Well, I do use these programs and play against them but they don't play like old engines. What they do is this: they play 1000 times better than Magnus Carlsen and the Elo toggle means they will deliberately make weaker moves and not the best moves. This weakness will depend on the Elo number I chosen in settings for the rated game. The problem is this: they play like Elo 3000+ and never allow me to crush them by delivering a mate, gaining a lot of material (like trapping a Queen) because they see everything with 10 moves ahead, and they allow me me to have only crumbs, i.e. I can only amass my advantage very, very slowly. For example, if I set Shredder to Elo 2000 and start to amass may advantage, it will be very gradual, even if I devise a 6 move trap (12 half-moves), it will see it instantly; it will see even a 10 move trap, and it won't allow it unless I will gain only a small advantage like +1 or +0.5. If I devise a mating net, Shredder won't allow it. Never. And it's not fun. In real life it's different. People may overlook 4-5 move tactics. Old dedicated chess computers have a horizon effect. For example, the Saitek GK2100 doesn't usually see past 5-6 (10-12 half-moves) moves ahead even despite its selective algorithm. It means I can devise a trap with a mate or destroy completely if I'm lucky enough by contriving, say, a 6 (12 half-moves) move tactics. This will never work on Shredder. It will see everything and will never allow me to gain anything more than the smallest advantage.

[@nikhilpurohit4017]

sir can we play with black in arena?

[@paulc1562]

Yes for example in my video Novag Diamond II is playing white, and Stockfish is playing black, but at the start of the game if I hit the button "color", then press go, then Stockfish will make the first move as white, thus changing the colors.

[@godzillazumagod9146]

Cool video.

[@paulc1562]

Thanks for the positive feedback, only true chess enthusiasts, and computer nerds appreciate that this video is "gold baby, gold". It took me a long time to get this video just the way I wanted it. Its amazing that the 1998 circa Novag Diamond II can still interact with the current Arena chess software.

[@emilehobo]

I'm not a nerd or whatever, but you've got a great sense of humor.

[@paulc1562]

I said, "for Computer nerds and Chess enthusiasts this video is Gold, baby, Gold " but I am glad you liked my sense of humor in the video, even though your not a nerd. Its good that humor can appeal to a wide audience. Thanks or the nice feedback.

[@shottysteve]

Emile Michel Hobo you look like a nerd