Engine-Test Experiment on Lichess

[Solista]

The most important thing is: Lichess has its own rules. If I don't get Elo points for my victories then I don't want to continue playing. Why should I play?

There is a list of online bots on Lichess. There are only a few bots over 2900 Elo playing. Many of them say “I don’t accept this time control”. Or VariantBot: This only plays special chess variants. Yes, there are still 6 ProteusSF bots, but they don't accept any challenges. Then under current games (just now) I see some bots that are not in the online list, such as: some Eman bots. Why aren't these bots included in the online list so I can see them there?

One more thing: I play mainly to improve my books. That's why I prefer a GUI (like Banksia GUI) where I can see everything: book moves, notation, engine info. During the game, I study where I can improve something in the book (my fun ).

[IbaiBuR]

In BotLi you can see everything too, book moves, engine eval, TB hits, PV, NPS, NPM..., apart from that you can follow the games of your bot in a web browser instead of the GUI, thats why I really see no point in currently using Banksia apart from the fact that it is maybe "easier" to setup for new users.

Here is some sample output of one of my bots picking opponents automatically and also playing:

Code: Select all

Matchmaking type: rapid_3     TC: 10+0     Rated     Variant: standard
Skipping Intron014 (-15) as white because it is playing ...
Skipping Occhessadvanced (-15) as white because it is playing ...
Skipping caissa-x (-20) as white because it is playing ...
Skipping UltimateL (-22) as white because it is playing ...
Challenging YoBot_v2 (-25) as white to rapid_3 ...

ID: oH8ZCV4T     BOT ZugzwangBot (2947)   -   BOT YoBot_v2 (2923)     TC: 10+0     Rated     Variant: Standard
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
Book:    1.   c4           25 %
Book:    2.   Nc3         100 %
Book:    3.   Nf3         100 %
Book:    4.   e4           90 %
Book:    5.   d3          100 %
Book:    6.   a3          100 %
Book:    7.   bxc3        100 %
Book:    8.   g3          100 %
Book:    9.   Nh4         100 %
Book:    10.  Rb1         100 %
Engine:  11.  Bg2         +0.50     43/43      Nodes: 122.0 M     NPS:  13.8 M     MT: 00:08.9     Hash:  15.1 %     TB:  53.1 k
Engine:  12.  Nf5         +0.43     32/41      Nodes: 147.9 M     NPS:  12.7 M     MT: 00:11.7     Hash:  20.3 %     TB:  28.6 k
Engine:  13.  O-O         +0.64     36/45      Nodes: 565.4 M     NPS:  12.7 M     MT: 00:44.4     Hash:  71.8 %     TB:  41.5 k
Engine:  14.  Be3         +0.42     36/50      Nodes: 291.6 M     NPS:  12.7 M     MT: 00:23.0     Hash:  41.2 %     TB:  27.8 k
Engine:  15.  g4          +0.37     35/46      Nodes: 161.3 M     NPS:  13.2 M     MT: 00:12.2     Hash:  23.5 %     TB:  11.7 k
Engine:  16.  f3          +0.45     39/49      Nodes:   1.1 G     NPS:  11.8 M     MT: 01:32.0     Hash:  94.4 %     TB:  13.8 k

For me, this is more than enough, I watch the games live in a browser and if I want to know the eval and see it in the browser I just use commands

(!eval, !printeval..). If your opponent is using BotLi too you will get his HW info with some commands too. (!cpu, !ram).

All the Eman Bots are included here: https://lb.chessnibble.com/bot

[Solista]

I would rather use a GUI, Banksia is not optimal (if there is another one I will switch).

Your Lichess bot leaderboard is not available on Lichess. There is no official link there. I follow the official list available here: https://lichess.org/player/bots

This is the normal list of bots that are currently online (I don't care about other bots). Anyone who isn't standing here doesn't want to be seen. That's ok for me too. A friend of mine who recently registered at Lichess was also not on this list. We tried to find out why this is so. We then found out that there needs to be some information in the player profile, e.g. the country the player is from and a few lines of information for other bots. Anyone who wishes to remain completely anonymous will not be included in this list.

[IbaiBuR]

Does it really matter that it is official or not?

It has nothing to do with the list of available online bots, it is a rating list, not a list of bots that are online.

I am not sure about the website, but there is also an API endpoint to find online bots, I dont know if the problem still remains there, you can try yourself, making a request is very simple.

The endpoint is this one: https://lichess.org/api#tag/Bot/operation/apiBotOnline

This is the list I get so far using the endpoint, I dont know if it differs from the lichess list tho.

[Solista]

You should see everything from the user's side. In order to play with LiBot, an access must first be programmed with Python, then everything else with the engine, etc. That is not easy for eyeryone.

Some people already have a problem playing via the Banksia GUI. Because they don't know how to do it. I had to explain everything to my friend in detail. He couldn't have done it alone and without guidance.

Many of the bot users on Lichess are programmers who also program their own engines. Lichess offers you a good testing environment.

For me, who only plays Lichess occasionally, only the online list on Lichess is interesting. This is the only place I can see who I can currently challenge. I've already mentioned it: Some bots don't appear in the list because the player's profile is incomplete. Why is that? Probably because some people like to travel anonymously. Edit your profile correctly, indicate which country you come from and write a short sentence for the community. Is that difficult? Then I can also see such bots in the list.

[IbaiBuR]

It is as simple as editing a yaml file and moving some files (you dont have to code and you dont need programming knowledge), but yes, it is more difficult than Banksia probably.

And you have a guide in the readme too.

Somehow people do not want to add a description? I dont really know, I always set a descripcion for my bots.

If you want to see if a bot that you wish to play with is online or not and it does not have a description, you can follow him in the website and it will show in the connected friends tab if he is online, but I dont think this is what you want.

[Solista]

Thanks!

I think I can do it if I want it. I'm currently interested in improving my BIN Book. It plays quite well, but I want to make it even better. But when I win, I also want to see a reward for it. If I win a rated game against a strong player, I want to see his Elo fall and mine rise. That does not happen. If I repeat a variation from the book up to move 22 (grandmasters even know deeper variations) why am I not rewarded for it? I suspect that the server doesn't like the fact that I have such long variants in the book. If that's the case, then I won't play Lichess anymore because there are a lot of good variants in my book that even go up to move 50.

[IbaiBuR]

Yes, I completely understand your point, it is just that I dont know why that happens, I dont know if it is related to the Glicko rating system Lichess uses or if it is just a bug.

About the long variants theory, I dont think it is because of that because I have seen sometimes games only won with the opening book till mate with my bots (engine was not used, only book during the whole game) and I got rewarded for it.

[Solista]

I also played from the book until checkmate, recently, and got my points. In the case described, I won the first game with this variant and also got my points. When the same variation was repeated a little later (until move 22), I was given no points and my opponent lost no points. I don't always want to win with the same variation, but the variation is in my book and I think the opponent should do something against it, not me. I would also like to play this way against other opponents, maybe they play this variant differently. It is clear to me that I will continue to use my book. If that happens again, I'll definitely stop playing Lichess.

[Solista]

Here is a list of bots currently playing live. There are only 5 bots with more than 2900 Elo. More strong players can be seen on PlayChess. If there are 5000 bots but none of them play, then are they dead bots.