The Unbalanced Human Openings XXL 2022 project (UHO XXL 2022)

The UHO XXL openings were made for the Stockfish Framework. There, the tests, using classical openings,
have reached draw-rates around 90%, which is a lot, lot too much for statistically valid results, 
especially,because in the Framework, where SF devs, which are close in strength, are tested versus the 
current SF master.
In my AntiDraw openings-collection (https://www.sp-cc.de/anti-draw-openings.htm), some very good working 
UHO openings-sets are included, but the problem is: They are all too small for the SF Framework, where 
some tests can easily have 200000 games or more.
So, UHO openings are needed, with at least 100000, better more, different opening-lines. So, I decided
to develop such UHO XXL openings. What have I done?

Step 1: Built a database out of all games since 1945 of the Megabase 2022 (around 8 million human games) 
and 3 million human games (2019-2021) out of the LiChess Elite-Database (filtered all (standard) games from 
lichess to only keep games by players rated 2400+ against players rated 2200+, excluding bullet games.).

Step 2: Deleted all games out of this 11 million human games database, which were starting from a FEN 
(Chess960). Delete all comments out of the games. Delete all games with less than 15 moves.

Step 3: Deleted all played moves beyond 8 moves / 16 plies. Delete all games, where not both queens are 
still on the board in the endposition.

Step 4: Removed all games with an endposition, that already is in the file (remove all doubles). 
Result: 3.4 million opening-lines with different endpositions, all 8 moves/16 plies deep.

Step 5: Deleted all Tags, replace them with 7 empty standard Tags. Add the ECO-Code Tag. Setting all game 
results to 1/2-1/2.

Step 6: Pre-filtered all endpositions with KomodoDragon 2.6 (1 sec/move on Quadcore), then deleted all 
lines with endposition-eval out of the interval [+0.70;+2.99]

1129590 lines remaining

Step 7: Evaluated all pre-filtered endpositions with KomodoDragon 2.6 (8.5 sec/move on Quadcore),
then deleted all lines with endposition-eval out of the interval [+1.00;+1.99]

*** This evaluation was done with nearly 3x more thinking-time (8.5 sec/move) (same hardware) and the 
much stronger KomodoDragon 2.6 (instead of KomodoDragon 1.0 and 1 sec/move for old UHO XXL). So the 
evaluations of the endpositions are much better and deeper! ***

*** IMPORTANT: KomodoDragon 2.6 shows evals, which are around +0.20 higher, than KomodoDragon 1.0 does, 
which I used for evaluating the old UHO XXL openings. So, the Eval-intervals in the new UHO XXL 2022 are 
+0.20 higher... ***

663273 lines remaining

Filtered 8 Unbalanced Human Opening files with increasing evals and made additional EPD-files out of these
rawdata-file:

UHO_XXL_2022_+1.00_+1.29 = 284039 lines
UHO_XXL_2022_+1.10_+1.39 = 253850 lines (+14% bigger than (old) UHO_XXL_+0.90_+1.19)
UHO_XXL_2022_+1.20_+1.49 = 226631 lines 
UHO_XXL_2022_+1.30_+1.59 = 203428 lines
UHO_XXL_2022_+1.40_+1.69 = 180462 lines 
UHO_XXL_2022_+1.50_+1.79 = 159694 lines
UHO_XXL_2022_+1.60_+1.89 = 139237 lines
UHO_XXL_2022_+1.70_+1.99 = 123653 lines

(*** UHO_MEGA_2022_+1.10_+1.49 = 321415 lines = +44% bigger than (old) UHO_XXL_+0.90_+1.19 (223081 lines)) ***

(compared to old UHO XXL, the new UHO XXL 2022 files contain around +13% more lines)

Why so many different openings-sets? At the moment, the first intervals of should work best in 
the Stockfish Framework, but if Stockfish gains more strength and the hardware gets faster in the future, 
the draw-rates will raise again. Then an openings-set with a higher eval-interval can be chosen, to lower 
the draw-rates again into a valid range of 45%-65%. This concept of different sets with increasing 
eval-intervals was developed by me (and already used in my AntiDraw openings collections) and it makes it 
possible to make the draw-rate controllable and keep it in a valid range of 45%-65%. So, these openings
will work in the present and in the future (faster hardware and stronger engines raise the draw-rate!) and
with different test-setups (longer thinking-times or more used threads raise the draw-rate, too). 
How cool is that?

Important information: Because pgn-extract always keeps the first appearance of one opening-endposition and
removes all following doubles, the most common human openings are at the beginning of the openings-files with
higher probability and the more "exotic" human opening-lines are at the end of the openings-files with
higher probability. Because of this and the fact, that my UHO XXL-files are really huge, it could make sense to
cut the files at the end off, if not so many opening-lines are needed.



Tests: AMD Ryzen 3900 12-core (24 threads) notebook with 32GB RAM. 20 games are played simultaneously
Singlethread, TurboBoost-mode switched off, Hash: 128MB per engine
GUI: Cutechess-cli
Tablebases: None for engines, 5 Syzygy for cutechess-cli
Thinking-time: 60sec+600ms
Engines: Stockfish 220328 va. Stockfish 14.1

Each openings-set played 10000 games (each opening replayed with reversed colours, of course)

- (old) UHO_XXL_+0.90_+1.19 (the openings, used in Stockfish Framework right now, for comparsion)
- UHO_XXL_2022_+100_+129 (mention, the evals of new KomodoDragon 2.6 are around +0.20 higher!)
- UHO_XXL_2022_+110_+139
- UHO_XXL_2022_+120_+149
- UHO_XXL_2022_+130_+159
- UHO_MEGA_2022_+110_+149

Here the final results of the testruns (calculated by ORDO):

(old) UHO_XXL_+0.90_+1.19 (223081 lines) for comparsion:
     Program                     Elo    +    - Games    Score   Av.Op.  Draws
   1 Stockfish 220328 avx2    : 3842    2    2 10000    55.9 %   3800   46.5 %
   2 Stockfish 14.1 211028    : 3800    2    2 10000    44.1 %   3842   46.5 %
Games        : 10000 (finished)(SF 220328: +3267,=4654,-2079)
White Wins   : 5274 (52.7 %)
Black Wins   : 72 (0.7 %)
Draws        : 4654 (46.5 %)
***************************************************************************
UHO_XXL_2022_+100_+129:
     Program                     Elo    +    - Games    Score   Av.Op.  Draws
   1 Stockfish 220328 avx2    : 3844    2    2 10000    56.2 %   3800   57.2 %
   2 Stockfish 14.1 211028    : 3800    2    2 10000    43.8 %   3844   57.2 %
Games        : 10000 (finished)(SF 220328: +2757,=5722,-1521)
White Wins   : 4189 (41.9 %)
Black Wins   : 89 (0.9 %)
Draws        : 5722 (57.2 %)
***************************************************************************
UHO_XXL_2022_+110_+139:
     Program                     Elo    +    - Games    Score   Av.Op.  Draws
   1 Stockfish 220328 avx2    : 3843    2    2 10000    56.1 %   3800   50.2 %
   2 Stockfish 14.1 211028    : 3800    2    2 10000    43.9 %   3843   50.2 %
Games        : 10000 (finished)(SF 220328: +3106,=5016,-1878)
White Wins   : 4892 (48.9 %)
Black Wins   : 92 (0.9 %)
Draws        : 5016 (50.2 %)
***************************************************************************
UHO_XXL_2022_+120_+149:
     Program                     Elo    +    - Games    Score   Av.Op.  Draws
   1 Stockfish 220328 avx2    : 3842    2    2 10000    56.0 %   3800   43.1 %
   2 Stockfish 14.1 211028    : 3800    2    2 10000    44.0 %   3842   43.1 %
Games        : 10000 (finished)(SF 220328: +3446,=4310,-2244)
White Wins   : 5629 (56.3 %)
Black Wins   : 61 (0.6 %)
Draws        : 4310 (43.1 %)
***************************************************************************
UHO_XXL_2022_+130_+159:
     Program                     Elo    +    - Games    Score   Av.Op.  Draws
   1 Stockfish 220328 avx2    : 3840    2    2 10000    55.7 %   3800   36.9 %
   2 Stockfish 14.1 211028    : 3800    2    2 10000    44.3 %   3840   36.9 %
Games        : 10000 (finished)(SF 220328: +3729,=3687,-2584)
White Wins   : 6252 (62.5 %)
Black Wins   : 61 (0.6 %)
Draws        : 3687 (36.9 %)
***************************************************************************


Conclusions:

A) As expected, the new UHO_XXL_2022_+110_+139 and the UHO_XXL_2022_+120_+149
results are the closest to the old UHO_XXL_+090_+199 openings in these testruns. 
Elo-spreading is nearly the same and the draw-rate of 50.2% and 43.1% are close to the 
46.5% of the old UHO-set. UHO_XXL_2022_+100_+129 gives too much draws and 
UHO_XXL_2022_+130_+159 a very small draw-rate.
B) Because of A), I had the idea, to build a new UHO_MEGA_2022_+110_+149 opening-set.
Means, the new UHO_XXL_2022_+110_+139 and the UHO_XXL_2022_+120_+149 set are combined. 
Because the draw-rate of the old UHO set in the tesruns is between the draw-rates of 
these 2 new UHO-sets: 46.5% is exactly between 50.2% and 43.1%...see tests above.
This new UHO_MEGA_2022_+110_+149 set is really huge: 321415 lines = +44% bigger than 
(old) UHO_XXL_+0.90_+1.19 (223081 lines). In the Stockfish-Framework size matters, 
because some testruns are really huge. So, IMO, this new UHO MEGA set can be useful...
Here the testresult, which is nearly identical to the test of (old) UHO_XXL_+0.90_+1.19 
(see above)(Elo-spreading: +42, draw-rate 46.5%):
***************************************************************************
results_UHO_MEGA_2022_+110_+149 (321415 lines= +44% bigger than (old) UHO_XXL_+0.90_+1.19)
     Program                     Elo    +    - Games    Score   Av.Op.  Draws
   1 Stockfish 220328 avx2    : 3842    2    2 10000    55.9 %   3800   46.9 %
   2 Stockfish 14.1 211028    : 3800    2    2 10000    44.1 %   3841   46.9 %
Games        : 10000 (finished)(SF 220328: +3243,=4689,-2068)
White Wins   : 5226 (52.3 %)
Black Wins   : 85 (0.9 %)
Draws        : 4689 (46.9 %)
***************************************************************************


Idea for UHO_XXL 2022 openings and all work done by Stefan Pohl
(C) 2022 Stefan Pohl (SPCC)
www.sp-cc.de



 