The magicians of Komodo 3 - Larry Kaufman and Mark Lefler

by Arne Kaehler
8/14/2022 – Just a couple of days ago, Komodo 3 received the free "World Chess Software Champion" update. We interviewed the creators of one of the most "human-like" chess engines - Larry Kaufman & Mark Lefler. They describe the main differences between Komodo 2 and Komodo 3 as well as a typical workday for an engine developer. And, fortunately, Mark Lefler demonstrates what can be done with a stack of cards that are lying around on his desk.
The new Komodo Dragon 3 engine has gained 100 Elo points in playing strength over its predecessor when using a processor core in blitz. That's a huge improvement for a program that already reached at an Elo level of over 3500!

The magicians of Komodo 3

with Larry Kaufman and Mark Lefler

The creators of the fabulous engine Komodo 3 are continuing the interview, which they had on the ChessBase Live Stream in May 2022.

Here is the interview cut from the mentioned ChessBase live stream event.

Below is the riddle I was talking about in the live stream cut.

You are welcome to download the .pgn, and test the position on your engines. Kindly keep in mind, that the solution outcome depends on several things, e.g. The age of your computer.

 

This riddle was found by my colleague Fabian Brinkmann, who himself found it here.

Every engine normally spots the only correct move 1.Bd2+, but the interesting part is the evaluation outcome - Black is better or even clearly winning!

When I started the live stream in May, I quickly tested the brand new Komodo 3 engine with this position for fun, which I wanted to show to Lawrence Trent.

Funnily enough, Komodo 3 correctly identified the outcome in a flash: "White is clearly winning," but much more noteworthy was the fact that no other tested engine was able to do so!

I chatted with Larry and Mark about this position after the interview, and they said that the outcome is obviously dependent on a wide range of various things, but they were pleased. Nevertheless, I asked five of my colleagues to do the same tests with their installed engines, and every outcome was similar.

Komodo 3 received a free update!

Just some days ago, Komodo 3 won the World Chess Software Championship 2022!

And if you own Komodo 3, you have received the free update already, to version 10 or higher.

The new Komodo Dragon 3 engine has gained 100 Elo points in playing strength over its predecessor when using a processor core in blitz. That's a huge improvement for a program that already reached at an Elo level of over 3500!

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Arne Kaehler, a creative mind who is passionate about board games in general, was born in Hamburg and learned to play chess at a young age. By teaching chess to youth teams and creating chess-related videos on YouTube, Arne was able to expand this passion and has even created an online course for anyone who wants to learn how to play chess. Arne writes for the English and German news sites, but focuses mainly on content for the ChessBase media channels.