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Up Topic Rybka Support & Discussion / Rybka Discussion / What's the funniest bug you have ever seen in chess software
- - By Rebel (****) Date 2012-03-21 23:28
What's the funniest bug you have ever seen in chess software ?

For me it was in the early 80's when Frans and I just had started. With one of Frans' programs that was sold commercially the program could castle its  king out of trouble when it had a rook on A2 and a king on E2. Or Ra3 and Ke3. Or Ke2 and Rh2 etc.

r1b1k2r/p2n1ppp/1p2p3/3p2B1/P2P4/1Nn1P1P1/R3KPBP/7R w kq -


1. 0-0-0

And all your troubles are over.
Parent - By Banned for Life (Gold) Date 2012-03-21 23:32
Sure it was castling after losing its castling rights and while it was in check. But it did the calculations very, very quickly! :lol:
Parent - - By Banned for Life (Gold) Date 2012-03-21 23:36
Maybe Uly will post the Rybka bug that allowed a bishop to be developed before any pawns were advanced, and also change color! :eek:
Parent - By Lukas Cimiotti (Bronze) [de] Date 2012-03-22 08:52
And announce mate from the starting position :lol:
Parent - - By Labyrinth (****) [us] Date 2012-03-22 00:25
This bug I had a long time ago in Fritz 8, program started trippin' and making these weird captures:

Parent - - By Barnard (Bronze) Date 2012-03-23 01:45
Fritz 8 had the bug,or Fritz 7 who is analizing?
Parent - - By Labyrinth (****) [us] Date 2012-03-23 06:31
I guess it was Fritz 7.
Parent - - By Barnard (Bronze) Date 2012-03-23 06:40
you were playing black?
Parent - - By Labyrinth (****) [us] Date 2012-03-23 17:26
nah was a game I played as white and was having the engine make moves in a variation for analysis purposes post-game
Parent - By Barnard (Bronze) Date 2012-03-24 00:52
i guessed that because you delete white's name
Parent - By Dragon Mist (****) [hr] Date 2012-03-24 05:20
Rybka 4.1 does that a lot in Sampled Search windows nowadays. (axa4 and such)
Parent - By Ray (****) Date 2012-03-22 06:22 Edited 2012-03-22 06:25
A bug in Hiarcs 11 which made it use thousands of threads. This was subsequently fixed of course
.
Parent - By Fulcrum2000 (****) [nl] Date 2012-03-22 12:50
The most funny bug I had with a old version of DIEP. There suddenly the white king disappeared from the board, but the game just went on. It was not just a graphical hickup, but the king was really gone, so no mate possible anymore.
Parent - - By Uly (Gold) [mx] Date 2012-03-22 19:21 Edited 2012-03-22 19:23
Oh yeah, here are the two funniest bugs I've found.

The first is just taking advantage of a Critter 1.4's learning flaw in where the user can teach it that any line is best by using excluding moves, allowing the scenario that shows the opening position was mate in 3:

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq -


Critter 1.4 Session File

50/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (76.059) 490
51/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (78.487) 493
52/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (80.915) 496
53/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (83.343) 499
54/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (85.771) 504
55/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (88.199) 506
56/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (90.627) 506
57/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (93.055) 508
58/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (95.483) 507
59/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (97.911) 497
60/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (100.339) 496
61/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (102.767) 498
62/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (105.195) 500
63/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (107.623) 505
64/04   0:00     +M3   1.e3 f6 2.Bc4 g5 3.Qh5+ (110.051) 507

But that's dull compared to the next one. In the process of going from Rybka 3 to Rybka 4 Beta, Persistent Hash functionality was broken, so the engine would crash when trying to use it. Eventually I found a workaround, so that Rybka 4 Beta wouldn't crash when turning ON persistent hash. I was very excited that I managed to make it work, but then...

Rybka 4 Beta: Persistent Hash ON

10.00   0:00   -81.78  1.Bf3 1
11.00   0:00   -81.78  1.Bf3 1
12.00   0:00   -81.78  1.Bf3 1
13.00   0:00   -81.78  1.Bf3 1
14.00   0:00   -81.78  1.Bf3 1
15.00   0:00   -81.78  1.Bf3 1
16.00   0:00   -81.78  1.Bf3 1
16.00   0:04     +M10  1.Bf3 (1.998.848) 465

Yeah, Bf3 is a move that mates in 10 from the opening position, who would have thought it?!



You just need to be a bit flexible with the "Bishop in squares of the same color" rule.
Parent - - By Uri Blass (*****) [il] Date 2012-03-22 20:12
1)How do you know that Rybka meant Bc1-f3 and not Bf1-f3 or maybe some bishop that is not on the board to f3?

2)I think that it may be interesting to see the mating line after Bf3 because I see no forced mate for white in 10 moves.
Maybe white can win in 10 moves if white continue to play not by the chess rules but we need to see some line of 19 plies.
Parent - By Uly (Gold) [mx] Date 2012-03-22 20:52

> How do you know that Rybka meant Bc1-f3 and not Bf1-f3 or maybe some bishop that is not on the board to f3?


I assume the engine sent the GUI c1f3 with a mate in 10 score (note: I didn't make a picture, that part of the board was actually what the GUI was showing). But indeed, Vas claimed this was a display bug from the GUI, and that it should have shown the f1 Bishop jumping over the pawn (thus the quote on my sig "It's easier for a bishop to jump over a pawn than to change square color!").

> I think that it may be interesting to see the mating line after Bf3 because I see no forced mate for white in 10 moves.


Yes if the pieces can make such illegal moves :smile:

Anyway, don't over-think it, the engine was just seeing garbage.
Parent - By Lukas Cimiotti (Bronze) [de] Date 2012-03-22 20:21
Bf3 - yes, great - this was exactly the position I thought of :twisted:
Parent - - By Labyrinth (****) [us] Date 2012-03-22 23:24
Plus I've never actually seen a -81 score. Usually gets to +/- ~20 at the most and then sees a mate.
Parent - By Uly (Gold) [mx] Date 2012-03-23 04:18
PLUS, the -81.78 score means advantage to Black, as in, black goes from an advantage of about 9 queens to being mated in 10 moves. It must be the highest fail high in story.

When engines go psycho.
Parent - - By grolich (***) Date 2012-05-12 06:28
What I found appealing here is how wonderfully your signature fits that post :)
Parent - By Uly (Gold) [mx] Date 2012-05-12 07:17
:smile:
Parent - By Werewolf (*****) [gb] Date 2012-03-23 14:22
The Chessmaster 2000 used to print on screen: "I've lost my BIG pieces" and continued to make suggestive jokes.
Parent - By Jeroen (*****) [nl] Date 2012-03-25 10:51 Edited 2012-03-25 10:55
White: Ka6, Qh2, Nd7
Black: Ka8, Nb8, Ba7

This is a Modul classic of the 1990's. MChess played 1. Nxb8 here, announcing mate in 3. But in fact 1. Qxb8+ Bxb8 2. Nb6 is mate in 2. If you execute 1. Qxb8+ however, MChess claimes a draw because of insufficient material after 1... Bxb8. If you execute that move, it will play a random move like 2. Nf8, missing the mate in 1 (because it thinks every move is 0.00). Finally, when given the mating move 2. Nb6, MChess went beserk and the main line showed something like 2. ... -/--. Priceless Modul comment: 'A very weird move, indeed! But do you know a better one?'. :lol:

It is very funny to see a few of the current top programs also missing this. F.e. Houdini 1.5 has exactly the same behaviour (without TB of course).
Parent - - By Priyanvada (***) [in] Date 2012-03-25 14:54
The Funny Thing I found was Arena 3 GUI allows to setup many illegal chess positions such as multiple kings of same color ..........and remarkably Chess Engines' Lord Houdini still manages show some variations with some weird moves/no moves in the same position...:smile:

Parent - By InspectorGadget (****) [za] Date 2012-03-28 21:36
:lol:
Parent - By Barnard (Bronze) Date 2012-03-28 22:18
if you setup enough white kings,maybe even you will be able to check mate the black king :smile:

try to setup a position with more kings and look if you can move and check mate the black king and the GUI allows the result
Parent - - By Priyanvada (***) [in] Date 2012-03-29 07:06
I just saw this today ...

without GUI you can still talk with an UCI engine ...
Just Start the UCI engine and give the commands which a GUI might have given in the DOS console you see there...

...And Engine responds, to you!! ... Amazing!!

To get a taste of what I am saying just start a bare UCI engine by double clicking on it and type go infinite and see the infinite analysis happening in the DOS console in front of your eyes!!

If we know UCI protocol we might be able to play with an UCI engine in the DOS console itself!:grin:

This is Very New and Funny stuff for me!:)
Parent - By Richard Vida (**) Date 2012-03-29 10:37

> If we know UCI protocol we might be able to play with an UCI engine in the DOS console itself!:grin:


http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html
Parent - By Labyrinth (****) [us] Date 2012-03-29 11:21
Of course. This is like required for any kind of debugging :-P

If the console doesn't respond to your commands properly no chance the GUI will :-)
Parent - By turbojuice1122 (Gold) [us] Date 2012-05-12 14:19
Well, after all, it never moved its king from e2 or its rook from a2. ;-)
- - By Shaun Brewer (****) [gb] Date 2012-03-23 00:54
Back when we could beat our silicon friends - I played a Tandy machine that let me take its king*, then finally when it had no pieces left, declared the game a draw - stalemate.

*This actually took me a while as I first assumed the physical board was out of step with its internal board (no screen, just the moves displayed on an old fashoned calculator like display), you had to ask where each piece was to verify the board - which was slooow. Once the position was verified I took the king and the computer just carried on regardless!?!
Parent - By Labyrinth (****) [us] Date 2012-03-23 06:33
Well obviously the king has no legal moves when it's in limbo :-P
Parent - By Banned for Life (Gold) Date 2012-03-23 12:09
Back when we could beat our silicon friends - I played a Tandy machine that let me take its king*, then finally when it had no pieces left, declared the game a draw - stalemate.

This is reminiscent of the fight between King Arthur and The Black Knight in the Holy Grail. After Arthur cuts off the Black Knights arms and legs, the knight calls after him as he's leaving "All right, we'll call it a draw".
- - By Pia (***) [ru] Date 2012-03-23 13:46
I find funny when my blondie female friend complains that her computer infected by a virus, chess program moves "pawns wrong way", "king jumps over rook" and so on :D
Parent - By Uly (Gold) [mx] Date 2012-03-23 16:02
En passant and clastling? :lol:
Parent - By Dragon Mist (****) [hr] Date 2012-03-24 05:18
Oh, this is soo good! :razz:
Parent - By Barnard (Bronze) Date 2012-03-24 05:36
:eek:

i dont know if i must laugh or cry...for your female friend,must be understood
Parent - - By Labyrinth (****) [us] Date 2012-03-24 06:27
I played some games against a previous girlfriend after teaching her the game.

She hung her knight and I captured it mentioning that it was hanging. She replied "I didn't want that knight". I was so sad for the knight :cry:
Parent - - By Barnard (Bronze) Date 2012-03-24 15:51
you read the upper post about the ''computer infected by a virus making '''strange''' moves''?

girls and chess must have a restrain order between them :lol:
Parent - - By Labyrinth (****) [us] Date 2012-03-24 16:02
Depends on the girl.

Marry me Tatiana Kosintseva!! :-P
Parent - By Barnard (Bronze) Date 2012-03-24 16:06 Edited 2012-03-24 16:09
i dont know that girl...in general,if she is a smart girl and plays good chess,of course,not;but if she is a blondie barbie girl,of course yes

this is a proposition of marriage? :lol: Tatiana,wherever you are,answer him...and invite me to the wedding :lol:
Parent - - By Dragon Mist (****) [hr] Date 2012-03-24 16:59
My girlfriend (now my wife) said that she was school champion when I informed her I liked chess. So we started a game. After 12 or so moves, I captured her pawn on d5 with mine that was on c4 (I had white). I expected her to recapture either with c6 or e6 pawn. After half a minute of concentration, she took my pawn from d5 and captured hers on c6.
Parent - By InspectorGadget (****) [za] Date 2012-03-28 21:39

> After half a minute of concentration, she took my pawn from d5 and captured hers on c6.


:cry::lol:
Parent - - By NATIONAL12 (Gold) [gb] Date 2012-03-28 21:45
does she remember story in same way you have told it.:smile:
Parent - - By Dragon Mist (****) [hr] Date 2012-03-28 22:25
She claims to have only the vaguest memories of that incident.
Parent - By NATIONAL12 (Gold) [gb] Date 2012-03-28 22:29
she would.:smile:
Main thing is it got you together.
Up Topic Rybka Support & Discussion / Rybka Discussion / What's the funniest bug you have ever seen in chess software

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