Here is the start of my ten game match between the new CGPro2024 and the original CGP. Both machines set to the Classic(London) book and I’m guessing this is the same book on each machine. Have e-mailed Millennium to confirm if this is the case and waiting for their reply.

The CGPro2024 is set to its default ‘Normal’ play style, the older CGP does not have settings for style of play. I’m using a time control of 40 moves / 2 hours then 20 moves/ hour so it will take a little time to complete.

I expect the final result will be close if not a draw, but there may be some interesting games along the way considering they are slightly different programs. The CGPro2024 has extra endgame knowledge but this may make it slower in some positions, so lets find out.

Game 1/10


The game is pretty much balanced until move 44 when the CGP2024 playing black makes a bad move. This is easy for me to say after having SF analyse the game while a drank my coffee 😊. It’s quite an interesting position though and worth looking at to appreciate that neither of the CGPros would be able to calculate far enough ahead in the time available to make the best move. Here is the position after CGP makes the move 44.e5:



White has a slight advantage and his pawn on e5 is causing Black some concern. For example, he would not want to move 44…PxP? White would take back with his Bishop and Black’s Queen-side Pawns are in trouble.

Instead, the CGP2024 moved 44… Ne6 maybe in an attempt to stop the e5 pawn advancing and prevent white’s bishop moving to f8. The problem with this move (after seeing the PC engine analysis and thinking about the position) is that this knight will eventually be attacked by White’s f pawn and will have to move away opening up a route for White’s Bishop to get to the f8 square. A possible continuation is: 45.exf6 gxf6 46.Bf3 Be8 47.f5 Kd7 48.Bb4

Now we can see Black has to move the knight or lose it, thus opening up the diagonal for White’s Bishop on b4 and Black will eventually lose his Pawn on h6. That’s 12 ply until the capture and I noticed that neither machine was able to fully explore to this depth in the time available.

Alas, White also made a bad move a blunder in fact. After Black had moved 48…Nxf3 we have this position:

The CGP moved 49.KxN which results in a likely draw, but no chance of these machines seeing that. I think we are able to look at the position and judge it’s a draw though. That being said, after move 56 the CGP2024 offered a draw so I accepted on behalf of the CGP!

So I think all considered this was good game.

Game 2/10



We have the first win by the older CGPro. The game was evenly matched until around the half way point when the CGPro started to gain an advantage and then a much larger one before the inevitable conclusion.

After White moved 36.Qe3 we have this position:

This is the start of Black’s dominance in the game. From here Black moved 36…Ng7 with the possibility of then moving the knight to f5 for a strong attacking position.

Later on after Black’s move 46…Qg7 we have this position


Black is in a very good position here pinning the e5 pawn and threatening Re8 which will win the pawn. The CGPro2024 seeing this attempted to prevent black moving Re8 with 47.Nf6 however things are grim for White with Black’s advancing King-side pawns, and pressure on the e5 Pawn. It was just a matter of time before Black would be in a position to queen and realizing this the CGPro2024 gracefully resigned.

A good game for the older Pro, not ready to be delegated to the storage cupboard just yet!

Game 3/10


Revenge is sweet, the CGP2024 levels the score bringing the current points to 1.5 each. This could be the pattern until the end of the match, but even if that is the case I think the games so far are still interesting.

The Bishop’s Opening was played and in the following position the CGP2024 had just played 32…Qb7

Better would have been 32...Qe8 with the possibility of moving to a4 giving White some problems with the enemy queen in the camp! However, it is a case that neither of the CG Pro machines fully understood the position. White replied 33.b5? But this weakens white’s defence. Play could have continued with 33…c4 34.Qxc4 Qd7 attacking the b5 pawn and control of the d file. Instead, black played 33…Qc7 and white replied 34.Qd1 but he really needed to move 34.c4 to block black’s pawn. So a few inaccuracies on both sides but White’s position is weak enough that Black prevailed and his moves from move 36 onwards were good.

I played through to the checkmate, the older CGPro does not offer resignation. Also, I wanted to hear the applause 😊

Game 4/10


The shortest game so far and a good win for the CGP2024.

The Vienna opening was played and the game was very balanced up until this position where White had just moved 26.Qe4:

This position is equal but careful play is required. Here the CGP played 26…Qd7? The problem here is that the pawn on d6 is now pinned by Whites Rook so when White played 27. PxP. Black was unable to recapture with the d6 pawn, forcing recapture with the pawn on f6. This weakened his King-side safety allowing White to advance the pawn on f5 and move the Queen and Rook over to the King-side for an onslaught, which is exactly what happened and mate was announce soon after!

I really thought this was going to be a draw but the CGP made a very bad choice at move 26 and lost as a result.

Current score is 2 ½ to 1 ½ to the CGP2024

Hi Ray
It would be nice to state END OF BOOK in the game notations.
Kind regards
Kurt

Yes, that is something I used to do but for some reason forgot this time. Funnily, I have made a note in the current game because I thought it strange that the CGP2024 stayed in book slightly longer despite both machines set to Classic book and allegedly both machines have identical books. I'll have to perform some tests after the game.

Kind Regards
Ray

Game 5/10


As expected, the match so far is close with the CGP2024 nudging ahead with an extra point but we are only half way through the match so anything could happen.

In this game the English, Bremen opening was played and I spotted something that surprised me a little at first. The original CGP was out of book at move 7 while the CGP2024’s stayed in book until move 9 when it had to start thinking. I will have to test this opening with the CGP2024 playing as black to see if its also out of book at move 7. I had thought that they would both have been out of book at the same time, but maybe this is normal and the book moves are unbalanced for white and black. According to the e-mail from Millennium the opening books in both machines are the same so this must be the case.

As a side note:
In the more detailed PDF manual Millennium e-mailed me for the CGP2024 it does not give any information about the books so I have suggested to Millennium they add more information such as names and numbers of moves.

So to the game. I had SF analyse it to highlight blunders but there’s little to report to be honest. Both machines played at their best and the moves marked as bad by SF were beyond the scope of either machine to calculate. For example, in the following position the CGP had just moved 22…Be6

White’s reply was 23.b4 but a better line of play would have been 23.Rf5 Bxf5 24.Rxf5 attacking the Queen 24…Qg6 25.Nf4 Qh7 only option! 26.e6 fxe6 27.Nxe6 and now White is in a very good position. But for the CG machines, to see this line of play through to a definitive advantage would be beyond their horizon.

It’s better to just play through and see the moves and decide for ourselves how well or badly the game was played. Despite being a draw I think they did well and when the CGP2024 offered a draw I accepted on behalf of the CGP as they were both showing a fairly consistent eval of or around 0.00

Current Score 3 – 2 to the CGP2024

Game 6/10


They played the Queen’s Indian, old main line for 16 moves.

Here is the position after Black moved 41…Rb3

At this point I was expecting the game to be a draw, both machines had played well. However, this is a key position and both players need to be careful especially as they both have passed pawns. White must not let Black’s c5 pawn through and must also maintain the pressure of his own passed pawn on d5, therefore the positions of the rooks are key here. One possible line of play is 42.Ke2 removing the pin on his e3 rook. 42…Rxe3ch 43.Kxe3 and the game is heading towards a draw. If instead black advances his pawn 42…c4 43.Rc2 Rxd5 44.Rxc4 Rb2ch 45.Kf3 and its leading to another draw. However, the new CGPro2024 made a bad move and the older CGPro capitalized on it!
From the above position White played 42.Rdd3? This allows black to exchange Rooks and now White has to defend his d5 pawn and worry about Black’s passed pawn, not good! 42…Rxd3! Yes, the CGPro sees the way ahead!

From here the CGPro played very well and the CGPro2024 offered resignation at move 65 which I accepted on behalf of the CGPro.

As was expected this match is very balanced so far with 3 points each but interesting. Obviously the extra knowledge in the newer machine did not help in this game.

Ray

Game 7/10


In this game the French, Rubinstein variation was played until move 11.

All was level until around the half-way point. Here is the position after the CGP2024 moved 29…Ne7:

The CGP playing with the white pieces made a good move 30.Bxe6! If Black responds by taking white’s Bishop 30…KxB 31.Nxc5+ Ke5 and Black loses his Bishop. However, Black played 30…Ng6 and is a pawn down. Better would have been 30…Bxf3 31.gxf3 Kxe6 with a level position. The CGP2024 mis-calculated the position and not through a lack of search depth!

In the following position the CGP2024 made another bad move:

Black to play and a pawn down. Here the CGP2024 had not benefited from any extra endgame knowledge and made the move 33…g5? This weakens his Queen-side pawn structure after white plays 33.hxg6. White now has a winning chance.

However, as the game ended in a draw then obviously the original CGP must have also mis-calculated. In the following position white is in a good position with three passed pawns. Black does have a pawn on h3 but White can deal with that:

In this position the CGP turned a winning game into a draw with the move 47.Nd3? The game continued 47…h2 48.Nf2 to prevent Black queening 48…axb4 axb4 and now White cannot afford to move his knight and Black can hamper White’s pawn advance. A better move for White would have been 47.Ne4 maintaining the winning position. Play might have continued 47…h2 and now 48.Ng3+ is the best plan because Black cannot queen without losing it and he must move his King losing tempo:

Now White can move 49.b5 and Black is in trouble with passed pawns marching up the board!

I think in this case the CGP was unable to calculate far enough ahead to see the mistake and missed a winning chance.

Play battled on and I persevered in case of more mistakes but when the CGP2024 offered a draw I accepted on behalf of the CGP.

As expected they are level so far, although I really thought the newer model was going to lose this game.

3 ½ – 3 ½

Ray

Game 8/10

It’s another draw, this time by 3rd fold repition. I hope this is not boring for people, but I’m actually enjoying the test of the CG Pro engines at this slow time control. I knew the match would be close but wanted to try and find out if the differences in the engines would be highlighted. So far the CGPro2024 has a won game in the least number of moves, but this doesn’t mean much. The same could happen the other way around given enough games, and there is time yet to witness this.

The older CGPro does calculate further ahead, especially noticeable in the end game and I have seen it calculate an extra 2ply. That said, it’s not made a difference so far in the score in this match so maybe the extra knowledge in the newer CGPro makes up for this? Swings and roundabouts as they say, in some positions the extra search depth may help and in others, the extra knowledge may make the difference.



The Four Knights, symmetrical variation was played until both machines were out of book at move 10.

It’s been mentioned before but the Classic book (London) contains dubious lines and that is the case in this game. At move 9 both machines were still in book but the selected moves starting from Black’s 8th move are either interesting or dubious:

Black had just moved 8…Bd7?! Qe7 is considered good.

Play continued 9.Nd2 Ne7? Better would have been the book move 9…h6! 10.Bxf6 gxf6 11/Bxd7 Qxd7:

And white is in a much stronger position while Black’s King is now exposed.

Apart from weakness in the Classic opening book both machines played accurately and defended well, so we have the unsurprising draw.

Score now is 4 – 4

Ray