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> but I still think the developers of both engines banter over who is really producing the True WDL numbers for a given position

In fact, stockfish's WDL is very rudimentary: it is a function of the centipawn evaluation of the position and the value of the remaining material.

See https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/a6d055d...

by knuckleheads3 hours ago|

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Yeah, it's still unclear to me why Stockfish produces WDL numbers beyond sometimes people ask for them.

by tarentel7 hours ago|

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To your last point, the centipawns thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense from an interpretation perspective because it is so shallow. WDL can give you much more insight into how tame or chaotic things are. A 1 pawn evaluated advantage with a 95% chance to win is wildly different from a similar evaluation and a 50% chance to win. The first position likely has an obvious tactic that leads to a win, the latter may require perfect play for 15 moves that only a computer can calculate.

Also, from a computer perspective, a >= 1 pawn is usually sufficient for a computer to win 100% of the time so it's not really interesting and says very little about whether a person could win 100% of the time.

by knuckleheads3 hours ago|

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Yep, exactly. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out better ways for interpreting the evaluations of engines for https://www.schachzeit.com/en/openings/barnes-opening-with-d... and I ended up liking WDL much better than centipawns. A blunder defined in terms of decreasing your chance of winning by such and such percentage is, to me, a much better definition than a blunder losing such and such material. What does that mean? It makes sense to me now, but it took a long while.

Relatedly, there is an interesting thing that lc0 has been doing as well, where it takes the contempt concept even further, and can beat you with queens odd. https://lczero.org/blog/2024/12/the-leela-piece-odds-challen... It assumes it is better than you and that it shouldn't just give up because you might be up a knight, rook or even queen.

by deklesen7 hours ago|

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FWIW, as an avid chess player, I find the "up 5 pawns" has more intuitive signal.

by knuckleheads3 hours ago|

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Was it intuitive when you were first learning to play? Or have you gotten used to understanding positions via centipawns?

by deklesen3 hours ago|

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I learned chess when I was 5, and didnt have a chess computer in the first like 5 years and by then I have progressed quite far.. so i cannot really tell

by knuckleheads3 hours ago|

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Makes sense. I started learning how to play Chess when I was ~30 and my tutors were just chess engines, game reviews on chess.com and whatever books I found interesting enough to get through. I have fun, and that's all I'll ever have, no titles or anything. The centipawn stuff makes sense now, but it took a while.