Komodo

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Komodo, a chess engine by primary author Don Dailey (died at the age of 57 on November 22, 2013) and since October 2013, by Mark Lefler, supported by chess advisor and evaluation expert and Don's long time collaborator Larry Kaufman. Since 2015, opening book expert Erdogan Günes is responsible for Komodo's book moves. At the WCCC 2016 Komodo 10.x first time won the Shannon Trophy, defended by subsequent versions at the WCCC 2017 and WCCC 2018 so far.

Komodo appeared in January 2010 derived from Don's former engine Doch. It uses bitboards as internal board representation, and has a sophisticated search and a knowledge based, balanced evaluation. Komodo is a standalone chess engine supporting the UCI protocol and is available for multiple platforms and operating systems, and is therefore compatible with free and commercial UCI compliant chess graphical user interfaces and database front ends.

As of December 2011, Komodo became commercial with version 4, earlier versions running under Windows, Linux, Mac OS and Android are available from the Komodo download site, free for non-commercial use. Next release date was May 2013, with CCT15 winner Komodo CCT.

=Further Versions=

Komodo 5
Komodo 5.1 MP, released in June 2013, was a major rewrite in C++11, able to perform a parallel search to run on multiple processors.

Komodo 6
In October 2013, Don Dailey announced the release of Komodo 6 and also bad news concerning the future status of Komodo due to his fatal illness of a acute form of Leukemia. He introduced Mark Lefler as new member of the Komodo team. Don Dailey died November 22, 2013 at age 57, just about the same time that Komodo pulled ahead of Stockfish by winning game 2 in the TCEC Season 5 final.

Komodo TCEC and 7
As winner of the TCEC 5 final, Komodo TCEC was released on December 04, 2013, the further improved Komodo 7 on May 21, 2014, now supporting Syzygy Bases , probing code interface implementation by Jeremy Bernstein.

Komodo 8
Komodo 8, released on September 05, 2014, was a substantial improvement over Komodo 7a, which was already rated among the top three chess engines on almost all rating lists. Komodo 8 supports Syzygy Bases and is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS and Android, the latter immediately available for import in Chess for Android and in Chess for Glass. Since mid September 2014, Komodo 8 for Windows is available as ChessBase engine, bundled with the Deep Fritz interface, Syzygy bases not included.

Komodo 9
Komodo 9, released on April 28, 2015, continued the progress with approximately +50 Elo over Komodo 8 due to improved search, evaluation, and time management, as well as more efficient use of multiprocessing. Most noticeable is the increase in search depth reached in a given amount of time, which is due to better extension, reduction, and pruning rules. Further, Komodo 9 now features Chess960 and a persistant hash to save and restore analysis.

Komodo 10
On May 23, 2016, Komodo 10 came with revised and improved king safety, pawn storm and passed pawn evaluation, as well with revised LMR, NMP, IID and history heuristic concerning search, and is about 60 Elo stronger than Komodo 9. In July 2016, Komodo 10.x won the Shannon Trophy.

Komodo 11
On May 23, 2017, Komodo 11.01 was released, which corrected some minor issues of Komodo 11, which was already released by ChessBase a few days before. It is estimated about 55 Elo stronger than Komodo 10 at intermediate time controls, gains related to evaluation, revised quiescence search, singular extensions, LMR , and parallel search. Komodo 11.2, released on July 17, 2017, was the version which won the WCCC 2017. Komodo 11.3 was released on March 04, 2018 with subsequent improvements. It also comes with a BMI2 compile for compatible x86-64 processors - so far not recommend for AMD Ryzen due to its slow PEXT implementation.

Komodo 12
Komodo 12 was released in May 2018. Beside the classical, slightly improved engine, Komodo 12 features an optional Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), the release likely influenced by the AlphaZero hype. However, as confirmed by Mark Lefler implementing MCTS was already an old idea of the Komodo team - also due to Don Dailey's computer Go experience building an UCT player.

Komodo MCTS
In Komodo's MCTS mode the search tree is expanded in best-first manner based on winning probabilities determined neither by random playouts nor by a neural network, but a tiny alpha-beta search plus quiescence and static evaluation, also similar to UCT, dealing with the crucial trade-off between exploration and exploitation. While playing strength is lower with MCTS, positional play and judgement may well be better in many positions, not to mention a more risky and entertaining playing style.

Komodo 13
In May 2019, Komodo 13 was released with substantial improvements in MCTS mode. Quote by Larry Kaufman : The changes from Komodo 12 to 13 in MCTS mode (which is where most of the changes were made) are so vast and pervasive that it is hopeless to even try to enumerate them. The elo gains are in the 300 to 400 range on any number of threads, so it's really a very different engine. Virtually every aspect was improved, some of the changes being rather radical. Most cannot be explained without describing in detail how Komodo MCTS works, which is pretty unique. As for regular Komodo, there were quite a few changes, but only a few that show up as measurable elo gains on one to four threads. To be honest, if you never use MultiPV or MCTS mode, don't have more than a few cores, and already own Komodo 12, I wouldn't recommend spending the money for Komodo 13 unless the cost is insignificant to you. But I think that most people do use MultiPV, and if so Komodo 13 MCTS is clearly better than Komodo 12 in either mode.

Komodo 14
Komodo 14, released in May 2020 with following improvements announced by Larry Kaufman : The improvements cover a wide range of issues, including extensions, null move, King Safety, time management, and many more. There is one new feature added since Komodo 13.3, "Armageddon" mode, which tells Komodo that White (or Black) must win, draws are scored as losses for that color. When draws are counted as losses for White, knowing this improves Komodo's performance as White by about 30 elo according to our tests. In Armageddon mode, the specified color (usually White) not only avoids clear draws, but adjusts Contempt by an amount we determined was most helpful for Armageddon play. Testing on one thread in Armageddon mode suggests that on a modern laptop, if White gets one minute total plus 1% increment, and Black gets half a minute plus 1% increment plus draw odds, then chances are fairly close to balanced. Other features added since Komodo 13 include more levels, Personalities, and Auto-Skill. Standard mode remains the strongest when Multi-PV is not in use, while MCTS mode is generally strongest when both are using Multi-PV.

=Tournament Play= Komodo played the ICT 2010 in Leiden over the board, and further the CCT12 and CCT14. It had its first tournament success in 2013, when it won the CCT15 with 6½/7, and further the CCT16 in 2014 with 5½/6.

TCEC
In 2013, Komodo started to play the TCEC, most often fighting with Stockfish for the title. Komodo won the TCEC Season 5, TCEC Season 7 in 2014, and the TCEC Season 8 in Fall 2015.

2015
At the WCCC 2015 in Leiden, Komodo 9.x won the Blitz tournament, and became runner-up behind and losing from the massively parallel and distributed Jonny which played on a cluster of 100x24 cores. After the revenge winning against Jonny at the equal hardware WCSC 2015 a few days later, Komodo was unlucky and made too many draws against apparently weaker opponents, to became third behind Shredder and Ginkgo. Two weeks later, Komodo won the WCRCC 2015 convincingly with 9/9! Komodo team Erdogan Günes and Mark Lefler during the WCCC 2015 in Leiden

2016
The 2016 ICGA tournaments in Leiden were a huge success for Komodo 10.x, which did not only won the Shannon Trophy in the open hardware World Computer Chess Championship after a nerve-racking six games play-off versus defending champion Jonny - Komodo with 48 threads on 60 core Intel i7 versus Jonny's cluster of 100x24 AMD cores, but also the equal hardware World Chess Software Championship with 5/6 - 1½ points ahead of runner-up Jonny and Shredder. Two weeks later Komodo defended its ACCA title in rapid chess at the WCRCC 2016 with 14 wins and one draw versus runner-up Andscacs, that is 14½ out of 15. WCCC 2016, Komodo team Erdogan Günes and Mark Lefler with Shannon Trophy

2017
In 2017, Komodo could defend it titles at the WCRCC 2017 online, and the soon later released Komodo 11.2 the ICGA WCCC 2017 over the board, again in a  play-off versus Jonny. Komodo further became runner-up at the uniform hardware WCSC 2017 behind Shredder. WCCC 2017, Komodo opening book author and operator Erdogan Günes with the Shannon Trophy

2018
In 2018 Komodo 12 continued its success by winning the ICGA WCCC 2018, WCSC 2018 and Blitz tournaments in Stockholm, and later that year the WCRCC 2018 online.

2019
Komodo 13.1 was able to defend both titles at the ICGA WCCC 2019 and WCSC 2019 in Macau, the WCCC on a 128 cores.

=Quotes=

Promotions
Don Dailey on Minor Promotions : Komodo never looks at rook or bishop under promotions and only looks at knight under promotions when it gives check. But even for the knight case there are positions where my rule won't find the right move.

Centered Point Values
In 2012, Don Dailey gave following point values in a kind of millipawn scale, tapered between opening and endgame phase with knight and bishop values constant - positional scores from mobility and piece square tables centered around zero :

Quality of Knowledge
Don Dailey in a reply to Vincent Diepeveen : Don, Your program is kind of a beancounter that relies heavily positional upon piece square tables.

You could not be more incorrect. We have piece square tables in Komodo that are a very minor part of Komodo and get very small weights but Komodo puts a huge emphasis on getting the evaluation right with hundreds of evaluation terms that are carefully balanced to produce a find positional chess program. I personally believe that Komodo has the best evaluation function of any chess program in the world. ... Total amount of knowledge is not what is important, it's the QUALITY of the knowledge that is. Komodo tries to have the most balanced evaluation function possible, and probably much more knowledge than most programs. I don't believe in quantity but Komodo evolved to have a lot of knowledge anyway - probably because every piece of knowledge in Komodo is needed. I tried removing knowledge in Komodo to get speed and we were not able to remove ANYTHING without noticing that it weakened Komodo, at least slightly.

Lazy Evaluation
Don Dailey on Selectivity and Lazy Evaluation : Komodo pushes the selectivity pretty hard and we DO get a decent nodes per second increase with Lazy evaluation but the problem is that we get a big increase in nodes. It is this way because we assume we will not make scout if the guesstimate is too low. So we miss some of the beta cutoffs, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Komodo's positional component can vary enormously so we do take a lot of damage positionally when we use lazy margins.

Node Counting
Don Dailey on counting nodes in Komodo 4 : As Larry mentioned we are counting nodes differently. More specifically, both versions have always counted a node when a move is made, but Komodo 3 would count nodes that were forward pruned (if the move was actually executed) and Komodo 4 does not. In Komodo 3 I figured that if any work was done (such as attack testing after making the move) it should count as a node. But in Komodo 4 we changed this because the move is technically being pruned (even if we had to check it out a bit first.) Of course if a move is searched or reduced it is counted in both versions.

It's mostly semantics, but we get more stable node counts and this works better for fixed node testing which we sometimes do.

I have several things in mind for getting serious speedups in future versions of Komodo which will bring the speed of Komodo back up to that of other programs, or at least not as far away. I believe Komodo is one of the slower programs in terms of raw search speed as we have put a really heavy focus on having a smart program and little on heavy optimization. The reasoning is the same for delaying the MP stuff too, we want to start with a really strong program before we play the optimization games.

Parallel Search
Don Dailey about aspects of parallel search in Komodo 5.1 MP How you approach a problem is strongly related to how you DEFINE a problem or task. The goal of MP is to make the program play as well as possible using more cores, to take advantage of the hardware as fully as possible and the only measure that really matters (at least to us) is playing strength. We ALL wish that our program played as if it they were 4x faster when playing on 4 cores - but nobody gets that kind of efficiency.

Some have implied that we search wider because we don't get quite the same increase in depth and that this is a horrible thing. The intuition is that if that if it works you could do it on 1 thread too. However I do not think that follows. The problem is that 4 threads is just not 4x better than 1 thread no matter how good your MP implementation, so it always comes down to how to best utilize what you have. Anything goes in my opinion if it gets more out of extra cores in terms of ELO.

It is well known that programs do not scale well beyond a few processors. Going from 128 to 256 processors gives you very little. One of the things Larry and I want to do is to explore how to better exploit more and more cores and hopefully what we learn will translate to better performance on few cores. It is unlikely to be minor refinements to what we already do.

I'm not breaking new ground as this has been studied for decades and lots of ideas have been tried - I'm not pretending otherwise. But we will look at new original ideas we come up with and revisit old-fashioned ideas that have been tried in the past. A lot of the old ideas which have been rejected have later come back to life, so there is no idea that is off-limits.

As far as whether searching "wider" is a bad thing and isn't real parallelism, I disagree with that. If 4 cores were 4 times better than one I probably would agree but since it isn't, we have to determine where the effort is best spent. If you have 11 people in the room and 10 are doctors and the one who isn't has a heart attack, what is the best use of the doctors time? Not all 10 doctors can give CPR even though normally that would be very best use of their talent, but surely one of them will be calling for an ambulance while another will be doing CPR and the rest will be doing whatever they can to assist, even in little ways.

So if you are getting very little benefit out of additional processors you need to figure out if there is something else they can do to be more useful. Perhaps one thing is to deal with the lines that are severely reduced in the single core program?

Larry Kaufman in October 2018 : Komodo (regular, not MCTS) has had a problem for many years now when running on many cores with large hash tables, as in TCEC. It takes several minutes to reach full speed. In three or four hour games this is not a big deal, but in a blitz event it is absolutely fatal, as you can see. I'm glad to report that Mark has finally solved the problem (as far as we can test, up to 36 cores), and this fix should be in time for the next TCEC and for our next release. Hopefully the next CCC event should show a huge difference. =See also=
 * Doch
 * Occam

=Publications=
 * Arno Nickel (2012). Die schöne neue Welt der Schachengines. SCHACH 2,3,5,6 2012, pdf (German)
 * Tamal T. Biswas, Kenneth W. Regan (2015). Measuring Level-K Reasoning, Satisficing, and Human Error in Game-Play Data. IEEE ICMLA 2015, pdf preprint

=Forum Posts=

2010

 * A New Name for Doch.... by Fernando Villegas, CCC, January 07, 2010
 * Komodo 1.0 JA by Don Dailey available by Jim Ablett, CCC, January 22, 2010
 * Komodo credit by Don Dailey, CCC, January 22, 2010
 * Don: what a devilish thing you did!!!! by Fernando Villegas, CCC, January 24, 2010
 * Help with Komodo testing by Don Dailey, CCC, April 27, 2010
 * komodo 1.3 beta 1 test available by Jim Ablett, CCC, December 21, 2010
 * Komodo 13b1 tests by Harun Taner, CCC, December 25, 2010

2011

 * out of check move ordering by Don Dailey, CCC, March 12, 2011
 * Re: Magics by Don Dailey, CCC, May 25, 2011
 * Komodo 2.01 is out! by Don Dailey, CCC, June 09, 2011
 * Komodo 2.03 release is imminent by Don Dailey, CCC, June 14, 2011
 * Komodo 2.03 SSE42 available by Don Dailey, CCC, June 17, 2011
 * Komodo 3 release by Don Dailey, CCC, August 16, 2011
 * The importance of contempt by Don Dailey, CCC, August 28, 2011 » Contempt Factor
 * Lazy eval by Larry Kaufman, CCC, November 27, 2011 » Lazy Evaluation
 * Komodo 4 SP released! by Karol Majewski, CCC, December 25, 2011

2012

 * Should reduction depend on depth? by Larry Kaufman, CCC, January 14, 2012 » Late Move Reductions
 * Re: Approaches to king safety? by Don Dailey, CCC, January 20, 2012 » King Safety
 * A new way to compare chess programs by Larry Kaufman, CCC, June 21, 2012 » Match Statistics
 * Komodo 5 release now available! by Don Dailey, CCC, July 19, 2012
 * The scaling of Houdini 3 and Komodo 5 by Kai Laskos, CCC, November 16, 2012 » Houdini
 * Re: The scaling of Houdini 3 and Komodo 5 by Don Dailey, CCC, November 16, 2012


 * Elo points gain from doubling time by Kai Laskos, CCC, December 10, 2012 » Diminishing Returns

2013

 * 10 Lessons to be Learned from todays Top Engines by Josef, Rybka Forum, January 03, 2013 » Houdini, Stockfish
 * Komodo CCT release by Don Dailey, CCC, May 03, 2013
 * Re: History pruning / move ordering question by Don Dailey, CCC, May 10, 2013 » Countermove Heuristic
 * Komodo 5.1 MP by Don Dailey, OpenChess Forum, June 12, 2013
 * Komodo 5.1 MP has been released by Don Dailey, CCC, June 17, 2013
 * Peculiarity of Komodo 5.1MP by Kai Laskos, CCC, June 19, 2013 » Parallel Search
 * Komodo 5.1MP revision 1 by Don Dailey, CCC, June 27, 2013
 * back to the Komodo SMP issue by Robert Hyatt, CCC, July 01, 2013
 * Komodo release by Don Dailey, CCC, October 01, 2013
 * Re: Who is Don/Larry's new partner!? by Don Dailey, CCC, October 08, 2013
 * Official announcement - New Komodo Author by Don Dailey, CCC, October 14, 2013
 * komodo wins stage 3 by Don Dailey, CCC, November 04, 2013 » TCEC, TCEC Season 5
 * Komodo-TCEC by Larry Kaufman, CCC, December 01, 2013
 * Komodo TCEC released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, December 04, 2013
 * TCEC - Thanks Martin and congrats to the winner Komodo by Gordon Robertson, CCC, December 05, 2013 » TCEC, TCEC Season 5
 * Komodo TCEC: Serious castling bug ! by Stefan Pohl, CCC, December 10, 2013
 * Re: Komodo TCEC: Serious castling bug ! by Mark Lefler, CCC, December 11, 2013

2014
Komodo 8
 * Threads-Test - SF, Zappa, Komodo - 1 vs. 2, 4, 8, 16 Threads by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, May 04, 2014 » Thread, Stockfish, Zappa, Komodo
 * Threads factor: Komodo, Houdini, Stockfish and Zappa by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, May 17, 2014 » Komodo, Houdini, Stockfish, Zappa
 * Komodo 7 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, May 19, 2014
 * Komodo Syzygy evals by Ianski hurnavich, CCC, May 21, 2014 » Syzygy Bases
 * Komodo 7a vs. Houdini 4 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, May 23, 2014
 * Komodo 8 Chessbase by Herbert L, CCC, August 27, 2014
 * Komodo 8 Announcement by Larry Kaufman, CCC, August 28, 2014
 * Komodo 8 for Android is a MONSTER! by Robert Flesher, CCC, September 06, 2014
 * About Komodo 5.1r2 MP and Komodo CCT by Mike Scheidl, CCC, September 07, 2014
 * Komodo 8 on the rating lists by Larry Kaufman, CCC, September 14, 2014 » Engine Rating Lists
 * Some fun with Komodo 8 by Kai Laskos, CCC, September 23, 2014 » EBF
 * Komodo Android Experiment by Ted Summers, CCC, September 24, 2014
 * Threads test incl. Stockfish 5 and Komodo 8 by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, October 09, 2014
 * Threads test - Stockfish 5 against Komodo 8 by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, October 10, 2014 » Thread, Parallel Search, Stockfish, Komodo

2015
Komodo 9
 * Komodo 8 - 5-men Syzygy tablebases by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, January 10, 2015 » Syzygy Bases
 * Empirical results with Lazy SMP, YBWC, DTS by Kai Laskos, CCC, April 16, 2015 » Lazy SMP, YBWC, DTS
 * Komodo 9 Announcement by Larry Kaufman, CCC, April 22, 2015
 * Re: Komodo 9 Announcement by Mark Lefler, CCC, April 28, 2015


 * Komodo 9 update (9.01) by Mark Lefler, CCC, May 06, 2015
 * The effective speedup from 1 to 8 cpus for SF and Komodo by Adam Hair, CCC, May 31, 2015 » Parallel Search, Stockfish
 * Komodo 9.1 Release by Larry Kaufman, CCC, June 20, 2015
 * Significant modification of Komodo SMP implementation by Kai Laskos, CCC, June 23, 2015
 * Komodo 9.2 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, August 21, 2015
 * Komodo, Lazy SMP, and the like :-) by Stephane Nicolet, FishCooking, September 30, 2015 » Stockfish, Lazy SMP
 * Komodo 9.3 has been released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, November 27, 2015
 * Komodo 9.3 game/x setting by Larry Kaufman, CCC, November 30, 2015

2016
Komodo 10
 * Threads test incl. Komodo 9.3 by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, January 17, 2016
 * Komodo 9.4 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, March 18, 2016
 * Komodo 9.42 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, March 21, 2016
 * The importance of "Dynamism" in Komodo by Kai Laskos, CCC, March 26, 2016
 * The flow of Komodo eval by Kai Laskos, CCC, May 19, 2016
 * Komodo 10 released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, May 23, 2016
 * Congrats to Komodo Team by Mehmet Karaman, CCC, July 03, 2016 » WCCC 2016, WCSC 2016
 * Komodo 10.1 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, July 21, 2016
 * Stockfish underpromotes much more often than Komodo by Kai Laskos, CCC, October 05, 2016 » Match Statistics, Promotions, Stockfish
 * Doubling of time control by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, October 21, 2016 » Doubling TC, Diminishing Returns, Playing Strength, Komodo
 * Komodo 10.2 released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, October 29, 2016
 * Komodo 10.3 released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, December 22, 2016

2017
Komodo 11
 * Re: Chessprogams with the most chessknowing by Mark Lefler, CCC, February 18, 2017 » Search versus Evaluation
 * Komodo 10.4 released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, March 14, 2017
 * 6-men Syzygy from HDD and USB 3.0 by Kai Laskos, CCC, April 04, 2017 » Playing Strength, Syzygy Bases, USB 3.0
 * Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) scaling - SF8 and K10.4 by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, May 05, 2017 » Lazy SMP, Stockfish
 * Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) scaling - K10.4 Contempt=0 by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, May 11, 2017 » SMP
 * Komodo 11 is out! by Michael Reyes, CCC, May 15, 2017
 * Komodo 11.01 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, May 23, 2017
 * Thoughts on Komodo 11, Free engines and the future by Brian Smith, CCC, May 28, 2017
 * World Computer Chess Championship 2017: Komodo wins! by Ian Osgood, CCC, July 07, 2017 » WCCC 2017
 * Re: World Computer Chess Championship 2017: Komodo wins! by Ian Osgood, CCC, July 07, 2017
 * Komodo and WCCC by Rodolfo Leoni, CCC, July 10, 2017
 * Komodo 11.2 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, July 17, 2017
 * Komodo 11.2.1 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, July 22, 2017
 * komodo 11.2.2 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, July 28, 2017
 * Scaling from FGRL results with top 3 engines by Kai Laskos, CCC, September 26, 2017 » FGRL, Houdini, Stockfish

2018

 * Komodo 11.2.2 - Initial position until depth 54 by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, January 15, 2018 » Initial Position
 * Komodo 11.3 released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, March 04, 2018
 * Komodo 11.3 by Ianski hurnavich, CCC, March 04, 2018
 * Re: Komodo 11.3 by Mark Lefler, CCC, March 04, 2018 » AMD, BMI2 PEXT

Komodo 12
 * Komodo 11.3.1 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, March 06, 2018
 * Komodo 12 and MCTS by Larry Kaufman, CCC, May 14, 2018
 * Re: Komodo 12 and MCTS by Mark Lefler, CCC, May 14, 2018


 * Komodo 12.11 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, June 04, 2018
 * Komodo 12.1.1 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, June 05, 2018
 * Komodo Persistent Hash by Jean-Francois Romang, CCC, June 30, 2018
 * Komodo MCTS by Ron Langeveld, CCC, August 29, 2018
 * Komodo? by Hurnavich, CCC, October 08, 2018
 * Komodo MCTS and Komodo (Standard?) in CCCC current Blitz battle by Günther Simon, CCC, October 11, 2018
 * Re: Komodo MCTS and Komodo (Standard?) in CCCC current Blitz battle by Larry Kaufman, CCC, October 16, 2018


 * What was the top Chess engine before it was Stockfish, Komodo or Houdini? by JohnW, CCC, October 23, 2018
 * Komodo 12.2 Announcement by Larry Kaufman, CCC, November 06, 2018
 * Komodo 12.2.1 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, November 10, 2018
 * Komodo 12.2.2 Release by Mark Lefler, CCC, November 12, 2018
 * Komodo 12.3 is out by schack, CCC, December 17, 2018

2019
Komodo 13
 * Komodo 13 released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, May 06, 2019
 * Congrats the Komodo Team by Mehmet Karaman, CCC, August 15, 2019 » WCCC 2019
 * Komodo 13.1 released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, August 19, 2019 » WCCC 2019
 * Komodo 13.2 Release by Larry Kaufman, CCC, October 16, 2019
 * Komodo 13.2 by Jonathan Cremers, CCC, November 02, 2019

2020
Komodo 14
 * Komodo 13.3 released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, February 18, 2020
 * Komodo 14 released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, May 12, 2020

Matches

 * Komodo knight odd match vs FM Victor Bolzoni : report by Vincent Lejeune, CCC, July 29, 2015
 * What will the match score be for Komodo against FM Bolzoni? by Larry Kaufman, CCC, July 22, 2015


 * 1) Komodo vs Bolzoni, 1st game Broadcast by Vincent Lejeune, CCC, July 26, 2015
 * 2) Komodo vs Bolzoni, 2nd game Broadcast by Vincent Lejeune, CCC, July 26, 2015
 * 3) Komodo vs Bolzoni, 3rd game Broadcast by Vincent Lejeune, CCC, July 26, 2015
 * 4) Komodo vs Bolzoni, 4th game Broadcast by Vincent Lejeune, CCC, August 02, 2015
 * 5) Komodo vs Bolzoni, 5th game Broadcast by Vincent Lejeune, CCC, August 02, 2015
 * 6) Komodo vs Bolzoni, 6th (and last) game Broadcast by Vincent Lejeune, CCC, August 02, 2015
 * Komodo vs GM handicap matches by Larry Kaufman, CCC, December 03, 2015
 * Komodo vs GM Williams match by Larry Kaufman, CCC, December 12, 2015
 * Mikhalevski vs Komodo match by Larry Kaufman, CCC, January 01, 2016
 * Nakamura vs. Komodo by Larry Kaufman, CCC, January 04, 2016
 * Komodo Beats Nakamura In Final Battle by Sam Copeland, Chess.com, January 08, 2016
 * Komodo Coasts To Victory Over Benjamin by Sam Copeland, Chess.com, March 31, 2016
 * Komodo vs. Larry K on chess.com by Larry Kaufman, CCC, August 27, 2019
 * Komodo vs GM Smerdon knight odds match by Larry Kaufman, CCC, March 16, 2020

=External Links=

Chess Engine

 * Komodo Chess Engine - World Champion Chess Computer
 * Komodo's ICGA Tournaments
 * Komodo (chess) from Wikipedia
 * The chess games of Komodo from chessgames.com
 * Depth of Satisficing by Ken Regan, Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP, October 06, 2015 » Depth, Match Statistics, Pawn Advantage, Win Percentage, and Elo, Stockfish, Komodo
 * A Chess Firewall at Zero? by Ken Regan, Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP, January 21, 2016

Purchase

 * Komodo chess engine - Komodo 13
 * Available Versions of Komodo


 * Komodo 13 - ChessBase Shop, 2019

Interviews

 * Quality Chess Blog » Q&A with Larry Kaufman, December 12, 2013
 * Interview with Robert Houdart, Mark Lefler and GM Larry Kaufman by Nelson Hernandez, Chessdom, November 23, 2017 » TCEC Season 10
 * Komodo MCTS (Monte Carlo Tree Search) is the new star of TCEC, Chessdom, December 18, 2018

Reports
Komodo 8 Android Komodo 9 Komodo 10 Komodo 11 Komodo 12/MCTS Komodo 13
 * Thoresen Chess Engine Competition | Denton Chess Club Blog by Ivan Urwin, October 5, 2013
 * Komodo wins the Thoresen Chess Engines Competition | Denton Chess Club Blog by Ivan Urwin, December 01, 2013 » TCEC Season 5
 * Roanoke Programmer Dies Days Before Efforts Win World Chess Championship, The RoanokeStar.com, December 06, 2013
 * One chess champion per laptop by Roberto Perez-Franco, MIT's The Tech, January 15, 2014 » TCEC Season 5
 * Komodo 8: Die neue Nummer 1 im Schach, ChessBase Nachrichten, September 10, 2014 (German)
 * Komodo 8: bringing creativity back to chess, ChessBase News, September 10, 2014
 * Komodo 8: about the authors, ChessBase News, September 19, 2014
 * Analyzing games with Komodo (Part one) by Albert Silver, ChessBase News, November 12, 2014
 * Analyzing games with Komodo (Part two) by Albert Silver, ChessBase News, November 13, 2014
 * Komodo 8: Deep Blue revisited (part one) by Albert Silver, ChessBase News, December 26, 2014 » Deep Blue, Kasparov versus Deep Blue 1997
 * The New Chess World Champion by Ken Regan, Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP, December 28, 2014 » Larry Kaufman, TCEC Season 7
 * The Best Chess Of 2014 - Chess Engine of the Year, Chess.com, December 29, 2014
 * Komodo 8: Deep Blue revisited (part two) by Albert Silver, ChessBase News, December 31, 2014
 * Komodo 8: Deep Blue revisited (part three) by Albert Silver, ChessBase News, January 09, 2015
 * Anatomy of a Computer Chess Game by Christopher Chabris, The Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2015 » on Game 14 of the TCEC Season 7 Superfinal
 * The Komodo Files – working with a chess engine by Danny Gormally, ChessBase News, March 14, 2015
 * The Komodo Files – working with a chess engine (2) by Danny Gormally, ChessBase News, March 16, 2015
 * How to install Komodo 8 in Android
 * Komodo 8 Chess Engine - Android Apps on Google Play
 * Komodo 8 for Android by Aart Bik, September 6, 2014
 * More on Komodo 8 by Aart Bik, September 9, 2014
 * Komodo 8: the smartphone vs desktop challenge by Albert Silver, ChessBase News, September 24, 2014
 * Komodo Chess 9 – Faster, smarter, stronger, ChessBase News, May 20, 2015
 * El Komodo 9 y lo que viene by Amador Cuesta for Magistral de León 2015, May 27, 2015 (Spanish)
 * And then there were two by John Hartmann, ChessBase News, June 09, 2015 » Komodo, Stockfish
 * Komodo 9 odds matches against GMs by Jesse Gersenson, ChessBase News, September 22, 2015
 * Komodo is World Computer Chess Champion by Frederic Friedel, ChessBase News, July 05, 2016 » WCCC 2016
 * Komodo: Birth of a chess engine by Priyadarshan Banjan and Albert Silver, ChessBase News, July 20, 2016
 * Fair play in engine chess, ChessBase News, December 30, 2016 » Houdini 5, Komodo 10
 * Komodo 11: A finely tuned engine by Davide Nastasio, ChessBase News, October 11, 2017
 * TCEC: Superfinal Houdini vs Komodo by Stephan Oliver Platz, ChessBase News, November 23, 2017 » TCEC Season 10
 * Komodo 12 with AlphaZero techniques, ChessBase News, May 28, 2018
 * Komodo MCTS: the boa constrictor approach by Albert Silver, ChessBase News, June 15, 2018
 * TCEC 12: Komodo wins Premier Division by Stephan Oliver Platz, ChessBase News, June 19, 2018
 * Komodo 12 holt Triple bei Computer-WM in Stockholm by André Schulz, ChessBase.de, July 30, 2018 (German)
 * The memorable world of chess engines by Harry Schüssler, ChessBase News, September 05, 2018
 * Komodo MCTS (Monte Carlo Tree Search) is the new star of TCEC, Chessdom, December 18, 2018
 * Monte Carlo instead of Alpha-Beta? by Stephan Oliver Platz, ChessBase News, January 30, 2019 » MCTS
 * GM Kaufman speaks about his pet dragon — Komodo 13 by Davide Nastasio, ChessBase News, August 20, 2019 » WCSC 2019, Larry Kaufman
 * Komodo 13 is World Champion of computer chess by Klaus Besenthal, ChessBase News, August 28, 2019 » WCCC 2019

Rating Lists

 * Komodo in CCRL 40/40
 * Best Versions (AMD 4200+) CEGT 40/20
 * IPON-Rating-List

Misc

 * Komodo Edit from Wikipedia
 * Komodo (island) from Wikipedia
 * Komodo dragon from Wikipedia

=References= Up one Level