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Hi all,

We are starting a project of making 6-men Nalimov EGTB available online. Since none of us has so powerful FTP server like Hyatt, we are using p2p file sharing to exchange those files. We use eMule software and eDonkey and KAD networks.

I am maintaining an index page for already shared files. Please feel free to join, download the tablebases and keep them in turn shared, at least for a while. If you have any tablebases that are not listed on the index page, if will be great if you could share them and send me the ed2k links.

Any questions or comments are welcome.

Best,
Kirill

Hi all,

More people joined the project - I recieved some new links, and many people are joining by downloading the files and keep them shared. To my surprise, most of 5-men bases were already downloaded at least once from me, kppkp is particularly popular (downloaded at least 6 times from me)

I added smiley faces to the index page, that mark online status of the particular tablebase. Now you can easily see what files are online and what files can't be downloaded at the moment. If you have the file which is marked by sad face, it would be great if you could share it again. (And drop me a message so that I'll mark it with happy face again)

I'd like to welcome more people to join this project, share the tablebases and send me links and status updates. If you just want to download it is fine too, but please keep the files shared at least for a while after you get them. If you have any questions about sharing files with eMule, please ask here or by email.

Happy sharing,
Best,
Kirill

Kirill Kryukov wrote:Hi all,

More people joined the project - I recieved some new links, and many people are joining by downloading the files and keep them shared. To my surprise, most of 5-men bases were already downloaded at least once from me, kppkp is particularly popular (downloaded at least 6 times from me)

I added smiley faces to the index page, that mark online status of the particular tablebase. Now you can easily see what files are online and what files can't be downloaded at the moment. If you have the file which is marked by sad face, it would be great if you could share it again. (And drop me a message so that I'll mark it with happy face again)

I'd like to welcome more people to join this project, share the tablebases and send me links and status updates. If you just want to download it is fine too, but please keep the files shared at least for a while after you get them. If you have any questions about sharing files with eMule, please ask here or by email.

Happy sharing,
Best,
Kirill

Hello Kirill,

I am not against the worthy goals of the project as outlined here and elsewhere but I would strongly urge that any (general ?) questions about sharing files with emule NOT be asked here but by way of private e-mail.

All the best.

Later.

Hi all,

I added a second machine (name "Kirr-2") to EGTB sharing project, so now it's much easier to download files from me. I have about 25 GB of tablebases at the moment, but quickly getting more too.

You can check the project page to see what files are available. I am trying to update the online status when there are changes.

Unfortunately some people who sent me links in the beginning, backed off now, before their files were distributed to other members. (Or may be they are just taking break from sharing). So there are some grey and yellow smileys on the index page. We will try get those files back online in future. Also if you have some of those files marked by grey or yellow smiley, it would be very nice if you could share them.

I am having email communication with some more people with many tablebases. As soon as we figure out how I can get them, I will share many more files.

Roger Brown wrote:I am not against the worthy goals of the project as outlined here and elsewhere but I would strongly urge that any (general ?) questions about sharing files with emule NOT be asked here but by way of private e-mail.

I'm sure everyone got it.

Best,
Kirill

Hi Kirill,

in my opinion this is a really fantastic idea, especially because currently no 6-men are available from Hyatt. My own collection is so far very small, but made them available now also via Emule. So far it's just KBBB-KP, KBB-KBB, KBB-KBN, KBB-KNN, KBN-KBN, KBN-KNN, KNN-KNN, KQB-KBB, KRR-KRB, KRR-KRR
Once I just downloaded them for testing issues, but with the possibility to get them with emule now I will try to add some more. Great idea, once more. For such things file-sharing is definitely perfect.

Greets, Thomas

Hi Thomas,

Thomas Mayer wrote:in my opinion this is a really fantastic idea, especially because currently no 6-men are available from Hyatt. My own collection is so far very small, but made them available now also via Emule. So far it's just KBBB-KP, KBB-KBB, KBB-KBN, KBB-KNN, KBN-KBN, KBN-KNN, KNN-KNN, KQB-KBB, KRR-KRB, KRR-KRR
Once I just downloaded them for testing issues, but with the possibility to get them with emule now I will try to add some more. Great idea, once more. For such things file-sharing is definitely perfect.

Thanks! Yes, Hyatt's stopping to host 6-men bases was our main motivation to start this. And p2p is better suited to this purpose than FTP anyway, as you noted.

Thanks for sharing new files! I'll add the links as soon as I'll find them in search. You can send the links to me to add them sooner. I already added KBB-KBN links and started downloading it. Being number 2768 in your queue gives me some hope that I may get those files before the next year..

In other news. I received  KRBKBB from another guy and added to sharing on both of my machines. The most popular of big bases at the moment are KBPKBP and KRPKRP. Also 5-men files are still downloaded a lot from me. The project moves on slowly with more people joining every day. Hopefully in year or two no one will have to worry about finding those bases anymore.

Best,
Kirill

Hi all,

More than one month passed since we started this project, so time for some progress report.

I downloaded many more bases, thanks for all people who joined the project. I currently share about 100 GB of tablebases - all obtained through this project within just a little more than 1 month. In my estimation I uploaded about 250 GB in this period, from two machines.

The project page now has md5 files for easy checking the tablebase integrity. Also there is now alphabetic sorting in addition to sorting by piece value.

Many more bases got "green smiley", and some even "blue smiley", which means 10 sources. Also a lot of new bases were added, now still shared just by one or two people.

Some bases spread faster than others, for example KPPPK* bases were recently added and immediately became very popular. Large bases that I completed downloading just recently (now sharing them): KRPPKQ, KQPPKQ, KBBPKB.

If you want to try the fascinating analysis of 6-men endgames, please feel free to join. Also if you are looking just for 4-men or 5-men bases, we have them too, now already reliably shared by several people.

Good luck!

I've been participating in this project for a couple of weeks now, and kept it kind of quiet as I knew I would be dropping out at a certain point in time. The reason is quite simple: I've moved to another house in another country. I haven't got internet there yet, but once I do, there will be traffic limits that will make sharing EGTB's like I'm doing now pretty expensive.
I still don't know when exactly I will be pulling the plug but it will be January 13th 2006 the latest (as my ADSL connection in my old home will be terminated at that date), but could be earlier if my internet connection in my new home is operational earlier than that.
Meanwhile, I'm sharing about 500Gb 6-men EGTB's with an upload capacity of 50kByte/s which is usually fully utilized. All complete files that I have are already copied to at least one other participant, so me leaving the project will have a limited impact on the availability of those files to the project.
Richard.

Hi Richard! Yes, you are one of the biggest contributors (most modest too), I am very thankful to you. I am downloading from you non-stop, to have more bases online by the time you move. I was sad to hear that you are leaving, but now Vincent should have your files so hopefully it will be alright. Thanks!

Richard Pijl wrote:Meanwhile, I'm sharing about 500Gb 6-men EGTB's with an upload capacity of 50kByte/s which is usually fully utilized. All complete files that I have are already copied to at least one other participant [...]

Hi Richard, are you sure all the data has been utilized at least once? My fast calculation: 500 Gb with 50 kb/s need 10 million seconds. One day has a bit less than 100 thousand seconds. So, when each file is downloaded exactly once, and the upload bandwith is used at full capacity all the time, this would need over 100 days.

I do not know emule, and I thought about sharing some TBs. I got some doubt, if it would work with my upload speed. I think I have 128 kbits/s. For 800 MB files (a typical size of 6-men TBs), and say 2 downloads at a time, this would take over a day. My connection to the internet is closed at least once every 24 hours. Wouldn't this cause too many problems?

Cheers,
Dieter

Hi Dieter,

I'm sure all the data is copied. Vincent visited me with a bunch of harddisks and we copied it via ATA instead of emule
Richard.

Hi Dieter,

I hope it's OK if I reply to some points.

Dieter B?r?ner wrote:Hi Richard, are you sure all the data has been utilized at least once? My fast calculation: 500 Gb with 50 kb/s need 10 million seconds. One day has a bit less than 100 thousand seconds. So, when each file is downloaded exactly once, and the upload bandwith is used at full capacity all the time, this would need over 100 days.

Richard is not the only one who has many files. At least Vincent should now also have all the same files. Also many other members have some tablebases, which they also share. By this way a kind of distributed online library is formed, where we all contribute what we can, and where everyone can come and download tablebases.

When eMule is downloading the file, it does not have to get it all from the same source. It can collect some parts of that file from Richard, some other parts from Vincent, Dan, Gordon, me, etc.. and assemble all those parts together to recover the complete file for you.

Dieter B?r?ner wrote:I do not know emule, and I thought about sharing some TBs. I got some doubt, if it would work with my upload speed. I think I have 128 kbits/s. For 800 MB files (a typical size of 6-men TBs), and say 2 downloads at a time, this would take over a day.

It will of course help to the project if you will share some files, or even if you will start downloading some files and keep them shared for some while. Most of members have not too fast connection, but by combining our efforts we are creating something bigger, an undestructable distributed tablebase storage.

Dieter B?r?ner wrote:My connection to the internet is closed at least once every 24 hours. Wouldn't this cause too many problems?

No any problems.

Dieter B?r?ner wrote:

Richard Pijl wrote:Meanwhile, I'm sharing about 500Gb 6-men EGTB's with an upload capacity of 50kByte/s which is usually fully utilized. All complete files that I have are already copied to at least one other participant [...]

Hi Richard, are you sure all the data has been utilized at least once? My fast calculation: 500 Gb with 50 kb/s need 10 million seconds. One day has a bit less than 100 thousand seconds. So, when each file is downloaded exactly once, and the upload bandwith is used at full capacity all the time, this would need over 100 days.

I do not know emule, and I thought about sharing some TBs. I got some doubt, if it would work with my upload speed. I think I have 128 kbits/s. For 800 MB files (a typical size of 6-men TBs), and say 2 downloads at a time, this would take over a day. My connection to the internet is closed at least once every 24 hours. Wouldn't this cause too many problems?

Cheers,
Dieter

Hi Dieter,

if yo limit your upload to 12KB/s than you won't notice any difference while surfing or downloading. Just set your emule to automatically reconnect and your internet connection as well and after a disconnect you will be sharing again in 10 seconds . Me has the same connection as you have.

Joachim

Hi Dieter,

I remember you once posted a list of most common 6-men-endings which actually occured in human-human games. It appeared that KRPPKR was even more common than i.e. KPPKPP or KRPKRP. Do you still have that list or any other "priorisation" of which 6-men-endings one should have?

Thanks in advance

Joachim

I remember you once posted a list of most common 6-men-endings which actually occured in human-human games. It appeared that KRPPKR was even more common than i.e. KPPKPP or KRPKRP. Do you still have that list or any other "priorisation" of which 6-men-endings one should have?

When selecting the subset you want to download, remember what EGTB's can do for you. It is of relatively little use to download outright won endgames like kqrpkn which can be handled pretty well by engines. The same is true for drawish endgames like krnkbn. IMO the most interesting EGTB's are those that have a slight advantage for one side, where the question is whether the position is won or not. It not only helps playing the position when it occurs, but more importantly, it helps (to avoid) trading down to (drawn or) won endings when you're ahead in material. So endings like krppkr, kpppkr etc. Same is true for endings that are very hard to search through, like uneven material endings with queens, e.g. krbpkq (warning, this is a very big one!) or krppkq.

Note that if you keep the files compressed on your disk, the memory requirements when using the EGTB's rise a lot due to the decompression tables. With the current set I have, I need about 500Mb of memory just for the decompression tables. And I have the 3,4,5 stone EGTB's uncompressed on my disks!

Richard.

Richard Pijl wrote:
When selecting the subset you want to download, remember what EGTB's can do for you. It is of relatively little use to download outright won endgames like kqrpkn which can be handled pretty well by engines. The same is true for drawish endgames like krnkbn. IMO the most interesting EGTB's are those that have a slight advantage for one side, where the question is whether the position is won or not. It not only helps playing the position when it occurs, but more importantly, it helps (to avoid) trading down to (drawn or) won endings when you're ahead in material. So endings like krppkr, kpppkr etc. Same is true for endings that are very hard to search through, like uneven material endings with queens, e.g. krbpkq (warning, this is a very big one!) or krppkq.

Richard.

Hi Richard,

these theoretical assumptions I have made as well. I agree with everything you said bu was looking for some hard data to create a list.

I thought about creating the "importance" of an EGTB on the basis of the .tbs file. If there are equal numbers of won, lost and draw position this seems to be a possible useful EGTB or if there are many long DTM as well. Perhaps one can make some kind of list for (all) 6-men rather than guessing each time again which one to download. Of course such a list could be as well established in a wiki-style where many persons can give their opinion which egtbs are most interesting. Perhaps Kirill has ambitions to expand his page with such information?

regards Joachim

Joachim Rang wrote:I remember you once posted a list of most common 6-men-endings which actually occured in human-human games. It appeared that KRPPKR was even more common than i.e. KPPKPP or KRPKRP. Do you still have that list or any other "priorisation" of which 6-men-endings one should have?

You can create the list with Yace 0.9987 in console mode. Short, hopefully self explaining instruction:

hash 0
cadiz_pgn games.pgn tbstat.txt e
quit

Later you can use "sort" with some options from the DOS command prompt.

Not sure, if I can find the list again, fast. Search in the CSS forum might find it.

My favorites, just out of my head:
kxppkx, x same on both side + B vs. N;
kxpkxp, ...;
kmppkx, m minor, x major
krppkq
kpppkx

Regards,
Dieter

Hi Joachim,

Joachim Rang wrote:Perhaps Kirill has ambitions to expand his page with such information?

It is not related with "ambitions" to me. I do it because we all need it and it was not done yet.

Tablebase "importance" is very interesting. Currently I don't have time to do any study about it, and I don't see a clean way to add it to the page. If anyone will make a web-page with list of endgame configurations ordered by "importance", I will add link to that page.

Hi all,

I was wondering .. What is the exact string I should type when looking for the EGTB's ?

I have tried
"EGTB"
"Tablebases"
"Nalimov"
And even specific files such as .. KRPKRP KBN-KNN and so on..
Still none of them returned any results whatsoever.
Am I missing anything or doing something the wrong way?

Thanks, Arnon.

Arnon Yogev wrote:Hi all,

I was wondering .. What is the exact string I should type when looking for the EGTB's ?

I have tried
"EGTB"
"Tablebases"
"Nalimov"
And even specific files such as .. KRPKRP KBN-KNN and so on..
Still none of them returned any results whatsoever.
Am I missing anything or doing something the wrong way?

Thanks, Arnon.

http://kd.lab.nig.ac.jp/chess/tablebases-online/