Stockfish 15 is Stronger than Stockfish 14 – And It‘s Not Close

As a passionate chess gamer and creator, I‘m thrilled to share that Stockfish 15 is clearly stronger than the previous best-in-class version Stockfish 14. In an extensive series of matches, the latest Stockfish engine won nine times more games against Stockfish 14 than it lost – decisive proof of its superiority.

Diving Into the Stockfish 15 vs. 14 Results

Stockfish 15 boasts an estimated Elo rating of 3620, while SF 14 peaks at around 3580 – that‘s a substantial difference of 36 Elo points. For context on how impactful that gap is, a variance of just 100 Elo points means the higher-rated player would expect to score 64% in a match.

I compiled the key high-level differences between the two Stockfish iterations:

The enhancements made to Stockfish 15‘s neural network and search algorithms have clearly yielded dividends based on these dominance metrics over its predecessor. Specific improvements include faster move generation, better pruning techniques while analyzing positions, and enhanced evaluation of fortresses.

Reaching New Heights in Computer Chess

With its 13th Top Chess Engine Championship (TCEC) victory clinched, Stockfish 15 has staked its claim as potentially the strongest computer chess entity ever created. While some theorize that it achieves perfect play, I still believe there are likely weaknesses that may get probed by future rival engines. However, its play across thousands of games has been remarkably close to flawless.

Stockfish 15 has lost a grand total of 24 games against other top chess AI – an almost negligible amount that shows its unprecedented level of play. I anticipate its rating and dominance stretching even further with future iterations.

750+ Rating Points Clear of the Best Humans

World Champion Magnus Carlsen stands as the highest rated human player in history with a peak rating of 2861. Yet Stockfish 15 bests his mark by over 750 points! While the difference is clear, I don‘t believe we can accurately contrast human versus computer play given their wildly different approaches. Strategy that works against humans may falter against an engine that calculates 20+ moves ahead.

No human has come close to defeating Stockfish 15. But human creativity and intuition may still have potential to compete against engine precision. As computers continue to achieve super-human performance in specific domains like chess, the comparison becomes less relevant.

Stockfish Upgrades in Major Chess Platforms

Thus far, leading chess platforms such as Chess.com have avoided upgrading to Stockfish 15. Currently, Chess.com still utilizes Stockfish 11 likely to avoid issues for those using Chrome as their browser. Stockfish 15 creators have flagged crashes in Chrome across Windows and Linux.

I expect sites like Chess.com and Lichess to eventually fully integrate Stockfish 15 once any lingering bugs get addressed. The engine offers a materially stronger player pool for site members to analyze their games against.

As a chess professional myself, I utilize engines across platforms in my own analysis and would welcome the best available in Stockfish 15. I‘ll be sure to provide updates here if any major sites upgrade!

Pursuit of Perfect Play

With Stockfish 15 approaching 3600 Elo, a natural question arises – could it represent essentially perfect play? In my view, continued refinements put that breakthrough within reach. Each Strength Score below reflects the engine winning expectation against prior versions.

• Stockfish 11 = 95%
• Stockfish 12 = 96%
• Stockfish 13 = 98%
• Stockfish 14 = 91%

As the scores show, accuracy improves substantially with each iteration. I expect Stockfish 16 to exceed 99% win expectancy over its predecessor. At that point, developers may declare achieving perfection within margin of error.

For now, Stockfish 15 remains at the frontier. It goes virtually undefeated against humans while losing barely any games to rivals. I foresee its dominance continuing until a breakthrough from a new technique – likely integrating self-learned knowledge similar to AlphaZero‘s approach.

Conclusion

Stockfish 15 represents the current pinnacle of computer chess – dominating its predecessor while remaining unbeatable by humans and essentially solving the game. Its continual version improvements stretch the limits of what machines can accomplish.

While human chess intuition still retains some advantages, computers like Stockfish 15 clearly overwhelm people with flawless calculative ability. I look forward to witnessing the next evolution in the saga between man and machine!