Answers.Body: <p>As far as I can see Leelenstein is mostly derivative of Leela. It uses a fraction of the games produced by Leela's self-play to get to a similar playing strength. </p>
  
  <p>Given that most of these games have also been used to train Leela, there is little reason to expect Leelenstein to be better. </p>
  
  <p>Basically Leela produces customized trainingsdata via self-play, Leelenstein uses games produced by other engines, which may or may not be consistent with each other.</p>
  
  <p>After self-play Leela uses the data in a supervised fashion. Leelenstein is not a different approach. It's the same approach, only skipping the step of producing its own trainingsdata. </p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-02-05T01:48:08.777Z
Answers.Text: Hmm, wouldn't it in principle be possible to use Leela's losses as a training set for Leelenstein, thereby training Leelenstein to exploit Leela's weaknesses?
Answers.UserDisplayName: Allure
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Answers.CreationDate: 2020-02-05T08:53:13.120Z
Answers.Text: Well, most of the games produced by Leela are games against itself. But there is a project that is aimed at training a NN-engine to beat Stockfish.
Answers.UserDisplayName: BlindKungFuMaster
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Answers.CreationDate: 2020-01-31T14:38:37.507Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-01-31T14:38:37.507Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: BlindKungFuMaster
Body: <p>Leela Chess Zero is a neural-network based chess engine trained entirely from self play (that's why it has the word "zero" in its name). Leelenstein uses the same binary,* but a <a href="https://www.patreon.com/jjosh" rel="nofollow noreferrer">different method</a> to train its neural network, utilizing supervised learning.</p>
  
  <p>The latest results indicate that <a href="https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship#event=ccc1217-lc0-vs-leelenstein-finals" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Leela is stronger than Leelenstein</a>. Why?</p>
  
  <p>I'm especially interested in an explanation of why the zero approach is better than the supervised learning approach, if it is indeed superior (presumably it is, or I don't see why Leela would win in the first place).</p>
  
  <p>*As I understand it, NN-engines need two things to operate: the binary file, and the neural network itself. Leela and Leelenstein share the same binary.</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-01-31T02:29:30.767Z
Comments.Text: The link has no useful information unless you sign up  and start exploring the site.   Do you have a link that actually proves your claim? It would appear that the zero approach has been trained for a long time already and the new one is just starting to do training. Clearly they have different networks but can not have the same binary file if they are learning differently.
Comments.UserDisplayName: edwina oliver
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-01-31T02:35:46.550Z
Comments.Text: @edwinaoliver what link are you talking about? I see everything about how Leelenstein is trained on that Patreon page. Also, Leela regularly resets to start afresh (the latest test is at least the 4th time it's done this), so "has been around longer" does not seem accurate.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Allure
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-01-31T03:58:51.807Z
Comments.Text: neither link showed me anything useful .  I stopped when josh site said to sign up.
Comments.UserDisplayName: edwina oliver
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-01-31T04:09:21.843Z
Comments.Text: @edwinaoliver Scroll down. This is a direct quote from the Patreon website. "Leelenstein started out mostly CCRL games, with some 40b and T30 games. Currently uses CCRL games + more T30 games + SGDR + GGT + SE, but started with the same weights as the previous to retain some information from those other games." And no, I did not sign up either.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Allure
Tags: <engines><computer-chess><leela>
Title: Why is Leela better than Leelenstein? (as of January 2020)
ThreadText: # Why is Leela better than Leelenstein? (as of January 2020)
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2020-01-31)
  
  Leela Chess Zero is a neural-network based chess engine trained entirely from self play (that's why it has the word "zero" in its name). Leelenstein uses the same binary,\* but a [different method](https://www.patreon.com/jjosh) to train its neural network, utilizing supervised learning.
  
  The latest results indicate that [Leela is stronger than Leelenstein](https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship#event=ccc1217-lc0-vs-leelenstein-finals). Why?
  
  I'm especially interested in an explanation of why the zero approach is better than the supervised learning approach, if it is indeed superior (presumably it is, or I don't see why Leela would win in the first place).
  
  \*As I understand it, NN-engines need two things to operate: the binary file, and the neural network itself. Leela and Leelenstein share the same binary.
  
  **Tags:** engines, computer-chess, leela
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: The link has no useful information unless you sign up  and start exploring the site.   Do you have a link that actually proves your claim? It would appear that the zero approach has been trained for a long time already and the new one is just starting to do training. Clearly they have different networks but can not have the same binary file if they are learning differently.  
  > **username_0**: @edwinaoliver what link are you talking about? I see everything about how Leelenstein is trained on that Patreon page. Also, Leela regularly resets to start afresh (the latest test is at least the 4th time it's done this), so "has been around longer" does not seem accurate.  
  > **username_1**: neither link showed me anything useful .  I stopped when josh site said to sign up.  
  > **username_0**: @edwinaoliver Scroll down. This is a direct quote from the Patreon website. "Leelenstein started out mostly CCRL games, with some 40b and T30 games. Currently uses CCRL games + more T30 games + SGDR + GGT + SE, but started with the same weights as the previous to retain some information from those other games." And no, I did not sign up either.  
  
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  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2020-01-31. Score: 2 | Accepted answer
  
  As far as I can see Leelenstein is mostly derivative of Leela. It uses a fraction of the games produced by Leela's self-play to get to a similar playing strength.
  
  Given that most of these games have also been used to train Leela, there is little reason to expect Leelenstein to be better.
  
  Basically Leela produces customized trainingsdata via self-play, Leelenstein uses games produced by other engines, which may or may not be consistent with each other.
  
  After self-play Leela uses the data in a supervised fashion. Leelenstein is not a different approach. It's the same approach, only skipping the step of producing its own trainingsdata.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Hmm, wouldn't it in principle be possible to use Leela's losses as a training set for Leelenstein, thereby training Leelenstein to exploit Leela's weaknesses?  
  > **username_2**: Well, most of the games produced by Leela are games against itself. But there is a project that is aimed at training a NN-engine to beat Stockfish.  
  
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