TalkChess.com

[Richard Allbert]

Hi Mark,

well, with just Material + PSQTable eval and nothing esle - just AB search, Jabba is at 1946 elo Blitz on FICS.

It may seem a fast dev pace all of a sudden, but I have a few years of writing weak C++ engines (Bitboard, Mailbox, 0x88) to fall back on, so the basics of Search are familiar.

What I never seemed to be able to do was test properly to make improvements. I've no idea how some of the monster engines get so strong - well, that's a lie, after speaking to some of the Authors at the CPT tournament, it's clear that a huge amount of time, discipline and knowledge is involved in tuning.

Hoping to change that now...

Onto FICS:

It's easy to get onto FICS - I use winboard. If you pm me your email, I'll send you my batch file I use to start it, and the logon file so you have an example. Or I can give you a link for download.

Of course, you'll need to have implemented the UCI or Winboard protocol. I can send you my sourcefor that if you need a quick reference - I implemented the bare minimum UCI protocol.

Winboard uses Polyglot to run as a translation between the Winboard and UCI protocols - and does it for you.

If you haven't, don't forget that you'll need to be able to parse input whilst thinking. I do this by having a thinking Thread and an input / output thread.

Also, it takes a few days to get an account approved on FICS as a computer. But it's worth it - games galore vs humans.

Let me know if you need anything!