Schooner Version 1.4

[Graham Banks]

Graham,
The program works as promised from the initial post providing no changes are made. However, the current version 1.4 requires a polyglot "book.bin" to be installed in the same directory or the engine will crash. There is a fix for this and will be updated along with some improvements to the xboard force command in version 1.4.1.

Do you have any other suggestions for improvements beforehand?

Not that I can think of, aside from an ini file if it's a winboard engine.

It's always a good idea for engine authors to give the option of switching an internal book off.

[D Sceviour]

Here are the patches for Schooner1.4.1 :

1. Fixed WARNING ERR bug for polyglot book
2. Improved xboard force commands. Arena .abk books should work now.
3. Added a simple sc.ini file for hash and book.

[D Sceviour]

After 6 rounds, Schooner shares third place in the 54th CCRL Amateur D6. Thank you to Graham Banks and Gabor Szots for getting the engine into the tournament and running quickly.

[Jamal Bubker]

Here is another chess program:

Schooner1.4_64.exe

- WinBoard compatible
- 64 bit
- SSE Popcnt support
- Default hash size 128Mb - adjustable
- 1 CPU - no threading
- No pondering allowed
- Resident personality book
- Also supports polyglot style book - named "book.bin" in the same directory as the engine.
- No endgame table base support

https://github.com/schooner64-chess/Schooner-Chess.git

Thank you Dennis for offering your engine

[hgm]

Schooner does not support an initialization file, but that will be put on the to-do list for the future if the standard interfaces cannot setup the engine properly.

Initialization files are so 20th-century... It is highly recommended you let your engine support the 'memory' command to set its hash size. Just send

feature memory=1

at startup, and be ready to receive the command

memory N

from the GUI, and (re-)allocate the hash table to N megabytes if it wasn't already that. (For an example, see Simple's source code.)

Unfortunately Schooner does not use the force command yet for move sequences. The main reason for this is that the interface also sends the force command to stop thinking and the xboard documentation stated the stop command could be ignored. [Also, if this is intended to force a move then there must be a new move entered in the buffer to makemove. But if it also wants to stop thinking then what does xboard want to do with the search move in the existing buffer waiting for makemove? However, that question can be postponed for another time.]

The force command will be put on the agenda for changes.

What is really meant here is that you can ignore any commands for as long as the engine is thinking, and let it finish in its own time. But you would still have to execute the commands afterwards (except '?' for 'move now', which then of course has become meaningless.

I am not sure what exactly you are asking between the brackets. 'force' does not announce moves will come per se. It just inform the engine that it should never make a move of its own accord until it gets instructed to play for a certain side again by the 'go' command. But it is perfectly legal to send 'force', followed by 'go' without any moves.

[D Sceviour]

Jamal Bubker wrote,

Thank you Dennis for offering your engine.

You are welcome!

[D Sceviour]

H.G. Muller wrote,

It is highly recommended you let your engine support the 'memory' command to set its hash size.

The engine already did that, but Graham Banks asked for an ini file so it is included in version 1.4.1. The ini file can still be ignored if the interface is capable of setting up the engine properly.

The force command has been patched and seems to be working without problems.

[tmokonen]

Hi Dennis, I noticed an issue with Schooner. When I select a sudden death time control in Arena, such as game in x number of minutes, Schooner only searches one ply deep. If a sudden death time control with an increment is selected, such as 5/5, it will search more deeply, six or seven plies, but still moves very quickly for the given time control.

Other than that, it works well for me, and is a pretty decent engine. Thank you for releasing Schooner.

[D Sceviour]

Tony Mokonen wrote.

When I select a sudden death time control in Arena, such as game in x number of minutes, Schooner only searches one ply deep.

Thank for pointing out the shortfall. The current version does not support sudden death time control ("level 0 1 0"). That can be put on the agenda to fix for the future. To be honest, I never needed it for testing.

[D Sceviour]

A patch has been added for Arena blitz levels, but the results are hardly worth it. Even at a time limit of 10 seconds per game it still takes 1 minute to complete the game. There is some kind of delay in the interface. There is no scheduled update release for this in Schooner.