Open-source improvements released

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Hi all-

I've been playing quite a bit with 3 open-source programs, made some progress and have put it all up on Github:

Fridolin 2.00
- code optimizations, eval tuning, etc.
published on GitHub as Jinx 1.0 (~ +146 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/jinx

Bobcat 8.0
- code optimizations, eval tuning, etc.
published on GitHub as Tomcat 1.0 (~ +45 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/tomcat

Gull 3
published on GitHub as Seagull 1.0 (~ +5 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/seagull

Seagull changes:
- source code cleaned up, simplified, and broken up into various source and header files
- a couple of VS code analysis fixes (ex: gen_kpk() was causing stack exceed error)
- compiler warnings resolved up to level 4
- benchmark and perft utilities added (type 'bench' and engine will write a date-stamped text file with results)
- support for syzygy tablebases

All include Visual Studio 2015 project files and x64 binaries.

Best Regards,
Norm

thanks Norman!

+5 elo to Fridolin and +146 elo to Gull would have been much more appreciated.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Norm,

good work (nice to see all the important changes for Gull). Bobcat with 45 Elo more is also great.

To have the same with Phalanx could be interesting. I like Phalanx a lot and have the most fun with Phalanx in winboard times.

Best
Frank

[Kotlov]

Personally, I'm against making different engines equally strong.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Eugene,

Open Source!!
We have the original version or older versions of the original!

Often I am playing vs. very old engines like SSEChess or ETChess a lot of others, like DOS Tjes.

Enough for each of us is available!

Best
Frank

[carldaman]

Hi all-

I've been playing quite a bit with 3 open-source programs, made some progress and have put it all up on Github:

Fridolin 2.00
- code optimizations, eval tuning, etc.
published on GitHub as Jinx 1.0 (~ +146 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/jinx

Bobcat 8.0
- code optimizations, eval tuning, etc.
published on GitHub as Tomcat 1.0 (~ +45 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/tomcat

Gull 3
published on GitHub as Seagull 1.0 (~ +5 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/seagull

Seagull changes:
- source code cleaned up, simplified, and broken up into various source and header files
- a couple of VS code analysis fixes (ex: gen_kpk() was causing stack exceed error)
- compiler warnings resolved up to level 4
- benchmark and perft utilities added (type 'bench' and engine will write a date-stamped text file with results)
- support for syzygy tablebases

All include Visual Studio 2015 project files and x64 binaries.

Best Regards,
Norm

Thanks a lot, Norman.

I have to say that it is quite surprising that

http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=c ... ngine_list

has not listed your releases, while including some other derivatives (Sugar, for example), especially since you obviously had to put in some real effort into producing actual Elo gains over the originals.

Regards,
CL

[Ron Murawski]

Hi all-

I've been playing quite a bit with 3 open-source programs, made some progress and have put it all up on Github:

Fridolin 2.00
- code optimizations, eval tuning, etc.
published on GitHub as Jinx 1.0 (~ +146 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/jinx

Bobcat 8.0
- code optimizations, eval tuning, etc.
published on GitHub as Tomcat 1.0 (~ +45 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/tomcat

Gull 3
published on GitHub as Seagull 1.0 (~ +5 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/seagull

Seagull changes:
- source code cleaned up, simplified, and broken up into various source and header files
- a couple of VS code analysis fixes (ex: gen_kpk() was causing stack exceed error)
- compiler warnings resolved up to level 4
- benchmark and perft utilities added (type 'bench' and engine will write a date-stamped text file with results)
- support for syzygy tablebases

All include Visual Studio 2015 project files and x64 binaries.

Best Regards,
Norm

Thanks a lot, Norman.

I have to say that it is quite surprising that

http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=c ... ngine_list

has not listed your releases, while including some other derivatives (Sugar, for example), especially since you obviously had to put in some real effort into producing actual Elo gains over the originals.

Regards,
CL

Hi Carl,

Please send me a complete list of derivatives that you feel deserve or don't deserve listing and I will consider them. I have little time for computer chess these days, so my decisions may seem arbitrary to a knowledgeable insider such as yourself. It is the amount of coding changes that interests me here: What percentage of the original code remains unchanged compared to new code? Are the changes substantive, or merely a restating, a re-arrangement of original code, or an implementation of well-known techniques? Is the fixing of several bugs sufficient to announce another derivative engine with a different name? These are the questions that I do not have time to research and answer.

Keep in mind that Elo gains have nothing to do with an engine's authorship.

I see Norman's valuable contributions as an appeal to the authors of these engines to implement his bugfixes and improvements. If they do, I will consider that as a new version and it is possible I will add Norman's name as a co-author of that engine.

Best regards,
Ron

[Engin]

A BIG GOOD MOVE from you Norman to helping improve weaker engines like Fridolin i am sure Sommerfeld will be very thanks to you.

[Guenther]

Hi all-

I've been playing quite a bit with 3 open-source programs, made some progress and have put it all up on Github:

Fridolin 2.00
- code optimizations, eval tuning, etc.
published on GitHub as Jinx 1.0 (~ +146 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/jinx

Bobcat 8.0
- code optimizations, eval tuning, etc.
published on GitHub as Tomcat 1.0 (~ +45 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/tomcat

Gull 3
published on GitHub as Seagull 1.0 (~ +5 Elo)
https://github.com/FireFather/seagull

Seagull changes:
- source code cleaned up, simplified, and broken up into various source and header files
- a couple of VS code analysis fixes (ex: gen_kpk() was causing stack exceed error)
- compiler warnings resolved up to level 4
- benchmark and perft utilities added (type 'bench' and engine will write a date-stamped text file with results)
- support for syzygy tablebases

All include Visual Studio 2015 project files and x64 binaries.

Best Regards,
Norm

Thanks a lot, Norman. :)

I have to say that it is quite surprising that

http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=c ... ngine_list

has not listed your releases, while including some other derivatives (Sugar, for example), especially since you obviously had to put in some real effort into producing actual Elo gains over the originals.

Regards,
CL

Hi Carl,

Please send me a complete list of derivatives that you feel deserve or don't deserve listing and I will consider them. I have little time for computer chess these days, so my decisions may seem arbitrary to a knowledgeable insider such as yourself. It is the amount of coding changes that interests me here: What percentage of the original code remains unchanged compared to new code? Are the changes substantive, or merely a restating, a re-arrangement of original code, or an implementation of well-known techniques? Is the fixing of several bugs sufficient to announce another derivative engine with a different name? These are the questions that I do not have time to research and answer.

Keep in mind that Elo gains have nothing to do with an engine's authorship.

I see Norman's valuable contributions as an appeal to the authors of these engines to implement his bugfixes and improvements. If they do, I will consider that as a new version and it is possible I will add Norman's name as a co-author of that engine.

Best regards,
Ron

Because no one so far mentioned it, I want to add that all the numbers (elo increase) given are w/o any objective reference so far.

[flok]

I accidentally stumbled upon some open source chess program that clearly needs a bit of love.

https://github.com/flok99/Embla[/i]

[JVMerlino]

I accidentally stumbled upon some open source chess program that clearly needs a bit of love.

https://github.com/flok99/Embla

For years I have considered just throwing my (embarrasingly bad) source for Myrddin up on Github and hoping somebody will take pity on it.