Rodent news

[PK]

Siergiey Ivanov, going by GitHub nickname tico-tico, has done several great things, like making Rodent's transposition table thread-safe, safeguarding against possible crashes, speeding up internal opening book etc. It's nice to get such a substantial help form someone who thinks from the user's perspective.

But it's his recent contribution that I want to talk about. He introduced me to AppVeyor and set it up in such a way that Rodent will be automatically compiled after each GitHub commit. The builds can be accessed from https://github.com/nescitus/Rodent_III - just go to the bottom of the page, click that green and grey image that AppVeyor calls "badge", then choose one of the zipped packages. Unless You want to target specific processor, I's recommend one of the last four.

I have yet to think how to balance official distribution packages and these builds. I know that current version is a bit stronger than 0.172. It has been partially tuned using manually-aided Texel method, has some search tweaks and eval additions, and performs better on more threads. Testers can freely use version 0.210 if they please.

Users can put a new build into the old folder, download personality files and opening book and generally try to navigate in this mess, or wait for the true distribution package, probably till the end of the year.

It also has a new, experimental personality tuner, making use of some recently added options. Get it from here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nesci ... er_210.htm
Paste the code in a html document, and as pure JavaScript it will work offline. If You send me a personality, I'll try to gague its strength.

Before full official release I want to create a bunch of different personalities, then weaken playing strength for 75% of them to have a coverage of a decent Elo range.

So far I determined that eval changes alone can create slightly over 200 Elo range span, see https://github.com/nescitus/Rodent_III/ ... rating.txt

[BrendanJNorman]

Siergiey Ivanov, going by GitHub nickname tico-tico, has done several great things, like making Rodent's transposition table thread-safe, safeguarding against possible crashes, speeding up internal opening book etc. It's nice to get such a substantial help form someone who thinks from the user's perspective.

But it's his recent contribution that I want to talk about. He introduced me to AppVeyor and set it up in such a way that Rodent will be automatically compiled after each GitHub commit. The builds can be accessed from https://github.com/nescitus/Rodent_III - just go to the bottom of the page, click that green and grey image that AppVeyor calls "badge", then choose one of the zipped packages. Unless You want to target specific processor, I's recommend one of the last four.

I have yet to think how to balance official distribution packages and these builds. I know that current version is a bit stronger than 0.172. It has been partially tuned using manually-aided Texel method, has some search tweaks and eval additions, and performs better on more threads. Testers can freely use version 0.210 if they please.

Users can put a new build into the old folder, download personality files and opening book and generally try to navigate in this mess, or wait for the true distribution package, probably till the end of the year.

It also has a new, experimental personality tuner, making use of some recently added options. Get it from here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nesci ... er_210.htm
Paste the code in a html document, and as pure JavaScript it will work offline. If You send me a personality, I'll try to gague its strength.

Before full official release I want to create a bunch of different personalities, then weaken playing strength for 75% of them to have a coverage of a decent Elo range.

So far I determined that eval changes alone can create slightly over 200 Elo range span, see https://github.com/nescitus/Rodent_III/ ... rating.txt

Great news Pawel!

Please somebody put the personality tuner for version 0.210 into a file/onto a page for me.

Dying to test some new personalities!

[BrendanJNorman]

Nevermind - I figured it out!

Anybody who wants to make personalities with version 0.210, can find it at the page below (until Pawel is ready for official release).

http://chessncognac.com/new-rodent-tuner/

Thanks for your fantastic engine, Pawel.

Will send you personalities soon!

[PK]

Thanks Brendan!

The reason I don't include tuner on my web page yet is that I want to discuss it a little. I have some doubts whether detailed presentation of all the pawn weaknesses options (isolated, backward etc.) makes sense. Perhaps it would make sense to leave just doubled pawns (some players, like Botvinnik, accepted them more readily than others), and let the general PawnStructure option cater for the rest.

[BrendanJNorman]

Thanks Brendan!

The reason I don't include tuner on my web page yet is that I want to discuss it a little. I have some doubts whether detailed presentation of all the pawn weaknesses options (isolated, backward etc.) makes sense. Perhaps it would make sense to leave just doubled pawns (some players, like Botvinnik, accepted them more readily than others), and let the general PawnStructure option cater for the rest.

Hi Pawel,

Yes I agree with doubled pawns is really the main one outside of the main pawn structure option that makes sense.

On the other hand, it'd be interesting to have a weight for favoring the IQP (guys like Tarrasch, Kasparov (early days), Spassky and others loved to be on the side with an IQP since it gives active positions with open lines.

On the other hand, guys like Nimzovich and Karpov seemed to play well against it.

Not sure how that'd be done though.

[styx]

Thank you.

One question: although I set the correct paths to the binary in the Makefile, HIDE_OPTIONS (and maybe all other commands in "basic.ini") has/have no effect on the engine settings dialog. In Rodent 2, the effect of "HIDE_OPTIONS" was, that I can choose the personality file but in Rodent 3 the are still only the various settings available.

Am I doing something wrong? (Linux)

basic.ini and rodentIII binary are in the following path:

Code: Select all

/home/andreas/Dokumente/Chess/Engines/RodentIII

my makefile settings:

Code: Select all

#makefile to compile Rodent III on Linux
PREFIX = /home/andreas/Dokumente/Chess/Engines/RodentIII

#define the directory for the executable file
BINDIR = /home/andreas/Dokumente/Chess/Engines/RodentIII

#define the directory for the data files
DATADIRBOOKS = /home/andreas/Dokumente/Chess/Engines/RodentIII/books
DATADIRPERSONALITIES = /home/andreas/Dokumente/Chess/Engines/RodentIII/personalities

[pferd]

Thank you.

One question: although I set the correct paths to the binary in the Makefile, HIDE_OPTIONS (and maybe all other commands in "basic.ini") has/have no effect on the engine settings dialog. In Rodent 2, the effect of "HIDE_OPTIONS" was, that I can choose the personality file but in Rodent 3 the are still only the various settings available.

Am I doing something wrong? (Linux)

basic.ini and rodentIII binary are in the following path:

Code: Select all

/home/andreas/Dokumente/Chess/Engines/RodentIII

my makefile settings:

Code: Select all

#makefile to compile Rodent III on Linux
PREFIX = /home/andreas/Dokumente/Chess/Engines/RodentIII

#define the directory for the executable file
BINDIR = /home/andreas/Dokumente/Chess/Engines/RodentIII

#define the directory for the data files
DATADIRBOOKS = /home/andreas/Dokumente/Chess/Engines/RodentIII/books
DATADIRPERSONALITIES = /home/andreas/Dokumente/Chess/Engines/RodentIII/personalities

You have to put the basic.ini inside the personalities folder. Maybe you want to copy the content of the basic_example.ini into your basic.ini

[styx]

[...]
You have to put the basic.ini inside the personalities folder. Maybe you want to copy the content of the basic_example.ini into your basic.ini

That worked. Thank you! I already did copy that

[Norbert Raimund Leisner]

Are all of these personalities (enumerated in alphabetical order) available on your current Rodent website now?

Alekhine - Amateur - Amy - Anand - Anderssen - Andy - Arthur - Attacker - Barbarian - Ben - Berserk - Botwinnik - Capablanca - Caveman - Chris - Constrictor - Dancer - Default - Defender - Dorothy - Doey - Drunk - Escapologist - Evading - Expert - Fighter - Fischer - Frank - Frederick - Gabriel - GM - Grumpy - Hedgehog - Helen - Helpless - Henny - IM - John - Judy - Karpov - Kasparov - Kinghunter - Larsen - Leader - League - Mark - Marshall - Mary - Master - Materialist - Matthew - Moderate - Monster - Moro - Nimzo - Nerd - Nimzowitsch - Nora - Novice - Pam - Partisan - Passive -Patrick - Pawn Star - Pawnsacker - Pessimist - Petrosian - Rémy - Réti - Rita - Robot - Rubinstein - Sage - Sam - Seirawan - Spassky - Stalker - Stan - Steinitz - Sue - Tarrasch - Theresa - Toby - Topalov - Tortoise - Victor - Vincent - Weak

If not, please send to me the missing personalities of (former) Rodent versions.

The chess logos can be obtained from here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... HJMVC0xZVU

(totally 6900 pictures , Bitmap format - size 130x65)

Best wishes,

Norbert

[PK]

Norbert, the problem is that the old personalities become less and less relevant for the new versions of Rodent. I think I will have to recreate them rather than supply old files, even though technically they ought to be readable for the engine.