Banksia GUI released

[Jonathan003]

Can you set both "min game length" and "repeat at least" boxes to zero (in Game condition) then re-create books? That allows BSG to take all games and save to books.

If I set the"min game length" box to zero, the Process button is grayed out. Zo I set the "min game length" box to 1 and "repeat at least" box to zero.
Here is how the books looks like if I compare them. I used the same settings to make the bin book an the pgn book.


The variations in the pgn book are not in the right order. Not al main lines are on top. But that's maybe because I made a ctg book from the pgn book. I can also use Chess Position Trainer to display the pgn books or COW, or Lucas Chess. Are there some other ways to display the pgn book? And to be able to delete or add variations that way?

It's interesting to see that there are now many more variation in the pgn book than in the bin book.
I like that because if I make a repertoire book I don't have to search for moves if they are already included. I always can delete variation if I don't like them, that's faster and better then having to look for new variations.

In Chessbase there is an option to display un-played transposition in a ctg book. Sometimes these un-played transpositions are included in a bin book made from the same games. Sometimes they are not included and sometimes other un-played transpositions are included.

I also use the book making option from the old software Bookbuilder. http://superchess.blogspot.com/
I open the program make a new book and save it. Than I import the pgn games in the book and and save the book as
bps book.

Than I use the program bb36c find in the installation directory of Bookbuilder and I export the book to a Yace pgn engine book. I open this pgn book in Chessbase and copy the games to a new database to normalize the pgn. I also un-annotate the games.

The books made in Bookbuilder finds the most un-played transpositions.
But more is maybe not always better. Maybe it would be better if only interesting un-played transpositions where added. Or maybe some setting when making a pgn book, to choose what count, or how many un-played transpositions wil be included.

I'm not a programmer, I just look for best ways to make a repertoire.

[phhnguyen]

I would like to save my played games, but banksiaautogame.pgn is in overwrite mode, so my old played games are not saved. Can you make it append mode or perhaps add an option to overwrite or append.

Thanks for the suggestion.

This feature (overwrite or append mode for banksiaautogame.pgn) is one of simple but headache thing. That file is designed to help users to continue/resume a game after BSG/system crashes. Thus it is not for normal use and doesn't require attendance from users. Users should save their games manually after finishing games. If we use append mode it can save everything. However, the file size may grow unattended.

Perhaps, I will add some "clever" ways such as storing the last 10 games into banksiaautogame.pgn and/or allow auto-save games into a database.

All right I see now the main purpose of banksiaautogame.pgn. How about creating a new file say appendautosavehumangames.pgn where it is in append mode and only completed games (with results 1/2-1/2, 1-0 and 0-1) are saved here from human vs engine games. The file size should not be critical as this is only for human vs engine games. The filename appendautosavehumangames.pgn indicates that this file is in append mode and would help the user decide to archive it somewhere to save disk space if needed.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have added it into my TODO list

[phhnguyen]

Feature Request: Ability to connect to 2 systems for remote network play. Example PC1 Running Banksia connecting to PC2 running Banksia over local network.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have added it to my TODO list.

BTW, it looks like that is not common for playing over local networks nowadays. right? E.g., my office does not use any local networks, all data are shared via airdrop (macOS) and/or store on some servers/cloud services.

I have been considering to connect BSG to some chess servers. If you have the experience, please suggest (which services, purposes...). Thanks

[AdminX]

Feature Request: Ability to connect to 2 systems for remote network play. Example PC1 Running Banksia connecting to PC2 running Banksia over local network.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have added it to my TODO list.

BTW, it looks like that is not common for playing over local networks nowadays. right? E.g., my office does not use any local networks, all data are shared via airdrop (macOS) and/or store on some servers/cloud services.

I have been considering to connect BSG to some chess servers. If you have the experience, please suggest (which services, purposes...). Thanks

Correct, back in the day Auto232 was used with a serial cable. Chessbase requires you to use their cloud server. I think a local area network would also be a great option for times when the Internet Service Providers are down.

[phhnguyen]

Can you set both "min game length" and "repeat at least" boxes to zero (in Game condition) then re-create books? That allows BSG to take all games and save to books.

If I set the"min game length" box to zero, the Process button is grayed out. Zo I set the "min game length" box to 1 and "repeat at least" box to zero.
Here is how the books looks like if I compare them. I used the same settings to make the bin book an the pgn book.


The variations in the pgn book are not in the right order. Not al main lines are on top. But that's maybe because I made a ctg book from the pgn book. I can also use Chess Position Trainer to display the pgn books or COW, or Lucas Chess. Are there some other ways to display the pgn book? And to be able to delete or add variations that way?

Thanks for your testing and info.

If the input data are different, books will definitely be different. Values of "Game result factors" will affect books' item weights (in case of Polyglot) too. For PGN, the length to pick up positions to save into books may affect too. It is a bit complicated when sides you want is not matched to that length. That is why books created by different GUIs may be different in content.

It's interesting to see that there are now many more variation in the pgn book than in the bin book.
I like that because if I make a repertoire book I don't have to search for moves if they are already included. I always can delete variation if I don't like them, that's faster and better then having to look for new variations.

In Chessbase there is an option to display un-played transposition in a ctg book. Sometimes these un-played transpositions are included in a bin book made from the same games. Sometimes they are not included and sometimes other un-played transpositions are included.

I also use the book making option from the old software Bookbuilder. http://superchess.blogspot.com/
I open the program make a new book and save it. Than I import the pgn games in the book and and save the book as
bps book.

Than I use the program bb36c find in the installation directory of Bookbuilder and I export the book to a Yace pgn engine book. I open this pgn book in Chessbase and copy the games to a new database to normalize the pgn. I also un-annotate the games.

The books made in Bookbuilder finds the most un-played transpositions.
But more is maybe not always better. Maybe it would be better if only interesting un-played transpositions where added. Or maybe some setting when making a pgn book, to choose what count, or how many un-played transpositions wil be included.

I'm not a programmer, I just look for best ways to make a repertoire.

I have just started to support creating PGN books in a short time (from version 0.11). Before that, I focused and supported Polyglot only. Thus BSG is lacking many functions for PGN books. Please suggest, I will add later. Thanks.

[JohnW]

Maybe I am missing something but the "Result" menu option doesn't seem to do anything so I can't quickly see which engine is winning\won the tournament.

In the below image, users can see:
- In the Tournament panel (on the left side): which games are completed, their results and who won.
- In the Tournamenet result panel (on the bottom): There are few tabs with different information. E.g. in a cross tab is the crosstable, it shows scores of each engines, scores vs other engines, numbers of games,...

All info on all panels are automatically up to date when tournament playing.

Thanks, I found it under the "Dock" menu. It was unchecked for me.

I also noticed the cross table doesn't record 0's for losses.

[phhnguyen]

I also noticed the cross table doesn't record 0's for losses.

Thanks a lot for the report. It is fixed for the next release.

[supersharp77]

Well It seems my flirtation with the New Banksia GUI may be coming to a End (For Now).....Verison 0.9 was working so so (had a few tourney crashes but it would load and play engine games...Version 0.10 did not load either uci or wb engines for the most part...(it did load elo ratings but no + or - points moves seen) Version 0.11 loaded engines and plays games but the "Dreaded GUI tourney crash problem continues...(after almost 1 month no tourneys completed..a total disaster).....What will be needed is a tourney save box and a way to play more than one tourney at a time..(like Deep Shredder or Fritz 11 or 12) There should be a "save tourney as" link so you know that the GUI is saving the tourneys...there should be a "load prior tourney" button...when the GUi crashes and you restart the program the original tourney is 100% BLANK and the only choice is "Start New"...thats no good...all the prior results seem to have been irretrievably lost somewhere in the Ether of The Banksia GUI!!..Seen this occur with Chess OK Gui on occasion also...HELP!!

Thanks for the report and sorry to hear BSG crashes on your system. Can you help me by providing some more information:
- What is your system (computer CPU, cores, mem, OS)?
- What time control did you use?
- What are the engines you run your test? (list them here or attach the file banksiaengines.json)

Windows 10....2 cores (duo) 8Gigs
Time Control 5 min + ...seconds (Fischer time)
Tourneys Tried.....8 engine swiss...played 1 round of 3....lost place after round one played the night before
100 engine swiss......tourney crash before round 1 completed
400 engine swiss.....60 games played before GUI crash
various engines used including Deep Junior Deep Sjeng..Scorpio..King...Stockfish...Shredder...Comet...Crafty...
SF...LC0...Fritz...Arasan...Colossus...Tao..Prodeo....Chess Tiger...Don...Fruit...Wasp...etc...
Need Save Tourney button and capacity to recall tourney and play (recall) more than one tourney at a time....
Thx AR....

[phhnguyen]

Windows 10....2 cores (duo) 8Gigs
Time Control 5 min + ...seconds (Fischer time)
Tourneys Tried.....8 engine swiss...played 1 round of 3....lost place after round one played the night before
100 engine swiss......tourney crash before round 1 completed
400 engine swiss.....60 games played before GUI crash
various engines used including Deep Junior Deep Sjeng..Scorpio..King...Stockfish...Shredder...Comet...Crafty...
SF...LC0...Fritz...Arasan...Colossus...Tao..Prodeo....Chess Tiger...Don...Fruit...Wasp...etc...
Need Save Tourney button and capacity to recall tourney and play (recall) more than one tourney at a time....
Thx AR....

Can you help to do another test with below setups:
- Round robin type
- Max 20 (or less) engines
- 10 games per pair
- 1 min/games (or 20-30s/game for saving time)
- concurrency 1 or 2
- turn off all engine logging

With the above settings, I need to confirm lacking memory and lagging are the cause or not.

When tourney starting, don't show any game (don't use Playing games panel, set drop-down box next to button "Resume"/"Stop" to none) => I need to confirm if graphics is the problem.

If the test can run smoothly, you may increase the number of engines, games per pair, turn on showing playing boards...

Thanks again for the help.

[Guenther]

Suggestion for a future release:

A time graph would be nice. Best would be one, which shows absolute (total sum) and relative used time per move.