mate detetion issue.

[BubbaTough]

looking fixed. its gone 8 1/2 vs 2 1/2 against this strong connect 4 player. it doesnt have a book ( anyone know where to get connect 4 books for first few moves ? ) so the player was able to explore the line playing both sides to see how the computer would move and get his wins.

Mike

For connect four, where the number of legal moves is quite limited, I would say learning via positional memorization would be quite effective instead of a book.

[adams161]

part of it is not just to win, but to make it less deterministic. i want people to play 10 games and get different games. One of the goals of connect 4 for me was to go through all the concepts, or most, i use in my chess program, and see them from a fresh perspective. i've accomplished that. fourbot has hashing, killer moves, and root ordering. now i just want to make it a varied fun game.
mike

[BubbaTough]

part of it is not just to win, but to make it less deterministic. i want people to play 10 games and get different games. One of the goals of connect 4 for me was to go through all the concepts, or most, i use in my chess program, and see them from a fresh perspective. i've accomplished that. fourbot has hashing, killer moves, and root ordering. now i just want to make it a varied fun game.
mike

Well, learning will make it less deterministic . There are lots of other ways, of course, if you don't mind making your program slightly weaker.

-Sam

[TonyJH]

... you have 8 possible moves at most and there is only one type of move, the drop.

Do you mean 7 possible moves? A connect 4 board normally has 7 columns (7x6), but the game is solved on that size board (1st player can force a win). Maybe that's why you use 8 columns? I think it's an interesting game anyway.

[adams161]

yea 7 moves. but i have given players the option to play on 8by8. there is also an option of connect 5 on 8by8. I understand its solved moving first. but most eveyrone doesnt know the solution so its stll fun, it is a disadvantage moving second. From what i can see the programs that claim to play a perfect game moving first, feed it a book, to get it out to a point were they can calculate a win. My fourbot has no book. calculates every move, and i'm only giving it a second to move. So i have to search well wtih a second. The good thing about moving in a second is it can play multiple games at once.

It plays on ICC, http://www.chessclub.com/activities/fin ... le=fourbot And anyone who logs on icc can play it. Its a text board, uses x for player 1 and o for player 2 and - for blank spot. Icc has allowed it to use qtells so it sends private tells but rather than regular tells that do fourbot tells you: it just prefaces it with >

the board looks like this:

> o o o o x o x
> x o x x o x x
> o x o o o x o
> x o x x x o o
> x o o o x x x
> o x x x o x o


thats a final postion.

Mike

[adams161]

actually you send your tells and get tells from astrobot. astrobot is the game hosting bot. astrobot tells fourbot to play it plays. astrobot also can host connect 4 games between any two players on icc, tell astrobot help four, and people can observe the games.

Mike

[Chris Tatham]

it doesnt have a book ( anyone know where to get connect 4 books for first few moves ? )

Hi Mike,
My connect 4 program has a simple opening book which can handle transpositions. It is a simple text file though I guess would not be compatible with your engine. You're more than welcome to have a copy if you, think it may be useful. Otherwise, if you haven't already seen it the following may be a useful resource:

http://www.pomakis.com/c4/expert_play.html

Regards

Chris

[adams161]

i'd definintely be intereted in the opening book. i've parsed text files befor so if i can figure out the format i can code to read the book. I dont see in your post any web links other than that one but i dont see the book on that web link.

Mike

[Chris Tatham]

Sorry, I haven't got round to uploading the latest version as yet (still needs some tidying up).

If you let me have your email address I can send you the book, readme which explains how it works and if it helps the relevant code extract (it is freebasic but very straightforward as I am not a great programmer)

[adams161]

adams161 at fastmail dot fm

That would be great, the book, readme, and relevent code, i intend to open source fourbot, at least the engine code as well. Don't worry im not concerned if your book is not vast ( i'm just looking for some randominzatin ) and i dont care if the code is not polished and brialliant. this is just a function and if it works thats all that really matters. if i want to fine tune anything i can.

Mike