The Baron 2.23

[pijl]

The last time the Baron performed in a tournament was in the WCCC2007 in Amsterdam, about a year ago. I made a few changes to the version that played there directly after the tournament but soon after I decided to retire the Baron in favour of a new engine I begun to write a few years ago. As soon as this was known, people started to ask for the last Baron version, and I promised that I would release it when the new engine would be about as strong as the Baron.
That time seems to be now.
So enjoy your download of the Baron 2.23 at the Baron's lair
Richard.

[Christopher Conkie]

The last time the Baron performed in a tournament was in the WCCC2007 in Amsterdam, about a year ago. I made a few changes to the version that played there directly after the tournament but soon after I decided to retire the Baron in favour of a new engine I begun to write a few years ago. As soon as this was known, people started to ask for the last Baron version, and I promised that I would release it when the new engine would be about as strong as the Baron.
That time seems to be now.
So enjoy your download of the Baron 2.23 at the Baron's lair
Richard.

Very nice Richard. I noticed your post. I will enjoy getting a pounding off it. Thank you.

Christopher

[pijl]

Leo Dijksman just informed me that there was a file missing in the distribution. I corrected it now.
Richard.

[Graham Banks]

Thanks Richard.

[Tony Thomas]

Finally..thanks so much.

[beachknight]

Thank you, Richard.

Best,

[fern]

Avec tes parols nos sommes maintennat en train de penser sur le nouveau moteur que tu developes.
Tu peut nous dire quelque chose?

ferdinan

[Harvey Williamson]

Avec tes parols nos sommes maintennat en train de penser sur le nouveau moteur que tu developes.
Tu peut nous dire quelque chose?

ferdinan

Hi Fern,

If your reply is for Richard....

I will let you into a secret he does not speak French

Best Wishes,
Harvey

[beachknight]

Hi Tony,

Perhaps we could hope for a CTD release in two years.

Best,

[pijl]

Avec tes parols nos sommes maintennat en train de penser sur le nouveau moteur que tu developes.
Tu peut nous dire quelque chose?

ferdinan

As Harvey mentioned: I don't speak French (I'm Dutch, living in the Flemish (i.e. Dutch speaking) part of Belgium). Fortunately, in these modern times Babelfish can help out

The new engine I'm working on is a bit of a public secret as it has been playing in quite a few events already. It is currently known as Crashtest Dummy.

I already started with it in 2004 or so, when I was getting nowhere with improving the Baron. At the point where CTD was able to play a game, I decided to give the Baron one more look, instantly removed the bug that was blocking improvement and kept CTD in a drawer.

Once in a while I did spend a few moments on CTD again so it was developed further but in a very slow pace.

In spring 2007 my daughter played with CTD in the ICT tournament in Leiden while I was playing with the Baron. Soon after that the WCCC in Amsterdam was played and there I still played with the Baron.
But after this tournament I realized (again) that the Baron carried a lot of development history with it. When I started with the development of it in August 2001 I did not know much about chess programming. And part of the Baron of 2007 still had code in it from the early days. At this point I made the decision to really retire the Baron and work only on CTD, as its successor.

Development was slow, as I wanted to make sure that whatever I added to it, would really be an asset to CTD. And of course, it had to be bug free.

At this point, the results of some public competitions indicate that the latest version CTD is about as strong as the Baron.

For now, CTD remains private, but in the future I'm likely to publish CTD versions as well.

Oh, some little facts about CTD:
It is both UCI and Winboard, so no messing with adapters anymore
No support of EGTB's (yet) as I give endgame knowledge priority over database tables.
Built in FRC/Chess960 support (Shredder UCI and Winboard)
Richard.