Phalanx XXV

[dusando]

New Phalanx XXV is available from https://sourceforge.net/projects/phalan ... ion%20XXV/

Version XXV retains the playing style of XXIV, as there are no major changes in the static evaluation; just the bug fixes and these should make it stronger.

Changes include:

Better time management to use more time if the best move changed recently.
Search improvements: Added simple ProbCut, tuned null move and LMR, simplified check evasion extension.
Static evaluation bug fixes.
New parameter to root moves randomization, it can now be limited to first N moves of the game.
New opening book generated from KingBase Lite 03/2016 (http://www.kingbase-chess.net/).

Special thanks go to Fabrice Lecouvey, who spotted and reported several bugs in the static eval function.

Detailed changelog is in https://sourceforge.net/p/phalanx/code/151/log/

Two weakened versions of Phalanx play on freechess.org:
Rusalka is at easy level 80 and the current FICS standard rating is 1643.
Pikozrout is normal Phalanx with pondering and slight randomization in opening to avoid repeating lines if it gets out of the book too early. It is limited to 10000 nodes per second, current standard rating is 2357.

Dusan

[carldaman]

Thanks, Dusan, much appreciated!

CL

New Phalanx XXV is available from https://sourceforge.net/projects/phalan ... ion%20XXV/

Version XXV retains the playing style of XXIV, as there are no major changes in the static evaluation; just the bug fixes and these should make it stronger.

Changes include:

Better time management to use more time if the best move changed recently.
Search improvements: Added simple ProbCut, tuned null move and LMR, simplified check evasion extension.
Static evaluation bug fixes.
New parameter to root moves randomization, it can now be limited to first N moves of the game.
New opening book generated from KingBase Lite 03/2016 (http://www.kingbase-chess.net/).

Special thanks go to Fabrice Lecouvey, who spotted and reported several bugs in the static eval function.

Detailed changelog is in https://sourceforge.net/p/phalanx/code/151/log/

Two weakened versions of Phalanx play on freechess.org:
Rusalka is at easy level 80 and the current FICS standard rating is 1643.
Pikozrout is normal Phalanx with pondering and slight randomization in opening to avoid repeating lines if it gets out of the book too early. It is limited to 10000 nodes per second, current standard rating is 2357.

Dusan

[Graham Banks]

New Phalanx XXV is available from https://sourceforge.net/projects/phalan ... ion%20XXV/

Version XXV retains the playing style of XXIV, as there are no major changes in the static evaluation; just the bug fixes and these should make it stronger.

Thanks Dusan.

[styx]

awesome. thanks!

[fern]

A pleasure to play this engine.
Very very agressive.
You cannot breath.

Fern

[Dariusz]

Thank you
I regulary played against your engine.

UCI version, please, please, please...!

[hgm]

It annoys you that it can offer and accept draws?

[jmartus]

Would love a uci version also

[styx]

Just out of curiosity: why is the hardest easy level around 1500-1600 Elo? Shouldn't it be close to full strength?

I know it got a lot of useful parameters to cover the full Elo range, but it's not easy to do (at least not for me)

[dusando]

Unfortunately, I'm not planning UCI support currently. When i find some time to work on the engine, i prefer to test ideas in search and evaluation. Perhaps interfaces that are UCI only should consider implementing xboard protocol

Is there not any good Xboard to UCI adaptor available?