Banksia GUI released

[phhnguyen]

Version 0.14 released

1. Fixed bugs: some small bugs, no serious one (it is the first time I did not see any serious bug )
2. Some small improvements/adjustments
3. New features:
- Save/load multiple ongoing tournaments
- Show logos, Elo ratings, flags of engines
- Show multi games from a PGN file
- Get stats from games in a PGN file: shows information similar the information of tournament results (such as result table, cross table, tech table)
- Lichess bots: BSG can connect and play on Lichess as bots with some advantages (compare with some popular software):
+ Manage and play multi accounts/bots/games concurrently
+ Challenge (manually) anyone
+ Operate them in a Graphics Interface (visually)
+ Can display a lot of information, e.g., show how engines compute their moves


Illustrations:
1. Play some Lichess bots with a lot of information


2. Show all games of a PGN file then get their stats

[BrendanJNorman]

Version 0.14 released

1. Fixed bugs: some small bugs, no serious one (it is the first time I did not see any serious bug )
2. Some small improvements/adjustments
3. New features:
- Save/load multiple ongoing tournaments
- Show logos, Elo ratings, flags of engines
- Show multi games from a PGN file
- Get stats from games in a PGN file: shows information similar the information of tournament results (such as result table, cross table, tech table)
- Lichess bots: BSG can connect and play on Lichess as bots with some advantages (compare with some popular software):
+ Manage and play multi accounts/bots/games concurrently
+ Challenge (manually) anyone
+ Operate them in a Graphics Interface (visually)
+ Can display a lot of information, e.g., show how engines compute their moves

Beautiful! Congratulations, your GUI is now number 1!

[Modern Times]

What does the pgn that it produces look like ? A clean format something like below like Cutechess ? e.g.

1. e4 {book} g6 {book} 2. d4 {book} Bg7 {book} 3. Nc3 {book} d6 {book}
4. h3 {book} Nc6 {book} 5. Nf3 {+0.62/29 66s} Nf6 {-0.68/10 23s}
6. d5 {+0.71/29 63s} Nb8 {-0.64/11 26s} 7. Bg5 {+0.76/26 13s} c6 {-0.57/10 54s}
8. Bd3 {+0.58/30 131s} O-O {-0.57/11 47s} 9. O-O {+0.68/26 9.7s}


Or Shredder GUI (also has the expected move, sometimes)

1. c4 {book 0s} c6 {book 0s} 2. Nf3 {book 0s} Nf6 {book 0s}
3. e3 {book 0s} d5 {book 0s} 4. a3 {book 0s} e6 {book 0s}
5. d4 {+0.57/25 37s} Nbd7 {+0.10/12 30s (Be7)} 6. Nbd2
{+0.63/25 18s} b6 {+0.12/13 1:09m (Bd6)} 7. Bd3 {+0.61/27
37s} Bb7 {+0.19/8 24s (Be7)} 8. O-O {+0.53/27 23s}

[BrendanJNorman]

What does the pgn that it produces look like ? A clean format something like below like Cutechess ? e.g.

1. e4 {book} g6 {book} 2. d4 {book} Bg7 {book} 3. Nc3 {book} d6 {book}
4. h3 {book} Nc6 {book} 5. Nf3 {+0.62/29 66s} Nf6 {-0.68/10 23s}
6. d5 {+0.71/29 63s} Nb8 {-0.64/11 26s} 7. Bg5 {+0.76/26 13s} c6 {-0.57/10 54s}
8. Bd3 {+0.58/30 131s} O-O {-0.57/11 47s} 9. O-O {+0.68/26 9.7s}


Or Shredder GUI (also has the expected move, sometimes)

1. c4 {book 0s} c6 {book 0s} 2. Nf3 {book 0s} Nf6 {book 0s}
3. e3 {book 0s} d5 {book 0s} 4. a3 {book 0s} e6 {book 0s}
5. d4 {+0.57/25 37s} Nbd7 {+0.10/12 30s (Be7)} 6. Nbd2
{+0.63/25 18s} b6 {+0.12/13 1:09m (Bd6)} 7. Bd3 {+0.61/27
37s} Bb7 {+0.19/8 24s (Be7)} 8. O-O {+0.53/27 23s}

Something like this.

[Event "banksia game"]
[Date "2020.01.17"]
[White "Ethereal 8.28"]
[Black "hm::Human"]
[Result "*"]
[TimeControl "40/300+1"]
[Time "14:21:48"]
[Termination "*"]
[ECO "A55"]
[Opening "Old Indian"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d6
3. Nc3 Nbd7 4. e4 e5
5. Nf3 {A55: Old Indian, main line} c6 6. Be2 a6
7. a4 a5 8. O-O {+0.46/15 5.4 6817419} Be7
9. Qc2 {+0.02/16 8.6 11036347} h6 10. Rd1 {+0.12/16 6.5 8072594} Qc7
11. b3 {+0.15/17 7.5 9379133} Nf8 12. c5 {+0.35/15 5.0 6332150} exd4
13. Bf4 {+0.49/17 9.3 4850136} Ng6 14. Bg3 {+1.3/17 4.7 6042270} Nh5
15. cxd6 {+1.6/20 7.9 9727964} Bxd6 16. Nb5 {+1.6/20 6.8 8821353} Bxg3
17. Nxc7+ {+3.6/19 6.2 7926839} Bxc7 18. Nxd4 {+3.7/19 8.3 10894457} Nhf4
19. Nb5 {+3.8/18 5.6 7685936} Be5 20. Nd6+ {+3.9/18 9.1 12486787} Ke7
21. Nxc8+ {+3.9/18 6.3 8878112} Rhxc8 22. Bg4 {+3.9/19 6.4 9451096} Rd8
23. Qc5+ {+4.1/18 10.9 6356443} Kf6 24. Rxd8 {+5.3/19 8.3 11511693} Rxd8
25. Qxa5 {+5.5/19 8.9 13206867} Rd4 26. Rd1 {+5.8/20 9.6 14889292}

[AdminX]

Wow! Tested it with my LiChess bot account (NeuralAbyss) and it worked like a charm! Thank you very much for all the work you are doing with Banksia.

Question: Can you assign a opening book to your bot? If not, then that would be a feature request.

[brinan]

Great work.

If you do allow a bot to be assigned an opening book,
would you extend the facility to allow the GUI to assign a book to any engine,
without requiring the opponent's engine to also be assigned a book.

One engine plays with book, the other does not.
For example, a neural-net engine does not have an opening book,
but Stockfish does access a book (perhaps in pgn form).

Thanks.

[phhnguyen]

Wow! Tested it with my LiChess bot account (NeuralAbyss) and it worked like a charm! Thank you very much for all the work you are doing with Banksia.

Question: Can you assign a opening book to your bot? If not, then that would be a feature request.

Phew, thanks! It works! Frankly, I didn't test that function (Lichess bot) long enough

Yes, BSG can play openings for engines when playing, including Lichess Bot function. Just use a polyglot book (PGN, EPD books can use for tournaments but not that kind of playing since they don't have move by move), check "Auto play opening book moves" and "Active" in Settings dialog:

[phhnguyen]

Great work.

If you do allow a bot to be assigned an opening book,
would you extend the facility to allow the GUI to assign a book to any engine,
without requiring the opponent's engine to also be assigned a book.

One engine plays with book, the other does not.
For example, a neural-net engine does not have an opening book,
but Stockfish does access a book (perhaps in pgn form).

Thanks.

As my above reply (to AdminX), at the moment BSG can use opening books for Lichess bots.

However, assigning different books for different engines is quite a hard task since it is complicated on Interface (you may see how complicated BSG assigns different clocks to different engines), managing multi-books with multi-ways to use is not easy either.

Perhaps, it is much easier if we only turn on/off using books for bots, say, a bot will have a checkbox to denote use or not use books (you can check it for normal engines and uncheck for NN engines). If you think it is good enough, I may add it to the next release.

[Guenther]

Thanks for the new preview version!

I think the buttons below the moves window don't work correctly when loading pgn files.

Code: Select all

|< = ok
<  =  >|
>  =  >|
>| = ok
>* = oscillating between start and end position? (intended?)

[brinan]

[by phhnguyen]
Perhaps, it is much easier if we only turn on/off using books for bots, say, a bot will have a checkbox to denote use or not use books (you can check it for normal engines and uncheck for NN engines). If you think it is good enough, I may add it to the next release.

Yes, do think it's good enough for engine v engine tournaments/matches.

Thanks for all your efforts.