New Version: Kurt 0.9.2 beta

[Oliver Uwira]

I cannot get Kurt to play chess960 under Shredder GUI. It announces mate on it's first move, which is of course an illegal one
Slightly better luck so far under ChessGUI, mid-way through game one

Hi,

I've found a problem in Shredder GUI in that it sends incomplete FEN strings (missing 50 move counter and move number) which made Kurt choke. I've fixed that problem and uploaded an update

http://home.arcor.de/steve-o13/kurt/kurt_0_9_3_beta.zip

I have tested with Shredder GUI and Chess960 works right away.

I have no idea about ChessGUI because up to now I never managed to make any engine play there. Understanding that software is a science in its own right. I have a hint for you, however. I've seen engine options for Chess960 in ChessGUI and you should switch the radio button for castling moves to HAha. Also, set Kurt's UCI option FEN_Version to Chess960 which will make Kurt send castling moves as "king takes rook", i.e. e1h1 for castling kingside in standard chess.

In the uploaded archive, you find my own binaries for 64 bit (kurt_0_9_3_beta_x64.exe) and 32 bit (kurt_0_9_3_beta_x86.exe), both of which are not very fast.

Hmm, now I ran into trouble in Shredder GUI again. Castling doesn't seen to work. I must have a deeper look, still. Unfortunately I don't know Shredder GUI very well.

Maybe you have more luck in ChessGUI. If all fails, try Winboard (-:

[Tuvoc]

I got it running straight away in ChessGUI and played quite a few games. Castling seems to be OK. I did however get quite a few time losses, so have discontinued for now until I can check those games and see if there is a pattern and potential cause.

[Oliver Uwira]

I got it running straight away in ChessGUI and played quite a few games. Castling seems to be OK. I did however get quite a few time losses, so have discontinued for now until I can check those games and see if there is a pattern and potential cause.

That's nice to hear. If you find other issues, just let me know. I will try to fix things within short time.

[Tuvoc]

I ran 200+ games under Shredder GUI, normal chess, at CCRL repeating time control. I got no time losses, so I don't think Kurt has an intrinsic time control problem. So, I need to go back to the ChessGUI chess960 time losses and investigate. I haven't had a chance yet.

[Oliver Uwira]

I ran 200+ games under Shredder GUI, normal chess, at CCRL repeating time control. I got no time losses, so I don't think Kurt has an intrinsic time control problem. So, I need to go back to the ChessGUI chess960 time losses and investigate. I haven't had a chance yet.

I have noticed that the time is somehow out of sync under ChessGUI. I ran a 16 game gauntlet at 1 min + 1 sec and there were several time losses, not only by Kurt but also by Joker. This seems like it is an issue of ChessGUI. I've never witnessed any time loss by Kurt under Arena and Winboard. Same with Joker.

If you run Kurt under UCI and set "debug on", Kurt will print its time allocation at the start of each search. Under WB2, this can be turned on by sending "option debug=1". This is where I found out that the time ChessGUI shows on the clocks differs considerably from the time it sends in the UCI go command.

And now off-topic: I'd sincerely appreciate if you could post some results of your testing. Unfortunately I don't have extra hardware yet for running tests as long as yours.

[Tuvoc]

I ran blitz 40/4 matches not long time control. You can see them here
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/40 ... index.html

Code: Select all

Kurt 0.9.2.2 64-bit in CCRL 40/4, 2010-11-14
Ponder off, General book (up to 12 moves), 3-4-5 piece EGTB
Time control: Equivalent to 40 moves in 4 minutes on Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (2.4 GHz)
Tested by CCRL team, 2005-2010, http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404.live/

CCRL 40/4 main list:
Kurt 0.9.2.2 64-bit is #173 with rating of 2239 ELO points (+23 -23),
based on 700 games: 276 wins, 279 losses and 145 draws
Score: 49.8%, Average opponent: +3.4, Draws: 20.7%


Pairwise results:
     Opponent                              ELO     Score                  LOS   Perf
 - Aice 0.99.2                             2408  32.5-67.5  (+25-60=15)    0.0   +32
 - Ayito 0.2.994                           2382  26.5-73.5  (+17-64=19)    0.0   -34
 - Chispa 4.0.3                            2284  38.5-61.5  (+27-50=23)    0.0   -37
 - WJChess 1.64                            2225  52.0-48.0  (+42-38=20)   88.5    +1
 - BikJump 2.01 64-bit                     2178  67.0-33.0  (+57-23=20)  100.0   +65
 - Monarch 1.7                             2140  65.5-34.5  (+53-22=25)  100.0   +10
 - BigLion 2.23x                           2080  66.5-33.5  (+55-22=23)  100.0   -38



I had no time losses or any other problems, so now I can look further at chess960, knowing that the engine is solid and reliable. I did have GUI adjudication turned on, and that helps. Sometimes an engine can lose on time a few moves from mate for example. Adjudication avoids that, although I normally like to have it turned off.