World Draughts Forum

I have uploaded a test version, and Frank will be the first who will be able to test it.
If it also works on his computer, and most likely some initial bugs, or issues are resolved, I invite others for further testing.
Just drop me a line during the week.....

Bert

Frank, yes I'm still in testing phase.
But I have a version I can share with some people, as a starting point, and for feedback.
I will do my best, to put a version in the cloud for download this evening, with 4 hub-engines, so you can test it.
Will include some notes how to use it.

Bert

Harm, not sure it is required, as basically every position is "new" for engines with a hub protocol.
So sending the start position will not break or crash the engine.
The only difference is that with a new-game you can do additional clean-up, like clearing the hash-tables, setting the move-counter ...

Frank, in my implementation the engines are equal, there is no master-slave relation or whatever.
All the logic and decisions are handled by the GUI, and every engine is connected with its own pipe.
Basically I have a 3th engine running in parallel, which acts as an arbiter.
This 3th engines has ...

Frank, only a limited set is needed.
Examples derived from the protocol.txt document from Fabien.

The first command the GUI will sent is hub , and the engine should sent:
id name =Scan version= 3.1 author="Fabien Letouzey" country=France

Only the id and version are used, the Damage GUI does ...

As we all know engine tournaments take lot of personal time.
For this reason I started with the programming of a tournament manager in the Damage GUI.
It is still in embryonic phase, but the basics work.

You can define a tournament between engines, for examples 4 engines round-robin (but any number ...

Krzysztof, you are right, especially impressive as Sjende Blyn is the only top program (to my knowledge) which uses a HCE (Hand Crafted Evaluation) evaluation, whereas other top-programs use an evaluation based upon machine learning.
Not sure if Edeon Sport uses a pattern based evaluation, but if so ...

A more difficult endgame where I'm not certain if a draw opportunity was missed, was the game Flits - Kingsrow. See the diagram with Flits to move at move 45.

https://fmjd.org/dias2/save/17267570045.png

Flits (white) played 38-33 and the game was concluded soon as a win for Kingsrow.
A better ...

I fully agree with you.
Did you say that the moves were played by Damage without thinking, that is indeed strange.
I will definitely need correct this, as with one point more the match result would be slightly different. But the same is valid for Dragon.

Bert

Just say what you want to say. A pity Damage did not win, but i knew this could happen (although not often) and need to correct it.
So your decision for the draw was the right one.

Bert

Another interesting game was Maximus - Damage.
See the diagram (white to move, move 67) for a strange ending...

https://fmjd.org/dias2/save/17267531781.png

Here Maximus played 1-12 and Damage replied with 30-39.
Maximus kept the king on the diagonal for good reasons and responded with 21-1, and ...

The game MobyDam - Cerberus was more or less a roller-coaster of emotions.
From move 50 it was a draw, but then Cerberus made an mistake and it was a MobyDam win.
But then MobyDam made an error and the position was a draw again.
Finally Cerberus (with black) made the last error in the diagram ...

Krzysztof, was your surprise regarding Tornado positive or negative?
I know that Tornado has much potential and the author Frank Mesander is hard working to improve the program further.
Unfortunately the hard work did not pay out yet this time
But I'm sure that Tornado will make huge steps in the ...

Krzysztof, thanks for your post, you are right.
But even with a 7 piece database one would expect that Dragon would be able to convert the position to a win.

Bert

A case of bad luck, was seen in the game Dragon - Edeon (as was also found by Ed).
Dragon was clearly winning, but in the diagram position a mistake was made at move 54.

https://fmjd.org/dias2/save/17267433686.png

Dragon played 33-29? and the game ended in a draw, whereas 34-29 would be winning ...