Hi all,
After a few years in computer draughts, I am back to chess for a little while. I see too many draws at top level, and am afraid that it will be too late in a couple of years. Big hardware and large opening books are also not helping IMO.
So I'm here to announce Senpai 2.0. The code looks all different because I started from my draughts program, but it's actually still Senpai inside. I prefer having a consistent codebase for multiple games (also Shogi and Othello).
As a rewrite it's hard to list changes, but here is an attempt:
- Chess960 is baked in, not an add-on; Senpai 2 plays chess only as a special case!
- search: restricted singular extensions
- search: additional reduction/pruning of "losing" moves (SEE < 0)
- eval: tempo bonus (it seems I forgot in 1.0 ...)
- eval: "space" (glorified pawn-chain PST); this changes playing style a lot
- eval: scoring by logistic regression; this gives me more freedom for eval features
- board: copy/make (customary in games with fewer piece types than chess)
- board: optional PEXT bitboards (BMI2)
As I recall, no single change brought more than 10 Elo. So it's more a sum of small (IMO) things.
This release has been rushed a little, so it's still lacking UCI options and multi-PV; sorry about that.
Official website: http://www.amateurschach.de/main/_senpai.htm
Direct link: http://www.amateurschach.de/download/senpai_20.zip
Expected level: Texel/Protector (again)
Thanks to everybody who helped with this release:
- Graham Banks
- Michael Byrne
- Wilhelm Hudetz
- Daniel Jose
- Steve Maughan (https://www.chessprogramming.net)
- Frank Quisinsky (http://www.amateurschach.de)
- XXX (<- this line for people I forgot, sorry in advance).
That's all for now,
Fabien.
Senpai 2.0
Moderators: hgm, Rebel, chrisw
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- Posts: 12541
- Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:57 pm
- Location: Redmond, WA USA
Re: Senpai 2.0
Fabulous news.
Perhaps it will be world champion soon
Perhaps it will be world champion soon
Taking ideas is not a vice, it is a virtue. We have another word for this. It is called learning.
But sharing ideas is an even greater virtue. We have another word for this. It is called teaching.
But sharing ideas is an even greater virtue. We have another word for this. It is called teaching.
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- Posts: 2526
- Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:43 am
- Full name: Brendan J Norman
Re: Senpai 2.0
Great news from a computer chess legend.Xann wrote:Hi all,
After a few years in computer draughts, I am back to chess for a little while. I see too many draws at top level, and am afraid that it will be too late in a couple of years. Big hardware and large opening books are also not helping IMO.
So I'm here to announce Senpai 2.0. The code looks all different because I started from my draughts program, but it's actually still Senpai inside. I prefer having a consistent codebase for multiple games (also Shogi and Othello).
As a rewrite it's hard to list changes, but here is an attempt:
- Chess960 is baked in, not an add-on; Senpai 2 plays chess only as a special case!
- search: restricted singular extensions
- search: additional reduction/pruning of "losing" moves (SEE < 0)
- eval: tempo bonus (it seems I forgot in 1.0 ...)
- eval: "space" (glorified pawn-chain PST); this changes playing style a lot
- eval: scoring by logistic regression; this gives me more freedom for eval features
- board: copy/make (customary in games with fewer piece types than chess)
- board: optional PEXT bitboards (BMI2)
As I recall, no single change brought more than 10 Elo. So it's more a sum of small (IMO) things.
This release has been rushed a little, so it's still lacking UCI options and multi-PV; sorry about that.
Official website: http://www.amateurschach.de/main/_senpai.htm
Direct link: http://www.amateurschach.de/download/senpai_20.zip
Expected level: Texel/Protector (again)
Thanks to everybody who helped with this release:
- Graham Banks
- Michael Byrne
- Wilhelm Hudetz
- Daniel Jose
- Steve Maughan (https://www.chessprogramming.net)
- Frank Quisinsky (http://www.amateurschach.de)
- XXX (<- this line for people I forgot, sorry in advance).
That's all for now,
Fabien.
Will test Senpai A.S.A.P.
*Hoping the playing style is lovely!*
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
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- Posts: 6808
- Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:16 pm
- Location: Gutweiler, Germany
- Full name: Frank Quisinsky
Re: Senpai 2.0
Hi Brendan,
and on other legend made the graphics (Wilhelm Hudetz, Austria).
Both, Fabien & John on one site ...
A good day for computer chess in my humble opinion!
Of course, not important that it's the own site!
After a longer time slower downloads on www.amateurschach.de it's solved since yesterday. My provider found & fixed a defect patch cable.
Downloads now with full speed ...
Best
Frank
I had here again a lot of fun with Fabien ...
Fabien is really a very interesting person.
I wish me to have 0.1% from his programming knowledge only and I am an expert. But unfortunately ... maybe 0.001% ...
and on other legend made the graphics (Wilhelm Hudetz, Austria).
Both, Fabien & John on one site ...
A good day for computer chess in my humble opinion!
Of course, not important that it's the own site!
After a longer time slower downloads on www.amateurschach.de it's solved since yesterday. My provider found & fixed a defect patch cable.
Downloads now with full speed ...
Best
Frank
I had here again a lot of fun with Fabien ...
Fabien is really a very interesting person.
I wish me to have 0.1% from his programming knowledge only and I am an expert. But unfortunately ... maybe 0.001% ...
Last edited by Frank Quisinsky on Fri Nov 10, 2017 7:46 am, edited 3 times in total.
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- Posts: 4889
- Joined: Thu Mar 09, 2006 6:34 am
- Location: Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania
Re: Senpai 2.0
Good job Frank, you do nice work! 👊Frank Quisinsky wrote:Hi Brendan,
and on other legend made the graphics (Wilhelm Hudetz, Austria).
Both, Fabien & John on one site ...
A good day for computer chess!
Of course, not important that it's the own site!
After a longer time slower downloads on www.amateurschach.de it's solved since yesterday. My provider found & fixed a defect patch cable.
Downloads now with full power ...
Best
Frank
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- Joined: Sat Jan 22, 2011 12:42 am
- Location: NL
Re: Senpai 2.0
Good man.Xann wrote:The code looks all different because I started from my draughts program, but it's actually still Senpai inside. I prefer having a consistent codebase for multiple games (also Shogi and Othello).
I have a (private) version of Senpai 1.0 that plays Makruk; as I recall the changes were not too hard to make, so hopefully I can port those over easily.
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- Joined: Sat Jan 22, 2011 7:14 pm
- Location: Lille, France
Re: Senpai 2.0
More painful, I guess, but doable. However reusing eval parts would be more difficult with this version, maybe much more. The weights are probably very specific.Evert wrote:I have a (private) version of Senpai 1.0 that plays Makruk; as I recall the changes were not too hard to make, so hopefully I can port those over easily.
And (say) with your own eval, switching to version 2.0 doesn't make much sense.
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- Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2008 6:33 am
- Location: Regensburg, Germany
- Full name: Guenther Simon
Re: Senpai 2.0
Thanks a lot Fabien and all who helped with this release!Xann wrote:Hi all,
After a few years in computer draughts, I am back to chess for a little while. I see too many draws at top level, and am afraid that it will be too late in a couple of years. Big hardware and large opening books are also not helping IMO.
So I'm here to announce Senpai 2.0.
...
Fabien.
Guenther
https://rwbc-chess.de
trollwatch:
Talkchess nowadays is a joke - it is full of trolls/idiots/people stuck in the pleistocene > 80% of the posts fall into this category...
trollwatch:
Talkchess nowadays is a joke - it is full of trolls/idiots/people stuck in the pleistocene > 80% of the posts fall into this category...
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- Joined: Sat Jan 22, 2011 12:42 am
- Location: NL
Re: Senpai 2.0
Oh, I didn't tune the evaluation (apart from a few very specific things), I made it mainly to have a larger variety of opponents (and as a proof-of-concept that just modifying the move generator of a reasonably strong engine to play a different variant doesn't automatically give you a very strong engine without redoing the evaluation).Xann wrote:More painful, I guess, but doable. However reusing eval parts would be more difficult with this version, maybe much more. The weights are probably very specific.Evert wrote:I have a (private) version of Senpai 1.0 that plays Makruk; as I recall the changes were not too hard to make, so hopefully I can port those over easily.
And (say) with your own eval, switching to version 2.0 doesn't make much sense.
From what I remember, most of the work was converting from UCI to CECP (there is some de-facto standard for handling variants with UCI now, but there was nothing back then), which was pretty straightforward.
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- Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 am
Re: Senpai 2.0
Thanks!
Ideas=science. Simplification=engineering.
Without ideas there is nothing to simplify.
Without ideas there is nothing to simplify.