TalkChess.com

Well, the idea of lockless hashing is very simple, and based on the philosophy that you don't care so much if a hash entry gets lost, as long as it produces a recognizably invalid hash entry rather than an erroneous one that might send your engine off track. To this end you XOR all independently sto...

H.G. if I'm reading you correctly the number of possible positions is comparable to chess but significantly fewer (by perhaps 100 times). let me know if this is roughly the case. Well, I never calculated this number for Chess, but it seems intuitively correct. The total number of pieces is equal. T...

In Xiangqi it is not so easy to construct positions like that, because the line of Pawns is moved two ranks forwards compared to FIDE Chess, and already has a number of holes in it. (There is only a Pawn in every other file.) I, at least, could not think of one; every other piece seems to be alble t...

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game-tree_complexity the state-space comlplexity would be 10^48. Actually for Xiangqi the exact number is reasonably easy to calculate (compared to FIDE Chess) as in-check positions are not necessarily illegal (in Xiangqi one has to capture the King), and th...

Note that the given position is not about mate, but bout winning a rook. Most engines do implement an ad-hoc solution for preferring fast mates (making the evaluation of a checkmate position dependent on its level in the tree). That engines do score fast wins equal to slow wins des of course not mea...

Great post. I fell exactly into the trap with the open-line bonus you describe, in the early development of Joker. :oops: I increased the open-line bonus, and suddenly it started hopelessly losing many games by unprovoked exchanging of 2 minor pieces for R+P. Joker also suffers from discontinuity, i...

Because most engines are not programmed to prefer quick wins over slow wins. They use the minimax algorithm, which assigns scores to the moves only based on the final position the will lead to (against best opponent play), and ignore completely how you get there. If it were not for the explicit prog...

Well, I am an author. And I probably would not participate in events were authors were allowed to 'vote out' programs of other authors.

I prefer justice over democracy...

It is clear that Joker 1.1.07 did not use one of these idea otherwise it could avoid repetition draw against Neurosis 2.3 in round 14 of the 4th CCRL Amateur Championship Division 5. OK, I looked at the Neurosis-Joker game, and there is indeed something fishy there. From the zero score of the move ...

Yes, NEG typically strips Pos bare. This is actually a game where Pos last unusually long, and which NEG probably would not have won without adjudication. As NEG has no clue what checkmate is, it is unlikely to win KQK, and needs at least 2 or 3 queens to have a good chance on an accidental checkmat...