Congratulations to Jon Dart

[Graham Banks]

Arasan 21.3 64-bit has broken into the CCRL 40/40 free engines top twelve crosstable, ahead of Houdini 1.5a 64-bit, Schooner 2.0.34 64-bit,Strelka 5.5 64-bit, Nirvanachess 2.4 64-bit and Critter 1.6a 64-bit.

[Dann Corbit]

fantastic news, since Jon Dart is one of the true heroes of computer chess.

[jdart]

Thanks. I am working on a new version which is about +30 elo at present.

Really the progress I have made would not be possible if it were not for "standing on the shoulders of giants." There are a lot of talented chess programmers, many in this forum, and many are sharing their work via open source. That is very different from when Arasan was first begun and most programs were closed source.

Also important IMO is a testing regime. Again, when I started, agile development and continuous testing was not something that was established. In chess I think it was Rybka and later Houdini that first popularized fast time-control game testing over other methods.

--Jon

[MikeB]

Arasan 21.3 64-bit has broken into the CCRL 40/40 free engines top twelve crosstable, ahead of Houdini 1.5a 64-bit, Schooner 2.0.34 64-bit,Strelka 5.5 64-bit, Nirvanachess 2.4 64-bit and Critter 1.6a 64-bit.

+Congrats to Jon ! Thanks for letting us know Graham.

[voffka]

Congrats Jon! Also thanks for the detailed programming guide at https://www.arasanchess.org/programr.shtml ! I find it very nice and helpful especially when I initially started learning chess programming!

[Sergio Martinez]

Congrats Jon

Arasan is one of the oldest chess engines and one of my favourites

[silentshark]

I agree. Congrats. I've never met Jon in person, but his postings are always constructive and helpful - seems like a top guy.

And I remember the days when Arasan was a weak little thing, and my program could kill it repeatedly. Not now!!

Congratulations, man

[supersharp77]

fantastic news, since Jon Dart is one of the true heroes of computer chess.

Congrats Jon Dart.....We All Love Arasan of Course and I try not to run any testing without some version of Arasan in my tourney crosstable!



ps: Arasan.. "A Thinking Chess Engine"

[D Sceviour]

That is great news! However, I suppose I will have to issue an update for Schooner.

[brianr]

I would like to echo the above.
Moreover, Jon has shared source code for many years along with being an active and most helpful member of the computer chess community.