Monchester

[unserializable]

I compiled a default version, just wanna know if a version with a one ply higher default depth is desired too for 1.0?

Thank you and thanks for asking! I personally do not care for the depth 5 version (odd depths have their odd behaviours without quiescence), but if you feel that some experimenters might benefit from it, feel free to provide that compile. There is some support in Makefile for tagging custom versions too, for specifying the version suffix that is reported at the console and to the interfaces, e.g. you could do (after modifying globals.c):

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$ make CC=clang EXTFLAGS="-DEXTRA_VERSION=dpth5" clean release
rm -f monchester *.o core
clang -DNDEBUG -Os -Wformat -Wstrict-prototypes -Wall  -DMONCHESTER_VERSION="1.0" -DEXTRA_VERSION=dpth5 -c globals.c
clang -DNDEBUG -Os -Wformat -Wstrict-prototypes -Wall  -DMONCHESTER_VERSION="1.0" -DEXTRA_VERSION=dpth5 -c iomain.c
clang -DNDEBUG -Os -Wformat -Wstrict-prototypes -Wall  -DMONCHESTER_VERSION="1.0" -DEXTRA_VERSION=dpth5 -c xtdlib.c
clang -DNDEBUG -Os -Wformat -Wstrict-prototypes -Wall  -DMONCHESTER_VERSION="1.0" -DEXTRA_VERSION=dpth5 -c move.c
clang -DNDEBUG -Os -Wformat -Wstrict-prototypes -Wall  -DMONCHESTER_VERSION="1.0" -DEXTRA_VERSION=dpth5 -c brdlist.c
clang -DNDEBUG -Os -Wformat -Wstrict-prototypes -Wall  -DMONCHESTER_VERSION="1.0" -DEXTRA_VERSION=dpth5 -c compmove.c
clang -DNDEBUG -Os -Wformat -Wstrict-prototypes -Wall  -DMONCHESTER_VERSION="1.0" -DEXTRA_VERSION=dpth5 -c fen.c
clang -DNDEBUG -Os -Wformat -Wstrict-prototypes -Wall  -DMONCHESTER_VERSION="1.0" -DEXTRA_VERSION=dpth5 main.c -o monchester globals.o iomain.o xtdlib.o move.o brdlist.o compmove.o fen.o
$ ./monchester  --version
Monchester 1.0-dpth5
Copyright (C) 2020 Taimo Peelo
License GPLv3: GNU GPL version 3 <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html>
Source repository: 
  https://github.com/unserializable/monchester

Build information:
  Compiler : clang 6.0.0 (tags/RELEASE_600/final)
  Time     : Nov  9 2020 18:41:52

Best regards!

[Guenther]

I will look at it tomorrow!

Thank you Guenther, have a good evening :)!

I compiled a default version, just wanna know if a version with a one ply higher default depth is desired too for 1.0?

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git clone --branch 1.0-branch https://github.com/unserializable/monchester.git

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# Monchester 1.0 ~(4338 kN/s)
command : bench 6
Nodecount 124132536, 29.510s, 4206 kN/s
command : help
commands understood: new, resign, help, bench, quit

a bit optimized for my hardware ;-)

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# Monchester 1.0 ~(4751 kN/s)
command : bench 6
Nodecount 124132536, 26.640s, 4659 kN/s
command :

[unserializable]

a bit optimized for my hardware

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# Monchester 1.0 ~(4751 kN/s)
command : bench 6
Nodecount 124132536, 26.640s, 4659 kN/s
command :

Excellent, very nice progress from the ~3000-3100 kN/s with gcc 10.2 a week ago!

[Guenther]

a bit optimized for my hardware ;-)

Code: Select all

# Monchester 1.0 ~(4751 kN/s)
command : bench 6
Nodecount 124132536, 26.640s, 4659 kN/s
command :

Excellent, very nice progress from the ~3000-3100 kN/s with gcc 10.2 a week ago!

I will upload two compilations, one for core2 and one for haswell (untested because of my hardware).
For now I will not add a compilation with a different default depth, may be on request later.
You can PM me, when you had grabbed them for your github, then I will remove them from my site.
Try it in an hour or so.

[unserializable]

Guenther has kindly provided Windows compiles of Monchester 1.0 that are now up at GitHub: https://github.com/unserializable/monch ... /binaries/ - look into 1.0 folder for

• core2 optimized build monchester.windows.core2.exe
• haswell optimized build monchester.windows.haswell.exe

[unserializable]

Monchester 1.0 is now playing at lichess bot account: https://lichess.org/@/monchester -- hopefully it stays up to do so, the console messages were appropriately (not too) scary when I left it on the server, go and tickle to see if Monchester still lives

[Guenther]

Monchester 1.0 is now playing at lichess bot account: https://lichess.org/@/monchester -- hopefully it stays up to do so, the console messages were appropriately (not too) scary when I left it on the server, go and tickle to see if Monchester still lives :)

Nice! Will it play rated too sometimes?
I am curious how far it would come vs. weak Humans.

[unserializable]

Nice! Will it play rated too sometimes?
I am curious how far it would come vs. weak Humans.

I did set the challenge modes in configuration as both casual and rated, so it should play rated, if it gets a rated challenge -- not certain how commonly these are made against the bots by humans

[unserializable]

Monchester 1.0 at Lichess

Monchester 1.0 has now been at Lichess for almost a week, via lichess-bot.

Again it has proved to be resilient against humans and is ATM rated 1679 at Lichess blitz, much higher than I would have expected. It is rated 1854 in bullet, but very few games have been played. Thanks to all the people who played against it or launched their bots at it.

It has not been able to play all the time though, apparently there was approximately three-day period when it did not accept challenges successfully (and the challenges never even showed up in the logs, if they were for time controls supported, unsupported rapid/classic challenges nicely show up as declined from the logs during that time). After the "turn it off and on again" it seems rather stable though, even if logs contain rather many warnings and errors -- lichess-bot support for UCI might be bit better than for CECP.

One of its Lichess opponents reported to me that he seems to have discovered a winning line against Monchester 1.0, and indeed the play appeared deterministic. Its meant as fun scholastic level engine, not the boring one to beat with once-discovered winning line(s), so supposed to apply slight randomization to material scores at all time, to vary its play at all times. However, it is activated when CECP 'random' command is sent, which was never applied via lichess-bot. It might be that only XBoard/Winboard send this command when new game starts. So I decided to enforce score randomization at compile time (https://github.com/unserializable/monchester/issues/3), unless explicitly disabled. No new release for that yet though, as playing code itself remains exactly the same as in 1.0 and randomization works exactly as supposed to in *Boards, -- lichess-bot backend engine has been updated with latest 1.0-branch though and will not repeat games anymore at Lichess

Two examples of Monchester's 1.0 resilience at Lichess:

[pgn]
[Event "Rated Blitz game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/znyt3hW9"]
[Date "2020.11.21"]
[White "mitrovic123"]
[Black "monchester"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[UTCDate "2020.11.21"]
[UTCTime "01:49:26"]
[WhiteElo "1925"]
[BlackElo "1684"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "-2"]
[BlackRatingDiff "+5"]
[BlackTitle "BOT"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "120+2"]
[ECO "A40"]
[Opening "Queen's Pawn"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. d4 { A40 Queen's Pawn } c6 2. c4 b5 3. e4 bxc4 4. Bxc4 Ba6 5. Bb3 Bb7
6. Qf3 d5 7. Ne2 Ba6 8. Be3 Bxe2 9. Qxe2 dxe4 10. Nc3 Nf6 11. Rd1 Qa5
12. O-O Nbd7 13. d5 Nb8 14. Bg5 Ng8 15. Qxe4 Na6 16. dxc6 Qc5 17. Qd5 Qxd5
18. Bxd5 Nb4 19. Bf3 a6 20. Rd4 a5 21. Rfd1 Rc8 22. Na4 Na6 23. Nb6 f6
24. Nxc8 fxg5 25. Rd8+ Kf7 26. Bh5+ g6 27. Bf3 Nf6 28. Nb6 g4 29. Be2 Nc7
30. Nc4 Ne6 31. Ne5+ Kg7 32. Ra8 a4 33. Rc1 Nd4 34. Bd3 Ne6 35. c7 Nxc7
36. Rxc7 Nd5 37. Rd7 Nb6 38. Rda7 Nxa8 39. Rxa8 g5 40. Bb5 Kf6 41. Nxg4+ Kf5
42. h3 h5 43. Ne3+ Kf6 44. Bxa4 g4 45. hxg4 hxg4 46. Nxg4+ Kf7 47. f3 e6
48. Bb3 Bc5+ 49. Kf1 Rxa8 50. Ne5+ Ke8 51. Nd3 Bb6 52. Bxe6 Ba7 53. Bb3 Bb6
54. Nb4 Ba7 55. Nd5 Bb8 56. Kf2 Be5 57. f4 Bd4+ 58. Kf3 Ra7 59. g4 Bg7
60. f5 Be5 61. g5 Bd4 62. f6 Be5 63. g6 Kf8 64. Ke4 Bxb2 65. Kf5 Ba3
66. f7 Bb2 67. Nf6 Bxf6 68. Kxf6 Rxf7+ 69. gxf7 { Draw by stalemate. } 1/2-1/2


[Event "Rated Blitz game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/VxoaIMU2"]
[Date "2020.11.20"]
[White "csioris"]
[Black "monchester"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[UTCDate "2020.11.20"]
[UTCTime "03:10:45"]
[WhiteElo "1696"]
[BlackElo "1684"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+0"]
[BlackRatingDiff "+0"]
[BlackTitle "BOT"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "420+0"]
[ECO "B00"]
[Opening "St. George Defense"]
[Termination "Normal"]

1. e4 a6 2. Ne2 Nf6 3. f3 Nc6 4. c3 Ne5 5. Qc2 a5
6. Ng3 Nc6 7. Be2 Ne5 8. O-O e6 9. d4 Bc5 10. Kh1 Bxd4 11. cxd4 Nc6
12. Qc3 Ng8 13. Be3 Nce7 14. Bg5 f6 15. Be3 d5 16. exd5 Nxd5 17. Qd2 Nge7
18. Bc4 Nb6 19. Bb3 c5 20. dxc5 Qxd2 21. Nxd2 Nbd5 22. Rfe1 Nb4 23. a3 Nd3
24. Rg1 Nxb2 25. Ra2 Nd3 26. Bc2 Ne5 27. Bf4 N5c6 28. Nb3 a4 29. Nc1 e5
30. Bd2 Be6 31. Ra1 Nd4 32. Bd1 Bc4 33. Nce2 Bxe2 34. Nxe2 Nxe2 35. Bxe2 Nd5
36. Bc4 Nc7 37. Rab1 Ra7 38. Rb2 f5 39. Rgb1 f4 40. Rxb7 Rxb7 41. Rxb7 Kd7
42. Rb4 Kc6 43. Rxa4 Rb8 44. Rb4 Ra8 45. Bc1 g6 46. Rb6+ Kxc5 47. Rb4 Ne8
48. Be2 Nd6 49. Rb3 Kc6 50. Rc3+ Kb7 51. Bd3 Kb6 52. Bb2 g5 53. g3 fxg3
54. hxg3 h6 55. Kg2 e4 56. fxe4 g4 57. Kf2 Kb7 58. Ke3 Re8 59. Kf4 h5
60. Kg5 Re5+ 61. Kf6 Re8 62. a4 Kb8 63. Ba3 Nxe4+ 64. Bxe4 Rxe4 65. Kf5 Rxa4
66. Kg5 Ra5+ 67. Kf4 Ra6 68. Rd3 Ra7 69. Bc5 Ra5 70. Rd5 Ra4+ 71. Ke5 Ra2
72. Ke6 Ra4 73. Rxh5 Ka8 74. Kf5 Rc4 75. Bf2 Rb4 76. Rh4 Rb5+ 77. Kxg4 Rb8
78. Rh5 Rb4+ 79. Kh3 Rb5 80. Rxb5 { Draw by stalemate. } 1/2-1/2
[/pgn]

And one example of Monchester's "deadly sting" in game rush at Lichess, where it managed to maneuver its pieces back to the starting position by move 6
[pgn]
[Event "Rated Blitz game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/W1fCpBGV"]
[Date "2020.11.19"]
[White "monchester"]
[Black "vambo"]
[Result "1-0"]
[UTCDate "2020.11.19"]
[UTCTime "15:41:36"]
[WhiteElo "1641"]
[BlackElo "1662"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+12"]
[BlackRatingDiff "-37"]
[WhiteTitle "BOT"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "300+3"]
[ECO "A00"]
[Opening "Van Geet Opening: Reversed Nimzowitsch"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. Nc3 e5 { A00 Van Geet Opening: Reversed Nimzowitsch } 2. Nd5 c6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 e4 5. Ng1 Bb4
6. Nb1 Qf6 7. a3 Bc5 8. e3 h5 9. Ne2 Bg4 10. f3 exf3 11. gxf3 Qxf3
12. Rg1 Nf6 13. Nbc3 O-O 14. Bg2 Qf5 15. h3 Bxe2 16. Kxe2 Nbd7 17. Rf1 Qg6
18. Bh1 Rfe8 19. Rg1 Qf5 20. d4 Bd6 21. h4 Ng4 22. Rg2 Nxe3 23. Bxe3 Bf4
24. Kd2 Bxe3+ 25. Ke1 Bxd4+ 26. Ne2 Qh3 27. Qxd4 Qxh1+ 28. Kf2 Qxa1
29. Qxg7# { White wins by checkmate. } 1-0
[/pgn]

Monchester 0.99 at CCRL

To my surprise and to CCRL testers credit, I discovered that already Monchester 0.99 beta version was involved in CCRL 404 testing . Version 0.99 currently holds CCRL 404 rating of 837, placing it at 677th position out of 688 there. I would have expected it to go ahead of ChessPuter (841 at CCRL at the moment), which it beat +210 =250 -40 when I last tried it locally (ChessPuter was almost totally unable to mate even with huge material advantage and thus the many draws and almost no wins for it). Anyway, I will try to look at the CCRL games when I have more time, to see if there is something to learn from there and to understand the adjudication conditions. Quick look revealed at least one very weirdly ended game, which seems like it should have been draw as Monchester simply could take opponents queen on the next move.

[pgn]
[Event "CCRL Blitz"]
[Site "CCRL"]
[Date "2020.11.13"]
[Round "558.5.628"]
[White "Safrad 2.2.40.360"]
[Black "Monchester 0.99 64-bit"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A58"]
[Opening "Benko gambit accepted"]
[PlyCount "139"]
[WhiteElo "1020"]
[BlackElo "837"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5 4. cxb5 a6 5. bxa6 g6 6. Nc3 Bxa6 7. Qa4 Ng8 8. Nb5
Nf6 9. Bf4 Nxd5 10. Nd6+ exd6 11. Qe4+ Be7 12. Qxd5 Ra7 13. Bxd6 Bxd6 14. Qxd6
Qa5+ 15. Kd1 Qa4+ 16. b3 Qd4+ 17. Qxd4 cxd4 18. Nf3 Nc6 19. e3 Bxf1 20. Rxf1
dxe3 21. fxe3 Ra5 22. Kd2 Kf8 23. Ke2 Rc5 24. Rad1 Rc2+ 25. Ke1 Rxa2 26. Rxd7
Rxg2 27. Nd4 Ke8 28. Rfxf7 Nxd4 29. Rfe7+ Kf8 30. Rxh7 Nc2+ 31. Kd1 Rxh7 32.
Rxh7 Nxe3+ 33. Kc1 Kg8 34. Rh3 Nd5 35. Rd3 Rg1+ 36. Kd2 Rg5 37. Rg3 Rxg3 38.
hxg3 Kf7 39. Kd3 Kf6 40. Kd4 Ke6 41. Ke4 g5 42. Kd4 g4 43. Ke4 Nf6+ 44. Kf4 Kd6
45. Kg5 Ke6 46. Kf4 Ke7 47. Kg5 Kf7 48. b4 Ke6 49. b5 Kf7 50. b6 Ke7 51. b7 Nd7
52. Kxg4 Nb8 53. Kf5 Kf7 54. g4 Ke7 55. g5 Kd7 56. Kg6 Kc6 57. Kf7 Kxb7 58. g6
Nc6 59. g7 Ne5+ 60. Ke6 Nd3 61. Kd6 Nf2 62. g8=Q Ne4+ 63. Ke5 Nc5 64. Qd5+ Kb6
65. Kd4 Na6 66. Qb3+ Kc6 67. Qe6+ Kb7 68. Qd6 Nc7 69. Qd7 Kb6 70. Qc6+ 1-0
[/pgn]

[Guenther]

Monchester 1.0 at Lichess

Monchester 1.0 has now been at Lichess for almost a week, via lichess-bot.

Again it has proved to be resilient against humans and is ATM rated 1679 at Lichess blitz, much higher than I would have expected. It is rated 1854 in bullet, but very few games have been played. Thanks to all the people who played against it or launched their bots at it.

It has not been able to play all the time though, apparently there was approximately three-day period when it did not accept challenges successfully (and the challenges never even showed up in the logs, if they were for time controls supported, unsupported rapid/classic challenges nicely show up as declined from the logs during that time). After the "turn it off and on again" it seems rather stable though, even if logs contain rather many warnings and errors -- lichess-bot support for UCI might be bit better than for CECP.

One of its Lichess opponents reported to me that he seems to have discovered a winning line against Monchester 1.0, and indeed the play appeared deterministic. Its meant as fun scholastic level engine, not the boring one to beat with once-discovered winning line(s), so supposed to apply slight randomization to material scores at all time, to vary its play at all times. However, it is activated when CECP 'random' command is sent, which was never applied via lichess-bot. It might be that only XBoard/Winboard send this command when new game starts. So I decided to enforce score randomization at compile time (https://github.com/unserializable/monchester/issues/3), unless explicitly disabled. No new release for that yet though, as playing code itself remains exactly the same as in 1.0 and randomization works exactly as supposed to in *Boards, -- lichess-bot backend engine has been updated with latest 1.0-branch though and will not repeat games anymore at Lichess :)

Two examples of Monchester's 1.0 resilience at Lichess:
...

And one example of Monchester's "deadly sting" in game rush at Lichess, where it managed to maneuver its pieces back to the starting position by move 6 :)
[pgn]
[Event "Rated Blitz game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/W1fCpBGV"]
[Date "2020.11.19"]
[White "monchester"]
[Black "vambo"]
[Result "1-0"]
[UTCDate "2020.11.19"]
[UTCTime "15:41:36"]
[WhiteElo "1641"]
[BlackElo "1662"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+12"]
[BlackRatingDiff "-37"]
[WhiteTitle "BOT"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "300+3"]
[ECO "A00"]
[Opening "Van Geet Opening: Reversed Nimzowitsch"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. Nc3 e5 { A00 Van Geet Opening: Reversed Nimzowitsch } 2. Nd5 c6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 e4 5. Ng1 Bb4
6. Nb1 Qf6 7. a3 Bc5 8. e3 h5 9. Ne2 Bg4 10. f3 exf3 11. gxf3 Qxf3
12. Rg1 Nf6 13. Nbc3 O-O 14. Bg2 Qf5 15. h3 Bxe2 16. Kxe2 Nbd7 17. Rf1 Qg6
18. Bh1 Rfe8 19. Rg1 Qf5 20. d4 Bd6 21. h4 Ng4 22. Rg2 Nxe3 23. Bxe3 Bf4
24. Kd2 Bxe3+ 25. Ke1 Bxd4+ 26. Ne2 Qh3 27. Qxd4 Qxh1+ 28. Kf2 Qxa1
29. Qxg7# { White wins by checkmate. } 1-0
[/pgn]

...

Thanks for the Lichess report.
The game above looks really like a Human coffeehouse swindle with some teasing in the beginning ;-)

I guess weaker players still underestimate the tactical shots of even very low rated programs in quick play, especially after seeing
their dumb opening play ;)

(BTW sorry, I have closed my last account m*nchester there, because it would have tempted me again to waste too much time there.
If it will once play a similar sounding one, it probably will be me again)