Hello everybody!
Durandal is a very simple (and very weak) UCI chess engine written in Pascal, and able to play traditional chess, Fischer random chess, Capablanca chess, Capablanca random chess and Gothic chess.
Source code, Windows and Linux binaries are here:
https://github.com/rchastain/durandal
Regards.
Roland
Durandal
Moderators: hgm, Rebel, chrisw
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Re: Durandal
Merci Roland !
Cheers,
Eric
Cheers,
Eric
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- Full name: Thomas Jahn
Re: Durandal
Hi Roland,
I played it in a little tournament and MinimalChess 0.2 (~1000 ELO) didn't lose a single game. But your engine was really fast and I didn't notice any stability problems. So despite it playing as weak as advertised it seems to work just fine!
Are you searching to a fixed depth of four plys? And what do you use as evaluation? I noticed that your engine tends to move pieces back and forth a lot. Is it a clever tactic to try and force draw?
I played it in a little tournament and MinimalChess 0.2 (~1000 ELO) didn't lose a single game. But your engine was really fast and I didn't notice any stability problems. So despite it playing as weak as advertised it seems to work just fine!
Are you searching to a fixed depth of four plys? And what do you use as evaluation? I noticed that your engine tends to move pieces back and forth a lot. Is it a clever tactic to try and force draw?
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- Full name: Rasmus Althoff
Re: Durandal
Congrats! Psacalia is entirely occupied by the legions of C-sar. Well not entirely! One small village of indomitable Pascalians still holds out...
Rasmus Althoff
https://www.ct800.net
https://www.ct800.net
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- Full name: Roland Chastain
Re: Durandal
Thank you for testing the program. Glad to known that it seems to work correctly.
Unfortunately it's rather the result of a very simplistic design.
I play only three half moves (including the move to be evaluated) and search the best material balance. After that I keep the moves with the best score and search the best pawn structure and things like that.
When I have time I will see if I can find something to make the playing style less boring.
Qui trop embrasse mal étreint.
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- Posts: 640
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- Full name: Roland Chastain
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- Posts: 640
- Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2013 10:07 am
- Location: France
- Full name: Roland Chastain
Durandal 0.0.9
Hello everybody. Durandal 0.0.9 is available.
https://gitlab.com/rchastain/durandal/-/releases
In the previous version "e1c1" was automatically converted to "e1a1", even in FRC mode, when the rook is really on c1.
Thanks to Carlos for forwarding me games where Durandal made illegal moves.
Otherwise it's still the same engine. For the next version I hope I could work on the playing style.
For now only Linux binaries are available. It's easy to build for Windows (provided that you have Free Pascal installed). I have added build instructions in the README file.
https://gitlab.com/rchastain/durandal/-/releases
In the previous version "e1c1" was automatically converted to "e1a1", even in FRC mode, when the rook is really on c1.
Thanks to Carlos for forwarding me games where Durandal made illegal moves.
Otherwise it's still the same engine. For the next version I hope I could work on the playing style.
For now only Linux binaries are available. It's easy to build for Windows (provided that you have Free Pascal installed). I have added build instructions in the README file.
Qui trop embrasse mal étreint.
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- Posts: 640
- Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2013 10:07 am
- Location: France
- Full name: Roland Chastain
Re: Durandal 0.0.9
Qui trop embrasse mal étreint.
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- Full name: Marcel Vanthoor
Re: Durandal 0.0.9
Hm...
I think this engine is great for my girlfriend, to play against on the DGT board. She's a beginner in chess (knows the rules + some mating patterns), so even something like MinimalChess 0.2 is already too strong. If you could add some 'time management', even if it is only a command-line option that "wastes" random percentage of the set time so the engine "appears" to think, then it would be a nice option for her Maybe I could look into this myself if i can get my 90's Pascal dusted off...
(The lower-rated CCRL-engines are probably stronger than they seem; MMC doesn't play like an 1100 human. It plays more like a 1400 Elo human or thereabouts. Rustic Alpha 1 is also much stronger than any ~1600-1700 I've ever played.)
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- Full name: Roland Chastain
Durandal 0.1.0 (wait option)
Good idea. Done.
https://gitlab.com/rchastain/durandal/-/releases/0.1.0
(Only Linux binaries for now.)
Please run Durandal with option -w or --wait. I made a quick test. It seems to work.
I made another little modification. When there are several "best moves" (which happens often), the engine takes a random one instead of taking always the first.
Qui trop embrasse mal étreint.