Congratulations on the new 3.0 release

Moderator: Ras
Thanks, Marcel! Briefly it felt like with 3.0 I was achieving a big milestone but the sense of contentment didn't last. Now there are soooo many things, again, that I want to try.
The reason I couldn't find a better net was that in the search there was one eval-unit denominated margin (like you'd use them for futility pruning) and it needed re-tuning. The new value was almost twice as high as the old one!
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//if remainingDepth is [1..5] a nullmove reduction of 4 will mean it goes directly into Qsearch.
//Skip the effort for obvious situations...
if (remainingDepth < 6 && eval > beta + _options.NullMoveCutoff)
return beta;
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if (remaining < 6 && _history.IsExpectedFailHigh(eval, beta))
return beta;
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Score of Leorik-3.0.5 vs Leorik-3.0.4: 1619 - 1501 - 5581 [0.507] 8701
Elo difference: 4.7 +/- 4.4, LOS: 98.3 %, DrawRatio: 64.1 %
Congratulations Thomas! It's been a while since I've thought about chess programming, or touched Blunder. But I'm glad you've kept up with Leorik and implementing NNUE. The progress you've made from the earliest days of MinimalChess to now is very impressive. It's making me want to get back into chess programming. I've missed doing it. And Blunder could definitely use some re-factoring since I'm still not getting the most bang for my buck in terms of the features I have, making the whole thing feel bloated. And there were some nagging bugs that seem to just be baked into Blunder's DNA. Or maybe I'll leave Blunder alone and start up a new engine with the intention of reaching the NNUE stage.
Thanks! In the past I had the problem of jumping too quickly between projects to leave anything of value. Chess programming was personally important because it allowed me to break that habit. I'll remember MMC & Leorik with contentment and pride even if I eventually move on!algerbrex wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2024 11:02 pm Congratulations Thomas! It's been a while since I've thought about chess programming, or touched Blunder. But I'm glad you've kept up with Leorik and implementing NNUE. The progress you've made from the earliest days of MinimalChess to now is very impressive.
Yes come back! I missed you, too! For a time catching up with a new version of Blunder was a big motivator in my own progress!algerbrex wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2024 11:02 pm It's making me want to get back into chess programming. I've missed doing it. And Blunder could definitely use some re-factoring since I'm still not getting the most bang for my buck in terms of the features I have, making the whole thing feel bloated. And there were some nagging bugs that seem to just be baked into Blunder's DNA. Or maybe I'll leave Blunder alone and start up a new engine with the intention of reaching the NNUE stage.
Leorik 2.X should have you covered with versions each about 100 Elo apart until 2900 Elo
Welcome back. If you think refactoring Blunder would cause you to basically rewrite the engine, you should probably Go and leave it to Rust and C if you can Swift-ly bring Clojure to a new project.algerbrex wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2024 11:02 pm It's making me want to get back into chess programming. I've missed doing it. And Blunder could definitely use some re-factoring since I'm still not getting the most bang for my buck in terms of the features I have, making the whole thing feel bloated. And there were some nagging bugs that seem to just be baked into Blunder's DNA. Or maybe I'll leave Blunder alone and start up a new engine with the intention of reaching the NNUE stage.
Bro that was the smoothest string of puns I've ever seen
Luckily we're all nerds here, solid punsmvanthoor wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2024 11:54 pmWelcome back. If you think refactoring Blunder would cause you to basically rewrite the engine, you should probably Go and leave it to Rust and C if you can Swift-ly bring Clojure to a new project.algerbrex wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2024 11:02 pm It's making me want to get back into chess programming. I've missed doing it. And Blunder could definitely use some re-factoring since I'm still not getting the most bang for my buck in terms of the features I have, making the whole thing feel bloated. And there were some nagging bugs that seem to just be baked into Blunder's DNA. Or maybe I'll leave Blunder alone and start up a new engine with the intention of reaching the NNUE stage.
Dang. That was nerdy.
I'm the same way, and Blunder was the first project I consistently worked on for as long as did, over a year and a half.lithander wrote: ↑Sun Feb 18, 2024 2:02 pm Thanks! In the past I had the problem of jumping too quickly between projects to leave anything of value. Chess programming was personally important because it allowed me to break that habit. I'll remember MMC & Leorik with contentment and pride even if I eventually move on!
Ah, now I have to come backlithander wrote: ↑Sun Feb 18, 2024 2:02 pm Yes come back! I missed you, too! For a time catching up with a new version of Blunder was a big motivator in my own progress!
I've got the hunch that you'll love NNUE's because it's really the next level of what you already did with gradient descent and yet surprisingly approachable. Opens up new interesting questions too like thinking about network architectures, data generation and filtering...
Sounds like a plan
That wasn't my intention... as all programmers know, leaving a String of puns to Float around in your codebase will create Real problems in a Class of their own. You need to Double down on those and address them in Short order, or they'll come back to Byte you in the ass.eboatwright wrote: ↑Wed Feb 21, 2024 12:39 am Bro that was the smoothest string of puns I've ever seen![]()