Schola 1.0.2

[plattyaj]

I've updated my website with Schola 1.0.2. Mostly this is fixes to pondering. In particular Olivier found a bug that I had already tracked down where it would use the wrong position to search for a book move when in ponder move and if the opponent played the "expected" move it would respond with an illegal one.

http://mysite.verizon.net/the_platts/schola.html

This version may be slightly slower than the previous one. My engine is single threaded but the Winboard logic is in a different thread. Unfortunately both can access the repetition hash table and, again just when in ponder mode, this led to troubles. For now I've used a very cheap and inefficient lock so that might slow things a little.

I've included Swami's logo in this release - thanks!

This also has some minor tweaks from Dann Corbit and the addition of some code to detect draws due to inefficient material. Thanks!


There are no improvements to Schola's playing ability I'm reworking the evaluation substantially and hope that the next version understands that protected passed pawns are powerful and stripping the King's pawn protection is dangerous! I'm tired of watching opponent's routinely destroy Schola's pawns and then march theirs down the board!

Andy.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Thanks Andy

[plattyaj]

Couple of bugs turned up from some tests published in WBEC forum:

1. Time management bug at move 40 in 40 moves/5 seconds time control. It must be using the wrong time when the time control is met.

2. Another ponder bug where it attempted to play a forced mate when pondering instead of being polite and waiting for the opponent to move

I'm on vacation but will fix these when I return and put 1.0.3 on the website.

Andy.