Banksia GUI released

[phhnguyen]

Thanks for your great work with the GUI. The Lichess bot works pretty well now.

There is still sometimes the problem that Banksia thinks there is still a game, but this was actually aborted or ended because the opponent had no more time, in this case, there is an entry with empty cells in the "Playing" tab. But this problem is not so bad.

The most annoying thing is that Banksia occasionally thinks it has won a game on time, although this is not the case. In this case the GUI simply stops playing because it thinks the game is over, in reality you lose on time (not infrequently in completely won positions) because the GUI does not continue playing. This happens when the opponent has let his clock run down very much, but has not yet reached 0:00.

Let me know if I can help with more information or data regarding the bugs.

Thanks for the report. I have been working on those issues.

That's good to hear. Here is one such game from this morning, Banksia thought it had won the game but the opponent still had 1.24s on the clock.

https://lichess.org/giWiIPok

As I noted earlier, Banksia seems to take about 0.4s for a move from the opening book, which seems very long to me. My opponents, presumably using the standard Lichess bot client, need 0.0s. Maybe this is something that could be optimised in the future.

I know that as well. In the beginning I lost so many games. Yes, especially if the opponent moves quickly at the end of the game and runs out of time. When I'm not playing bullet, I often have enough time to do hand moves on the Lichess Board in the browser. That saved a few games for me.

You have seen a move in the opening period with Lichess may take over 0.4s. I agree that is quite long. However, you may observe BSG can play those moves almost instantly (let two engines play together, using a Polyglot book, turn off move animation since BSG usually tries to make those moves move longer on the screen otherwise people can’t see their moving, but for online games, BSG doesn’t need that delay). Thus 0.4s is almost the time needed for the rival’s move to go from the server, to arrive BSG, then come back as the replied move, arrive the server, be processed and displayed. That is slower than many good servers but I doubt Lichess would spend much money for buying very strong, expensive computers and fast lines since the current ones are still acceptable. That means lagging may occur frequently and we can’t avoid dealing with that.

Thank you for the detailed answer.

I absolutely agree with you that not all the problems we observe are Banksia's fault. We must not forget that very fast moves are sent over the internet, so there will always be failures and lags.

But I find it hard to believe that the moves from the opening book can be explained with lags. In the following pictures you can see that Banksia needs ~ 0.4s for the moves from the opening book, as soon as I am out of the book Banksia is able to move in 0.0s. So lag is virtually impossible here. In the endgame, too, moves are often made faster than in 0.4s.

I am black https://lichess.org/FfvlLSfj


I am white https://lichess.org/gcCNzFqt


I am black https://lichess.org/OKp9OC27

You are right. I have checked and found a problem making BSG delay a bit (max 0.5s) for opening moves. Fixed for the next release. Thanks a lot!

[AlexChess]

In BSG 0.50 could you also add a feature to modify settings of a Running Tournament? (Rounds number, game time controls, draw/lose & tablebase settings) I would like to continue the same tournament playing all games with reverse colors.

PS: About to complete my 1431 games, then I'll rename BSG config settings folder to test if it starts again.

Best regards, Alex

[phhnguyen]

In BSG 0.50 could you also add a feature to modify settings of a Running Tournament? (Rounds number, game time controls, draw/lose & tablebase settings) I would like to continue the same tournament playing all games with reverse colors.

PS: About to complete my 1431 games, then I'll rename BSG config settings folder to test if it starts again.

Best regards, Alex

The tournament editor has a function to swap sides for all players. Did you try it? Perhaps, to fulfill your need, just reset all games, then swap sides for all players. You may make a copy of the tournament, do that then merge it back to the original one if you want to keep old games.

[huanhuan]

Hi phhnguyen

If we play a game till to 'Mate', the last 3 moves are too fast, so we can't clearly see those 3 last moves, and suddenly on the board appears the score "1-0 or 0-1".

I mean, the duration of each move from the start to 'Mate' should be the same.

You can experiment with playing one game till 'Mate', and you'll see what I mean.

Thank you...

[phhnguyen]

Thanks for the feedbacks.

I am so touched that you still remember me, and even know my country. For that I am very grateful

By the way, my eyesight is a bit disturbed by this => https://prnt.sc/19zynp2

The number "0" is truncated in square d5. That number "0" should still appear fully, but maybe the Transparency can be set so that it doesn't completely overlap the square d5. I think you know better what I mean.

Thank you...

It is fixed for the next release.

Hi phhnguyen

If we play a game till to 'Mate', the last 3 moves are too fast, so we can't clearly see those 3 last moves, and suddenly on the board appears the score "1-0 or 0-1".

I mean, the duration of each move from the start to 'Mate' should be the same.

You can experiment with playing one game till 'Mate', and you'll see what I mean.

Thank you...

In the next release, BSG will make it look a bit better but won't solve it completely. The problem is that that may happen at the endgames of the tournament and demo games and those games could be finished already and BSG usually tries to release them from resources ASAP.

[ydebilloez]

I have an issue with a buggy engine and banksia. While developing the new version of my engine, it does something wrong when game end (draw/mate) is approaching. Unfortunately, banksia reacts strangely to it and just quits. Under Linux, the engines active stay in memory and banksia quits. Under win10-64, I found some crash registered in ucrt....dll. unfortunately, no logs are generated.
Problem seems to be related to engine returning uci score mate in 2 while it is simply mate.

My question, can we turn on debug logging? (i.e. arena)

On Linux, in some positions, the offending engine does work fine in arena and cutechess-cli but does break in the debugger as well... So it is not necessarily a banksia issue.

[AlexChess]

In BSG 0.50 could you also add a feature to modify settings of a Running Tournament? (Rounds number, game time controls, draw/lose & tablebase settings) I would like to continue the same tournament playing all games with reverse colors.

PS: About to complete my 1431 games, then I'll rename BSG config settings folder to test if it starts again.

Best regards, Alex

The tournament editor has a function to swap sides for all players. Did you try it? Perhaps, to fulfill your need, just reset all games, then swap sides for all players. You may make a copy of the tournament, do that then merge it back to the original one if you want to keep old games.

Hi Pham!
How can I force BSG to save running tournament data? My last backup is only about the old tournament, not the actual 1431 games tournament, so I fear to make modifications on the json files.



Best regards, Alex

[phhnguyen]

I have an issue with a buggy engine and banksia. While developing the new version of my engine, it does something wrong when game end (draw/mate) is approaching. Unfortunately, banksia reacts strangely to it and just quits. Under Linux, the engines active stay in memory and banksia quits. Under win10-64, I found some crash registered in ucrt....dll. unfortunately, no logs are generated.
Problem seems to be related to engine returning uci score mate in 2 while it is simply mate.

My question, can we turn on debug logging? (i.e. arena)

On Linux, in some positions, the offending engine does work fine in arena and cutechess-cli but does break in the debugger as well... So it is not necessarily a banksia issue.

What does "debug logging" mean?

If you mean to log all input-output between engines and BSG, yes, we have a logging system.

For normal game, go menu->File->Settings ->Engin tab. In the bottom, you will see the line Engine log. Tick the box and enter a path to write out.

For the tournament, when creating you will see the button Setup in the "Log" line. Click on that to set up the log file.

Another way: BSG has a panel named "Engine log" to display everything between engines and BSG. Open it via menu -> Windows -> Docks -> Engine log. Whenever you want all or some text, just mark that text and then right-click to open a popup menu and copy that text into the clipboard.

Good luck and have fun with your engine

[Torom]

Hey, I think I found a bug with the opening books. When I look at the book, it prefers the Spanish game over the Italian, not with the same value either. But when I use the book on the Lichess Bot, Banksia always plays the Italian game.

The "Top" value in the settings is set to 0%.



https://lichess.org/85Qj0TVv/white#5
https://lichess.org/OZIMri1v/white#5
https://lichess.org/gB5GLYlD/white#5

[Magnum]

How long do we need to wait for extreme chess analysis to be back?
With version 0.50?
I would like to use it even it is not perfect.
I need ECA as a good reason to buy the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1X chip.