Banksia GUI released

[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.

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

No, BSG doesn't have that function.

However, you may do a trick as following steps:
- From the Tournament panel (the one that lists all tournament games, usually on the right side), right-click for popup-menu, click on the item Edit JSON
- There is a dialog box with JSON content. That data has been created from "live" data of the tournament
- Just copy the text and save it somewhere. It could be considered a backup of the file banksiaplaying.json

FYI, I have been working on a recovery system that could help to check and recover tournaments in an easy and visual way. Hope that the corrupted data become less nightmare for us

BTW, it is better if you could divide your tournaments into multi-smaller ones. Whenever you need, just merge them into a large one and still keep small ones as main data.

I have been considering a function to generate a cross table, score/Elo for engines from multi tournaments.

[phhnguyen]

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.

Thanks for using that function. I was a bit worried if there are too few users who need that

I have been working on that and definitely it will be back with the next release (about next week).

[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

No, BSG doesn't have that function.

However, you may do a trick as following steps:
- From the Tournament panel (the one that lists all tournament games, usually on the right side), right-click for popup-menu, click on the item Edit JSON
- There is a dialog box with JSON content. That data has been created from "live" data of the tournament
- Just copy the text and save it somewhere. It could be considered a backup of the file banksiaplaying.json

FYI, I have been working on a recovery system that could help to check and recover tournaments in an easy and visual way. Hope that the corrupted data become less nightmare for us

BTW, it is better if you could divide your tournaments into multi-smaller ones. Whenever you need, just merge them into a large one and still keep small ones as main data.

I have been considering a function to generate a cross table, score/Elo for engines from multi tournaments.

Thank you! Yes this last function would be needful if you merge multi tournaments

[ydebilloez]

Under Linux, the engines active stay in memory and banksia quits. Under win10-64, I found some crash registered in ucrt....dll.

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

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

Debugging is always fun, and finding the bug is hugely rewarding... Thanks.

I did activate those settings. However in a few occasions under linux, nothing was generated at all. The fact that Banksia quits is nowhere logged. If an engine would be crashing, it should be logged, but the engine stays in memory while banksia is just closed without any trace for what reason. So still not sure if it is my engine or banksia.. I will be doing further tests.

[phhnguyen]

Under Linux, the engines active stay in memory and banksia quits. Under win10-64, I found some crash registered in ucrt....dll.

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

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

Debugging is always fun, and finding the bug is hugely rewarding... Thanks.

I did activate those settings. However in a few occasions under linux, nothing was generated at all. The fact that Banksia quits is nowhere logged. If an engine would be crashing, it should be logged, but the engine stays in memory while banksia is just closed without any trace for what reason. So still not sure if it is my engine or banksia.. I will be doing further tests.

It is strange. BSG typically and instantly writes down everything from input/output with engines into the log file.

Did you see something on the panel "Engine log"?

[phhnguyen]

Under Linux, the engines active stay in memory and banksia quits. Under win10-64, I found some crash registered in ucrt....dll.

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

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

Debugging is always fun, and finding the bug is hugely rewarding... Thanks.

I did activate those settings. However in a few occasions under linux, nothing was generated at all. The fact that Banksia quits is nowhere logged. If an engine would be crashing, it should be logged, but the engine stays in memory while banksia is just closed without any trace for what reason. So still not sure if it is my engine or banksia.. I will be doing further tests.

I have just tested with Ubuntu 18.04, using Stockfish 14. BSG wrote all input/output to the log file and also printed them all to the panel Engine log.

Perhaps, you may try with Stockfish first?

[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.

Thanks for using that function. I was a bit worried if there are too few users who need that

I have been working on that and definitely it will be back with the next release (about next week).

That’s funny because the most users from my chess club are using this function xD.
We are waiting for much more ECA improvements.
Even some professional chess players started to use it.

[phhnguyen]

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

Thanks for the report.

I have downloaded and looked into the opening book Perfect 2021. The problem is that some moves of that book are not in the right order. Even the move Bb5 (of Spanish game) has a larger weight/score than Bc4 (of Italian game) but in that book, Bb5 stood behind Bc4! It means the order is incorrect.

When displaying in Books/Egtb panel, BSG always sort moves, based on what the user set (user can sort them by names or by scores, ascending or descending...) - just click on the top bar of the table to change the way to sort. The default is to sort by score, that is why you can see those moves are in the right order.

However, when probing books for playing, BSG supposes those moves are in the right order thus it won't sort, just pick up as the conditions. In this case, it picks Bc4 as the top one, not Bb5 since Bc4 is the first.

You can check the real order by using the Opening viewer. For this function, BSG doesn't sort moves either, just displays them in real orders. In the below image, you can see that Bf1c4 goes first, then Bf1b5.

[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

Thanks for the report.

I have downloaded and looked into the opening book Perfect 2021. The problem is that some moves of that book are not in the right order. Even the move Bb5 (of Spanish game) has a larger weight/score than Bc4 (of Italian game) but in that book, Bb5 stood behind Bc4! It means the order is incorrect.

When displaying in Books/Egtb panel, BSG always sort moves, based on what the user set (user can sort them by names or by scores, ascending or descending...) - just click on the top bar of the table to change the way to sort. The default is to sort by score, that is why you can see those moves are in the right order.

However, when probing books for playing, BSG supposes those moves are in the right order thus it won't sort, just pick up as the conditions. In this case, it picks Bc4 as the top one, not Bb5 since Bc4 is the first.

You can check the real order by using the Opening viewer. For this function, BSG doesn't sort moves either, just displays them in real orders. In the below image, you can see that Bf1c4 goes first, then Bf1b5.

Okay, so I understand where the error is coming from. But it should still be the case that the move with the highest score is played, no matter what order they are in the book, right? That's how I would expect it as a user. I also don't know how often it happens that moves in opening books are not in the "right" order.

Another question: Would it be possible to play the moves from chessdb.cn automatically as an opening book? I realise that this is then really not quick, as the API has to be requested first (the answers could of course be cached). But it could still be interesting for longer time controls.

[Eduard]

I also think that the play probability should be considered first. I like to change the play probability with SCID sometimes to change the style of play. By default, Bb5 is also in the first position in my books, for example Bb5 80% and Bc4 20%, but sometimes I would have liked to have it the other way around. I then set 20% under SCID for Bb5 (the move is still in the first position) and 80% for Bc4. What can I do now so that Bc4 is actually played that much more often?