New engine: belofte

[ydebilloez]

A small update. (Back-ported from 2.1 release I which has to many regressions in order to be released.)
Version 2.0.8.2 fixes issues when running with time based clocks.
Belofte used to overrun the clock with a few ms, causing it to flag to often.

Exact time per move and time controls are fixed in 2.0.8.2 release.

[ydebilloez]

Belofte 2.1.9 RC - Release notes

10 months after the previous release, a new version of Belofte has been released. The current release is a release candidate. Will be converted
in formal release after documentation is updated and no issues pop up during testing. PS: source has not been pushed yet, hold on for a couple of days please.

Major changes:

• Optimised: twice as fast as previous release, should gain approx. 100 elo

• Bugs smashed: UI bugs and various small bugs resolved, some search engine
  bugs removed (but not all)

• Feature enhanced: epd test suites, STS tests, test scripts, tournament scripts,
  more test abilities, now compiles with C++11, and C++14 or C++17 as well.

• Platform support: compiling and debugging available on all platforms, including
  macOS.

• Better time management and better logging.

... more in history.md ...

What is remaining: major issues in AB search affecting strength, documented in TODO.
Compilation for Android and iOS. Xboard version under BanksiaGUI.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/belofte/

[ydebilloez]

...
10 months after the previous release, a new version of Belofte has been released.
...

Release promoted from RC to release. all binaries uploaded to SourceForge dist folder. JA compiles available as well.
Documentation updated to reflect new release. (https://macchess.internetcontact.be/bel ... #!index.md and http://macchess.internetcontact.be/beloftedoc/html/) Please have a look, I am really proud of the end result.

Elo self play results shows improvement of at least 60 elo compared to previous release.

The project is more than just a chess program. It is an exercise in C++ optimised coding, cross platform coding and compiling, full documentation generation, full test suites, UCI and CECP compatibility, ...

Notably is the presence of a lot of epd files, test suites, integration STS tests, ...

Special thanks to Jim Ablett for hist optimised compiles and Android versions. Thanks a lot.

[Gabor Szots]

Congratulations, Yves, for the relentless development of Belofte and the handsome progress you've made since the last release. Belofte is the first engine in my testing queue now.

[ydebilloez]

Congratulations, Yves, for the relentless development of Belofte and the handsome progress you've made since the last release. Belofte is the first engine in my testing queue now.

Thanks Gabor. There is still some major bug in 2.1.9 that was also present in 2.1.8.1. In AB search, I did not pass the Alpha en Beta by reference as it is a class. Got issue with inverting A/B while passing them down. So AB cut is taking place downwards only which creates a huge increase in search tree. Therefor in QS extension, I cut out after first move (move score is from move generation, so this is not optimal as it is more more of a statistical value. Resolving the QS bug cannot be done without resolving the AB passing around bug....
This is now planned for the 2.2 release.

2.1.9 is only a small increase in strength but a very huge improvement on global project status and auxiliary stuff that can be useful for beginning programmers. So expect a lot of future updates with AB fix, MTD, hash usage, ... Target is beating myself without copying any code from any other program and taking a fresh view on thinking without all that NUEE stuff. See my wiki for ideas.