Zahak, a GoLang based chess engine

[AdminX]

Very exciting release! I've been following Zahak development even while I was on hiatus myself, and it's been really cool to see Zahak get better and better.

Thanks a lot , and I see Mantissa finally seeing the light, cool

Meet the latest and greatest Zahak, version 7.0 with NNUE:

https://github.com/amanjpro/zahak/releases/tag/7.0

More details are here in this article: https://zahak.amanj.me/posts/meet-zahak-7/

TL; DR; the trainer is written from scratch, the data is from self-play, and you can train different nets with provided tools if you like

Elo estimation: +190 over Zahak 6.2

Awesome progress, Amanj !! I guess Ceibo won't be meeting Zahak in D6

Zahak will probably be in D5 (or maayyyybe D4, but I prefer D5)

Glad to see Raspberry Pi binaries!

[amanjpro]

Doesn't work on Android. Engine crashes immediately when loading with DroidFish. Last version that works with DroidFish, was Zahak 5.0.

6.0 had issue, but that was corrected in 6.2, will check 7.0.
If it doesn't work, then I almost know for sure what is the issue. The GUI sends an empty EvalFile even if you don't set it.
That is an easy fix for me, but the bug is in DroidFish really (if you don't set an option, and leave it as default it shouldn't send the engine anything)

I'll probably have a hotfix at somepoint to address the issue, but in the meantime you can make it work by loading the default net manually, download it here and set it in the engine options: https://github.com/amanjpro/zahak/blob/7.0/default.nn

[amanjpro]

Not sure what is TBS really

Tablebases - Syzygy, Gaviota, Nalimov...........
The first game of my test could have been won. An end to finesse....

I plan to add it, for me it is harder than other engines. As I have to implement it from scratch given that I don't use the same programming language as the most chess engines, and there is no library for me to use

You might take a look at Combusken which is the only Go engine so far using tablebases.

And congrats for your new release!

Oh, never knew that Combusken is actually written in Go.
And I am surprised that they use Fathom for EGTB, I always thought that bridging between Go-to-C is going to be too slow to be useful

[amanjpro]

Doesn't work on Android. Engine crashes immediately when loading with DroidFish. Last version that works with DroidFish, was Zahak 5.0.

OK, this release should work just fine on DroidFish: https://github.com/amanjpro/zahak/releases/tag/7.1

It is bit by bit equivallent to 7.0, except the UCI has been "fixed" to work with BanksiaGUI and DroidFish

[Archimedes]

I'll probably have a hotfix at somepoint to address the issue, but in the meantime you can make it work by loading the default net manually, download it here and set it in the engine options: https://github.com/amanjpro/zahak/blob/7.0/default.nn

Could not reach this point. Engines crashes before and there are no uci options available. Version 7.1 also doesn't work on DroidFish and Chess for Android.

[amanjpro]

I'll probably have a hotfix at somepoint to address the issue, but in the meantime you can make it work by loading the default net manually, download it here and set it in the engine options: https://github.com/amanjpro/zahak/blob/7.0/default.nn

Could not reach this point. Engines crashes before and there are no uci options available. Version 7.1 also doesn't work on DroidFish and Chess for Android.

It just worked for me. Did you download 64 for bit arm binary or 32? I tried 64 and it worked

[amanjpro]

I'll probably have a hotfix at somepoint to address the issue, but in the meantime you can make it work by loading the default net manually, download it here and set it in the engine options: https://github.com/amanjpro/zahak/blob/7.0/default.nn

Could not reach this point. Engines crashes before and there are no uci options available. Version 7.1 also doesn't work on DroidFish and Chess for Android.

Can you please send me a screenshot of the error you are experiencing?

[Archimedes]

I'll probably have a hotfix at somepoint to address the issue, but in the meantime you can make it work by loading the default net manually, download it here and set it in the engine options: https://github.com/amanjpro/zahak/blob/7.0/default.nn

Could not reach this point. Engines crashes before and there are no uci options available. Version 7.1 also doesn't work on DroidFish and Chess for Android.

It just worked for me. Did you download 64 for bit arm binary or 32? I tried 64 and it worked

Your compilation are working fine with DroidFish. My compilation did not work. After looking to the makefile, i realize, that it was my fault. A simple go build was not enough for proper compiling, i have to add the command "go run netgen/nn.go" in front of the go build command. With this change, Android builds are working fine with DroidFish. Thanks for your support.

Zahak 7.1 for Android:
https://app.box.com/s/621lopi2t1eeisovqy2cadk88h75590x

[amanjpro]

I'll probably have a hotfix at somepoint to address the issue, but in the meantime you can make it work by loading the default net manually, download it here and set it in the engine options: https://github.com/amanjpro/zahak/blob/7.0/default.nn

Could not reach this point. Engines crashes before and there are no uci options available. Version 7.1 also doesn't work on DroidFish and Chess for Android.

It just worked for me. Did you download 64 for bit arm binary or 32? I tried 64 and it worked

Your compilation are working fine with DroidFish. My compilation did not work. After looking to the makefile, i realize, that it was my fault. A simple go build was not enough for proper compiling, i have to add the command "go run netgen/nn.go" in front of the go build command. With this change, Android builds are working fine with DroidFish. Thanks for your support.

Zahak 7.1 for Android:
https://app.box.com/s/621lopi2t1eeisovqy2cadk88h75590x

Happy to hear that the issue is resolved

BTW, my linux-arm-{32,64 bits} both work just fine on Android, not sure if you do anything more in your binaries, if there is some option I should provide to make your life easier, I'll

[Archimedes]

BTW, my linux-arm-{32,64 bits} both work just fine on Android, not sure if you do anything more in your binaries, if there is some option I should provide to make your life easier, I'll

I compile all go engines directly for Android (e. g. GOOS=android GOARCH=arm64). Therefore you need Android NDK.