Myfirst game of Shogi

[pichy]

[Event "Computer Shogi Game"]
[Site "Pichy-PC"]
[Date "2012.04.30"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Pichy"]
[Black "Shokidoki 0.9s"]
[Result "0-1"]
[TimeControl "40/600"]
[Variant "shogi"]
[Annotator "14. -399.92 1... -0.12"]

1. Kd2 Kf8 {-0.12/13 17} 2. Kc2 b6 {+1.44/14 11} 3. Kd2 b5 {+1.24/14 12} 4.
Kc2 b4 {+2.92/13 10} 5. bxb4 Rxb4 {+2.56/13 16} 6. Kd2 P@b3 {+14.60/13 20}
7. Kc2 Gfe8 {+16.00/10 15} 8. Kd2 bxb2+ {+35.96/10 22} 9. Sxb2 Rxb2+
{+44.68/9 50} 10. Ke1 +Rxb1 {+46.68/10 14} 11. Kd2 +Rxa1 {+48.36/8 11} 12.
Kc2 B@b1 {+58.88/6 35} 13. Kb3 S@b5 {+399.88/8} 14. c4 {-399.92/4} Bxd3+
{+399.92/3 0.2} 15. c5 {-399.96/2 0.1} N@a5# {+399.96/1}
{Xboard adjudication: Checkmate} 0-1

Final position, Well guess what I got Checkmated, you can only learn by playing, in 4 years I might get close to what is compared in chess equal to 1600 Elo. It took me about 16 years to become a 2236 in Normal Chess and this is much harder to calculate all the tactics:lol:

lnsg2snl/4gk1b1/p1ppppppp/9/nsP6/9/PK1+bPPPPP/7R1/+r2G1GSNL[PPpl] w 0 16

[hgm]

Well, I guess you would be able to do much better than that, if you actually thought about the moves (like 1-ply deep, for instance), rather than just mindlessly moving your King to and fro...

Although the situation in computer Shogi is not at all like in Chess, and you need a top engine and a few thousand cores to beat an amateur champion, Shokidoki is a rather tough opponent for a novice. Lesserkai is a much weaker opponent; it seems to be limited to 4 ply.

[pichy]

Well, I guess you would be able to do much better than that, if you actually thought about the moves (like 1-ply deep, for instance), rather than just mindlessly moving your King to and fro...

Although the situation in computer Shogi is not at all like in Chess, and you need a top engine and a few thousand cores to beat an amateur champion, Shokidoki is a rather tough opponent for a novice. Lesserkai is a much weaker opponent; it seems to be limited to 4 ply.

Therefore, in my next game I will try harder, I was only experimenting to see what the program do in case I moved my king back and forth and see how fast it would chekmate me, in your opinion do you think that Shokidoki is strong enough to beat Larry Kaufman by using a powerful system?

[hgm]

Not a chance. Hans Secelle crushes Shokidoki on a 2.4Gz Core 2 Duo even in blitz games. Note that Shokidoki is not SMP, so it would not really be able to profit from the power of the hardware, other than the clock speed.

[pichy]

Not a chance. Hans Secelle crushes Shokidoki on a 2.4Gz Core 2 Duo even in blitz games. Note that Shokidoki is not SMP, so it would not really be able to profit from the power of the hardware, other than the clock speed.

Mr. Muller can you configure Winboard to automatically work with the Spears Shogi program instead of the weaker version Shokidoki when Winboard is installed

[PK]

a practice opponent for the beginners:

http://hozo.vs.land.to/shogi.html

menu is in Japonese, but just pick the lowest one in the left column and work towards higher handicaps

[hgm]

Mr. Muller can you configure Winboard to automatically work with the Spears Shogi program instead of the weaker version Shokidoki when Winboard is installed

No, for several reasons. For one, I cannot just distribute programs from others. So it would never work 'automatically', but would in fact never work unless the user first figured out how to download SPEAR. In the second place SPEAR is not a native WB engine, and not even a compliant USI engine, not working on most of the standard time controls. And I don't want to distribute stuff that mostly would not work.

If I were ever to include a stronger Shogi engine with WinBoard, I would probably pick the WB version of Bonanza. Problem is that I would have to make that version myself (Bonanza has its own private protocol, but it is GPL, so anyone can change it, and distribution is allowed). But although the WB version I made is good enough to play engine-engine games, it is still a very flaky WB implementation.

[pichy]

Mr. Muller can you configure Winboard to automatically work with the Spears Shogi program instead of the weaker version Shokidoki when Winboard is installed

No, for several reasons. For one, I cannot just distribute programs from others. So it would never work 'automatically', but would in fact never work unless the user first figured out how to download SPEAR. In the second place SPEAR is not a native WB engine, and not even a compliant USI engine, not working on most of the standard time controls. And I don't want to distribute stuff that mostly would not work.

If I were ever to include a stronger Shogi engine with WinBoard, I would probably pick the WB version of Bonanza. Problem is that I would have to make that version myself (Bonanza has its own private protocol, but it is GPL, so anyone can change it, and distribution is allowed). But although the WB version I made is good enough to play engine-engine games, it is still a very flaky WB implementation.

At the moment all that I need is Shokidoki, since I am a beginner that just learn how to move the pieces yesterday. The most interesting part of Shogi is how the pieces drop anywhere and the tactics is wild. Here is a game between Shokidoki vs Lesserkai which I used to learn by watching the two engines playing.



[Event "Computer Chess Game"]
[Site "Pichy-PC"]
[Date "2012.05.01"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Lesserkai (USI2WB)"]
[Black "Shokidoki 0.9s"]
[Result "0-1"]
[TimeControl "40/600"]
[Variant "shogi"]
[Annotator "1... +0.08"]

1. Gc2 Kf8 {+0.08/15 0.2} 2. Kd2 b6 {+0.32/15 0.1} 3. b4 Sd8 {+2.20/14 0.1}
4. Ge2 b5 {+2.00/14 0.1} 5. bxb5 Rxb5 {+1.76/13 0.2} 6. P@b3 Gfe8
{+1.76/13 0.1} 7. a4 Sg8 {+1.56/12 0.2} 8. Ba3 i6 {+2.12/11 0.1} 9. b4 Rb8
{+3.44/13 0.2} 10. Sb2 c6 {+3.28/13 0.2} 11. c4 Nc7 {+3.72/12 0.2} 12. Sc3
P@b5 {+4.52/12 0.1} 13. d4 a6 {+5.20/12 0.2} 14. Ged3 a5 {+6.04/12 0.1} 15.
axa5 Lxa5 {+12.68/12 0.2} 16. P@a4 Lxa4 {+16.56/12 0.2} 17. Bb2 P@a2
{+23.16/12 0.2} 18. Gb3 axa1+ {+22.76/12 0.2} 19. Gxa4 +Pxb1
{+24.64/12 0.5} 20. Ba3 L@a8 {+22.56/11 0.4} 21. L@a5 Lxa5 {+21.88/11 0.4}
22. Gxa5 L@a8 {+23.24/11 0.5} 23. L@a6 Lxa6 {+26.28/12 0.3} 24. Gxa6 L@a4
{+24.92/12 0.4} 25. L@b6 Ra8 {+28.04/11 0.2} 26. Gb7 Ra6 {+28.72/11 0.3}
27. Gxc7 Sxc7 {+29.36/10 0.5} 28. Lb7+ Sd6 {+29.60/9 0.6} 29. d5 Sxd5
{+31.88/9 0.6} 30. N@c7 Gdd8 {+34.80/9 0.3} 31. Bc1 N@e5 {+43.08/8 0.2} 32.
Ge4 Sxe4 {+52.80/8 0.2} 33. exe4 G@d3 {+57.76/8 0.2} 34. Kd1 Nxf3=
{+399.80/9 0.6} 35. S@e1 +Pxc1 {+399.84/7 0.2} 36. Kxc1 B@e3
{+399.88/5 0.3} 37. Kb2 G@b3 {+399.92/3 0.2} 38. Kxb3 La3+# {+399.96/1}
{Xboard adjudication: Checkmate} 0-1

[pichy]

Mr. Muller can you configure Winboard to automatically work with the Spears Shogi program instead of the weaker version Shokidoki when Winboard is installed

No, for several reasons. For one, I cannot just distribute programs from others. So it would never work 'automatically', but would in fact never work unless the user first figured out how to download SPEAR. In the second place SPEAR is not a native WB engine, and not even a compliant USI engine, not working on most of the standard time controls. And I don't want to distribute stuff that mostly would not work.

If I were ever to include a stronger Shogi engine with WinBoard, I would probably pick the WB version of Bonanza. Problem is that I would have to make that version myself (Bonanza has its own private protocol, but it is GPL, so anyone can change it, and distribution is allowed). But although the WB version I made is good enough to play engine-engine games, it is still a very flaky WB implementation.

Therefore, for people who wants a stronger engine then shokidoki, they should download Shogidokoro with Spear:
http://www.teu.ac.jp/gamelab/SHOGI/SPEAR/spearmain.html

[hgm]

Well, considering your performance so far, it seems SPEAR is the last thing you need. Better first try to beat Leserkai, and then Shokidoki... And if you want the strongest engine, I would not recommend SPEAR either.

That pretty much illustrates the problem of those not prepared to install their own engines, making them fully dependent on pre-packaged pre-installed bundles. The best will always remain unavailably for them, both in terms of engine and terms of GUI...