CheckerBoard 1.7 & co.

I just published a new version of CheckerBoard on my website. CB 1.7 has some minor bugs fixed, and doesn't write to the program files - CheckerBoard directory any more, which was a problem with the UAC (user account control) of Windows Vista and Windows Seven. Most of the changes in CB 1.7 were contributed by Ed Gilbert; thanks a lot Ed!
The CB source code is also available, but still rather difficult to comprehend.

I also updated the engines to comply with Vista/Win7, Cake and the Kingscourt engine didn't work with the new OS versions unless run with administrator rights. The CB install package now also includes Suicidal Cake with a 4-piece endgame database for suicide checkers and an opening book. I worked on suicide checkers about 3 years ago, and thought it would be a shame to leave what might be the world's best suicide checkers program rot on the shelf...

CB and Windows 7

I'm writing this post on my brand-new Windows 7. Unlike Vista to which I took an instant dislike, this product seems to be much more user-friendly (UAC...) and the harddisk isn't working for about an hour after startup. Of course, the very first thing I did with Win7 was to test whether CheckerBoard was working on it, and it is - however, it has to be run as Administrator, otherwise it crashes. I think it was the same with Windows Vista (but I can't remember), and I hope I will have some time during the christmas holidays to sort out these issues.

Checkers for Android Phones

It's been a while since I worked on my Java program. Actually, the underlying purpose of writing a Java checkers program was to (1) learn Java and (2) write a checkers program for the Android operating system running on the Google phones. There are two checkers programs for the iPhone based on my simple checkers engine, and since developing for the iPhone seems to be a PITA or at least some kind of licensing hell, I was never interested. The much more open philosophy of Android attracted me however, and my checkers program is already running on my emulator. It manages to search about 5000 positions per second, i.e. it's nearly 1000x slower than my corresponding PC program, and therefore also quite a bit weaker. But since it incorporates a lot of the stuff that I learned during the many years of programming Cake, it plays a decent game nevertheless. I worked hard on it during the last two weeks on my mountain holidays (whenever I wasn't climbing the mountains), and it's already a working program. However, I may have overdone things a bit trying to put a lot of features into the program, so it won't be ready today or tomorrow, but hopefully before the summer is out.

Multi-core KingsRow tested

I have been testing KingsRow 1.16d against Cake 1.8x12 on my quadcore machine. Here are some results of engine matches at 5 seconds per move:

Cake 1.8x12 - KingsRow 1.16d (1 core)  +19 -14 =255
Cake 1.8x12 - KingsRow 1.16d (2 cores) +19 -18 =251
Cake 1.8x12 - KingsRow 1.16d (4 cores) +18 -19 =251

I had been expecting Cake to be slaughtered by the multi-core version of KingsRow, but apparently it's not that bad. To check whether or not it might be a bug in the multithreaded search of KingsRow, I played a match with Cake and KingsRow running on 1 core, but KingsRow got 10 seconds per move - so essentially this should reproduce the second match above. I found

Cake 1.8x12 - KingsRow 1.16d (10s)  +17 -21 =250

There is always some variability in engine matches, otherwise one might conclude that the 2-core version of KingsRow was not performing as well as KingsRow with twice the search time. As it is, I don't quite know what to make of it.

KingsRow goes multicore!

The amazing Ed Gilbert has done it again: he rewrote his KingsRow engine so that it can use multiple CPUs. While he was at it, he also fixed a few bugs in CheckerBoard. You can download a new version of CheckerBoard, and the multi-CPU-KingsRow on Ed's webpage. Enjoy!

Java Checkers progress

I've continued working on my Java checkers program, and it has an interface similar to CheckerBoard now, and plays a decent game (albeit without opening or endgame databases). I also worked on a beginner level that will be less frustrating than CheckerBoard is now!
However, work on the interface is slow, as I feared. I want to add PDN support, and while writing a PDN parser was simple, I find it quite hard to use the Swing Table to display the games when loading them. Oh well, at some point I will either give up on the PDN feature and publish anyway or find out how to use it....

Java checkers' first draw against Cake

My Java checkers engine now has its own - very primitive - GUI based on Swing, and I can let it play games against my other engines. Here is its first game against Cake:

[Event "test game"]
[Date "2009-03-18"]
[Black "Cake 1.8"]
[White "Java engine"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
1. 11-15 22-18 2. 15x22 25x18 3. 8-11 29-25 4. 4-8 25-22 5. 12-16 24-19 6. 16-20 19-15 7. 10x19 23x16 8. 6-10 16-12 9. 9-14 18x9 10. 5x14 26-23 11. 2-6 22-18 12. 14-17 21x14 13. 10x17 31-26 14. 6-10 23-19 15. 1-6 19-15 16. 10x19 26-22 17. 17x26 30x16 18. 6-10 28-24 19. 10-15 18-14 20. 15-18 14-10 21. 7x14 16x7 22. 3x10 12x3 23. 18-22 3-7 24. 22-26 7-2 25. 10-15 2-7 26. 15-18 7-10 27. 14-17 10-14 28. 18-22 14x21 29. 26-31 21-17 30. 22-25 17-22 31. 25-30 32-28 32. 30-26 22-25 33. 26-30 25-22 34. 30-26 22-18 35. 26-30 1/2-1/2

This one draw doesn't mean too much of course - in its next game, it got into trouble against simple checkers, but just managed to escape with a draw. There is still a lot of knowledge missing in the evaluation function... And the GUI will need a lot more attention too!

Java perft, again

After some more optimizations my Java perft now runs much faster than before, it is now nearly half as fast as the C code. I would have expected much less from Java and am pleasantly surprised. I'm quite happy already with the Java engine, so now for the hard part - creating an interface....

perft 1 time 1 positions 7 kN/s 7
perft 2 time 1 positions 49 kN/s 49
perft 3 time 1 positions 302 kN/s 302
perft 4 time 1 positions 1469 kN/s 1469
perft 5 time 1 positions 7361 kN/s 7361
perft 6 time 15 positions 36768 kN/s 2451
perft 7 time 1 positions 179740 kN/s 179740
perft 8 time 63 positions 845931 kN/s 13427
perft 9 time 250 positions 3963680 kN/s 15854
perft 10 time 1156 positions 18391564 kN/s 15909
perft 11 time 5437 positions 85242128 kN/s 15678
perft 12 time 24954 positions 388623673 kN/s 15573

Java checkers' first sensible game

After improving the evaluation function a bit and after adding some standard search improvements, my Java checkers engine now appears to be playing a good game. It searches 3 million positions per second on my 2GHz Core Duo laptop, and typically gets around 17 ply search depth within a few seconds (that is faster than simple checkers, and a few ply deeper than simple checkers). It can't use endgame databases (yet?!) and has no opening book, but apart from that it is "Cake light" - a simplified version of Cake, using parts of the evaluation and parts of the search strategies that Cake does - but all on a much less complex level. The code is a joy to read compared to the Cake source code :-) (and much shorter). I will still have to improve the "Javaness" of the code - coming from a procedural language, I am writing C-style code in Java...

Here is the first sensible game of the engine playing against itself - red got a winning position but then blew it. But at least this already looks like checkers to me.


[Event "test game"]
[Date "2009-03-08"]
[Black "Java Engine"]
[White "Java Engine"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
1. 11-15 22-18 2. 15x22 25x18 3. 8-11 29-25 4. 4-8 25-22 5. 11-16 23-19 6. 16x23 26x19 7. 9-14 18x9 8. 5x14 27-23 9. 8-11 22-18 10. 14-17 21x14 11. 10x17 24-20 12. 17-22 32-27 13. 1-5 30-26 14. 6-10 26x17 15. 10-15 19x10 16. 7x21 23-19 17. 2-7 27-24 18. 21-25 19-16 19. 12x19 24x8 20. 3x12 18-14 21. 25-30 28-24 22. 30-25 31-26 23. 25-21 26-22 24. 21-25 22-18 25. 25-22 18-15 26. 22-26 15-10 27. 5-9 10x3 28. 9x18 24-19 29. 18-22 3-7

Java checkers' first game

My as yet unnamed Java checkers engine just played its first game against itself! Apparently, there is still some room for improvement...

[Event "Test"]
[Date "3rd March 2009"]
[Black "Java Engine"]
[White "Java Engine"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
1. 11-15 22-18 2. 15x22 25x18 3. 8-11 29-25 4. 12-16 25-22 5. 16-20 24-19 6. 9-13 19-16 7. 5-9 28-24 8. 10-15 16-12 9. 6-10 23-19 10. 11-16 18x11 11. 16x23 27x18 12. 20x27 32x23 13. 7x16 22-17 14. 13x22 26x17 15. 9-13 30-26 16. 13x22 26x17 17. 16-20 31-27 18. 4-8 23-19 19. 8-11 17-13 20. 11-16 27-23 21. 20-24 18-14 22. 10x17 21x14 23. 24-27 19-15 24. 27-31 15-11 25. 31-26 23-18 26. 16-20 11-8 27. 26-22 18-15 28. 22-17 15-10 29. 20-24 8-4 30. 2-6 10-7 31. 17x10 7-2 32. 24-28 2x9 33. 1-5 4-8 34. 5x14 13-9 35. 28-32 9-5 36. 10-15 5-1 37. 14-18 8-4 38. 18-23 1-6 39. 23-27 6-2 40. 27-31 2-6 41. 15-11 6-2 42. 31-26 2-6 43. 32-28 6-2 44. 26-23 2-6 45. 23-26 6-2 46. 26-23 2-6 47. 23-26 6-2 48. 26-23 2-6 49. 23-26 6-2 50. 26-23 2-6

and a draw by repetition because it doesn't yet understand the concept of progress...