New Version of The Baron (3.44)
Richard has released a new version of The Baron. This version cleans up some Syzygy bugs and fine-tunes the engine. He estimates the strength increase is +20 to +50 ELO.
Find out more here:
New Version of The Baron (v3.43) plus The Baron’s Polyglot Opening Book
Richard Pijl has been kind enough to released The Baron 3.43. This is almost identical to the version that played in the 2018 WCCC. Here are Richard’s release notes:
Changes since 3.42:
Bugs solved:
- Pin detection in evaluation only detected close pins.
- Handle spaces in the syzygy path
- Slightly more restrictive in playing easy moves
- Fixed singular extensions bug
- Increased search stack size
Improvement:
- Detecting pins to the queen
- Evaluation tuning
- Better use of time, especially on short time controls
- More selective in quiescence
- Reduced aspiration window
Changes since 3.41:
Bugs solved:
- UCI mode possible from the command prompt
- Handling missing dtz files correctly (I hope)
- Show Refutations is disabled as I did not have the time yet to look at it.
Improvement:
- Changed scoring on TB hits
- Keep probing TB during search on reaching TB positions
- Added Syzygy path option to UCI
- Ported to Raspberry Pi
- Full functionality available in native Linux version
- Refactoring of several classes
You can download it here. There is also The Baron’s opening book (in Polyglot format).
New Version of The Baron
Richard Pijl has just released another version of The Baron (v3.42). This will be the last version for this code base. Find out more, and download here
New Version of The Baron
Richard Pijl has kindly released his latest version of The Baron (3.41). You can find out more, and download it here.
Maverick 1.5 (Leiden WCCC 2015) Released
I’m happy to announce the release of Maverick 1.5. This is close to the version which competed in the 2015 World Computer Chess Championship in Leiden. I’d estimate that it’s only about +50 ELO better than version 1.o (based on self play). I’m about to embark on a rewrite of the evaluation function so I thought it a worthwhile launch.
The main changes are:
- Tweaks to the piece square tables (especially pawns)
- Added endgame knowledge
- Less selectivity
- Fixed a quiescent search bug which unnecessarily research some moves
You can download it below or from the Download Page. I’ve only included a 32 bit and 64 bit version which should work on most systems. If anyone would like to create a Linux / Apple Mac compile then I’d be happy to include it in with this version. The source is available here
New Engine – The Baron
I’m delighted to host another new engine at ChessProgramming.net. The Baron recently played at the WCCC in Leiden. It was operated by Richard’s delightful daughter Tessa. I’m not sure of the exact playing strength of The Baron but it’s certainly strong. It’s a full feature engine with SMP support and a comprehensive evaluation function. This version dates back to February 2012. You can find out more on The Baron’s own page.
Enjoy!
World Computer Chess Championship 2015
This week I’m in Leiden for the World Computer Chess Championships. I’ll try to blog about it. Here’s a quick pre-tournament video:
You can see Maverick’s screen and a video link here (maximum of 50 people):