New Version of Maverick

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It’s been just under two weeks since I released Maverick into the wild.   Over that period there have been over 200 downloads – quite amazing.

I’ve also been busy.  After setting up the testing framework I had some time to add some standard chess engine components:

  • Checks in the first ply of the quiescent search
  • Standard endgame knowledge (KQ vs. K, KR vs. K, KBB vs. K, KBN vs. K)
  • Null move heuristic
  • Hash tables
  • Bug fixes (including a nasty time management bug)

To my surprise the null move heuristic didn’t add much value until I added the hash tables.  Once the hash tables were added the increase in strength was noticeable.  By my test this version of Maverick is now better than Monarch 1.7 and approximately +200 ELO better than the previous version.  In a 300 game match it convincingly beat Monarch in a lighting chess match (60 moves in 20 secs) with 140 wins, 104 loses and 56 draws, which is 56%  – yippee!!  The win was replicated at slightly slower time controls of 60 moves in 5 mins when Maverick scored 38 wins, 30 loses and 32 draws (54%).  If these results scale to other opponents it would give Maverick 0.1 a rating of about 2050 ELO on the CCRL rating list.  You can download Maverick 0.11 here.

EDIT: Version 0.11 replaces Version 0.10 which had a time management bug