Category: General

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MadChess Playing on Internet Chess Club (ICC)

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I registered a computer account on the Internet Chess Club (ICC). I’m using the WinBoard GUI to play MadChess against human opponents. I know the ratings of computer chess engines are not well calibrated to the ratings of human players. However, MadChess is exceeding my expectations, winning its first twenty games and counting. In case you’re wondering, I am not violating ICC rules. I registered MadChess as a computer account. All ICC players have the option of blocking computer players, if they wish to play only human opponents. See ICC Help : Computers for details. See Versus Human Ratings for… Continue Reading

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Taking A Break From Chess Programming, Not Chess

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I am taking a break from chess programming. Recently I started a new job. The job is in the same field I’ve been in for fifteen years (software development), but will be more technically challenging. Any programming I do in the near future will be devoted to work assignments. I am not, however, taking a break from chess. I am following the Anand – Carlsen World Championship match closely. Having Scandinavian blood, I am rooting for Magnus Carlsen. I intend to analyze the games with my chess engine and with Komodo, my favorite world-class chess engine. I’m interested to know… Continue Reading

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Shifting Focus

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Those of you who’ve written a chess engine understand how difficult it is to refrain from tinkering with the code. One always has ideas for more efficient algorithms or more concise code. These ideas need expression, need testing and verification. But at some point, due to the cruel law of diminishing returns, one has to walk away and work on other problems. I feel I’ve reached that point. I’d like to shift my focus from improving the playing strength of MadChess to writing a Graphical User Interface (GUI). To that end, I spent time today reading about the latest Microsoft… Continue Reading

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Testing MadChess 1.3

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I am testing MadChess 1.3 at rapid time controls (15 min / game + 10 sec / move). You can follow the games on the Live Games page. I’m running four instances of the Shredder GUI. I wrote a script to transfer tournament standings and games to this website, using the Windows FTP command line utility. I registered a task in the Windows Task Scheduler to run the script every five minutes. Earlier I tested MadChess 1.3 at faster time controls and got these results: Bullet ( 2 min / game +  1 sec / move): 2153 +/- 22 Elo… Continue Reading