DrunkenMaster 0.1 - New engine

[Marcus Prewarski]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Marcus Prewarski at 22 January 2003 07:40:30:

Hola,
I wanted to announce the first version of a chess engine I wrote called DrunkenMaster.
It is not a very strong engine yet but I hope to improve it a lot, right now it often plays like it is drunk. It seems stable right now, it has played dozens of games against other winboard engines and against humans as a guest on ICC without problem. It comes with a tiny opening book of about 100 positions.
To give an example of it's strength, I played it against a few other weaker engines in some 5 minute for 40 move games. My system is a 500Mhz P3.
Opponent: Result:
tscp1.73 0-2
StAndersen1.31 1-1
Nero5.1 2-0

-Marcus Prewarski


DrunkenMaster

[Ed Seid]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Ed Seid at 22 January 2003 09:56:27:
Als Antwort auf: / In reply to: DrunkenMaster 0.1 - New engine geschrieben von: / posted by: Marcus Prewarski at 22 January 2003 07:40:30:

Excellent! As an aspiring chess engine programmer myself, seeing new engines (no matter how weak) come to life gives me hope that my dream may come to fruition someday.
A couple of questions...
- from what country is this engine (I assume USA?)
- what programming language
- how long have you worked on it
- on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the difficulty to get to this point?
- are you an experienced programmer?
Thanks and best of luck... I've downloaded it and will try it out on the servers!

[Ed Seid]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Ed Seid at 22 January 2003 11:07:10:
Als Antwort auf: / In reply to: Re: DrunkenMaster 0.1 - New engine geschrieben von: / posted by: Ed Seid at 22 January 2003 09:56:27:

Currently, I'm playing DrunkenMaster 0.1 on ICC as a guest. After 3 games, I note that the engine sucks pretty bad!! But at least I don't get a bunch of disconnects or nasty tells accusing me of being a computer cheat.
On the bright side, the engine seems to be pretty stable. No problems running unattended under Winboard.
I have seeks at 10 0, 15 0 and 25 0. If I let it run unattended and it accumulates enough games versus registered human players with ratings, I'll post a followup message re: the estimated playing strength of the engine based on play vs humans at these time controls. Judging from what I've seen so far, don't expect it to be above 1600!

[Marcus Prewarski]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Marcus Prewarski at 22 January 2003 16:11:59:
Als Antwort auf: / In reply to: Re: DrunkenMaster 0.1 - New engine geschrieben von: / posted by: Ed Seid at 22 January 2003 09:56:27:

Excellent! As an aspiring chess engine programmer myself, seeing new engines (no matter how weak) come to life gives me hope that my dream may come to fruition someday.
A couple of questions...
- from what country is this engine (I assume USA?)
- what programming language
- how long have you worked on it
- on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the difficulty to get to this point?
- are you an experienced programmer?
Thanks and best of luck... I've downloaded it and will try it out on the servers!

Yes me and the engine are from the left side of the USA
It is written in C.
I started work on in about 5 weeks ago, but I've worked pretty hard on it in that time.
Writing a chess engine (even a bad one) wasn't that easy in this time, it can be difficult debugging your search or evaluation when generating so many positions. I don't want to discourage anyone from trying it though, because I learned a lot about computer chess in that time.
I work as a computer programmer so yes I am experienced. One of the reasons I wanted to release it now is I wanted to put this version out and take a short break from working on it. Between work and this project I've spent too much time in front of a computer lately.
-Marcus

[Marcus Prewarski]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Marcus Prewarski at 22 January 2003 16:23:12:
Als Antwort auf: / In reply to: DrunkenMaster 0.1 as ICC guest geschrieben von: / posted by: Ed Seid at 22 January 2003 11:07:10:



Yes DrunkenMaster 0.1 has 2 main problems, it is slow and doesn't know much about chess. But other than that it is fine .
My ICC rating blitz rating is around 1500 and I think it is a little better than me at blitz so I expect the engine to be around 1600 on ICC. I've applied for a computer account so hopefully I will get that set up soon. I think I would beat it at longer time controls. On my computer it crushes the program MSCP which is ranked around 1800 at ICC. However one of the strengths of MSCP against humans is that it moves instantly, not allowing you think on its clock. DrunkenMaster 0.1 doesn't support pondering so it doesn't matter to it. I don't expect it to have a rating as high as MSCP. I've noticed that it may play some lousy games where it really looks drunk then put up a string of wins and sometimes play a good game.
Hopefully I will be able make new versions pretty soon that are a bit stronger.
Thanks for your interest.
-Marcus

[Ed Seid]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Ed Seid at 23 January 2003 17:17:43:
Als Antwort auf: / In reply to: DrunkenMaster 0.1 - New engine geschrieben von: / posted by: Marcus Prewarski at 22 January 2003 07:40:30:

1- Provide an email address in the included README file, so that people can email you directly with bug reports and suggestions.
2- Adjust search such that if there's only one legal move, DrunkenMaster will move instantly (currently, it ponders).

[Marcus Prewarski]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Marcus Prewarski at 23 January 2003 19:23:13:
Als Antwort auf: / In reply to: A couple of suggestions geschrieben von: / posted by: Ed Seid at 23 January 2003 17:17:43:

1- Provide an email address in the included README file, so that people can email you directly with bug reports and suggestions.
2- Adjust search such that if there's only one legal move, DrunkenMaster will move instantly (currently, it ponders).

I'm always a little careful about adding my email address to places because I don't want to start receiving a bunch of spam , but you are right and I will include it. Bug reports and suggestions are not spam.
Yes I've noticed that too and I will fix that for the next version. I will release a new version in about a week that will be a bit stronger and have some other improvements.
Thanks again for your input.
-Marcus