Wanted: Authors of engines without book

[Dan Honeycutt]

Hi All:

I have rewritten Bruja's opening book and I'll gladly share the code if you are willing to be a guinea pig and let me know of any problems or bugs.

Bruja has a small built-in default book so it's never without a book. I have plans (and hopefully a co-conspirator in the person of Alessandro Scotti) to write a program to build a large book from a pgn file that would use the same code.

The book is easy to integrate into your engine. It is a simple class with one method: GetBookMove(). You have to write a function to fill in the 64 squares with piece values the book understands. It returns a Winboard format move string, ie "e2e4". The book is position based so it can handle all transpositions. It can also handle color reversal should the opening so transpose.

If your engine is lacking a book and you are interested, please post here or email me at dhoneycutt(at)jjg.com (replace (at) with @).

Best
Dan H.

[David Weller]

Hi Dan,

I have been 'adding' a book to GES for some time now, and still dont have one - too busy tweaking I guess

This seems like a generous offer to me!

Even if it just inspires....

[Dan Honeycutt]

Hi David

Thanks for your interest. Book sent. I wasn't sure about your email address and the forum email doesn't allow attachments (or maybe I don't know what I'm doing). If it fails to arrive, let me know.

Best
Dan H.

[David Weller]

Hi Dan,

No email yet...

[Dan Honeycutt]

Hi David:

Your address looks like what I had but I may have mistyped something. Just tried again (11 pm eastern). If that fails email me and I'll try with a reply.

Best
Dan H.

[David Weller]

GES_125 is using your book now, just fine.

I stll have that 'pre' call to the function, but it doesnt seem to hurt anything??

I once saw a game where an illegal move was played, but I lost it! So I will keep my eye open for it again -

[David Weller]

All is well with the book routines

[although, I am certain GES hasnt a clue sometimes what is going on]

[Dan Honeycutt]

Hi David:

Glad all is working. I'm making sloooow progress on a book builder.

Re the illegal move: It's quite possible I've entered some uh-ohs. Best is to take a move returned by the book and look it up in your engine's generated move list to make sure it's valid. If you find the culprit let me know. Thanks

Dan H.