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Subject: Re: Updating strange attack boards

Author: Matthias Gemuh

Date: 06:29:04 03/19/03

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On March 19, 2003 at 08:28:02, Ricardo Gibert wrote:

>On March 19, 2003 at 06:33:01, Matthias Gemuh wrote:
>
>>I decided to stop chess programming but even the latest version of my program
>>sucks. How can I quit in peace?
>>It calculates this attack information (bitboards of attackers to 64 squares)
>>    BITBOARD AttacksTo[64]
>>from scratch at each node. I tried to do this incremementally and it quickly got
>>messy and buggy because of sliding pieces, castle, en passant.
>>How do you attack attack boards (even the conventional type)?
>>
>>/Matthias.
>
>
>Let me share a couple of observations I have made concerning the development of
>amateur chess programs.
>
>The 1st big mistake I see repeatedly is being in too much of a rush make their
>programs strong by adding "fancy stuff." A very simple program can be fairly
>strong (> 2200 elo). You just need to get the fundamental things to work right
>*first*. Gerbil is a good example of what is possible with a reasonably simple
>program (about 2400 ICC rating). Don't layer the "fancy stuff" on top of the
>incorrectly implemented fundamental stuff.


Hi Ricardo,
I, indeed, do layer "fancy stuff" on junk :).
That explains why my prog scores a miserable 260/300 WAC at 5sec/pos on 1.8GHz.
BTW, my prog (BigLion) is at least 5 times slower than Gerbil, but equal in
strength at 1 minute/move.
If I should ever come back to chess programming, I think I would follow your
instructions. I just want to correct my fancy stuff now (my evaluation function
depends heavily on it).
Thanks,
Matthias.







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