Aart's Blog

Another engine for ARM-based Android devices! Tony Hecker kindly made ARM binaries of  Tjchess  available as either an UCI engine or a XBoard engine. Both import well in Chess for Android . Some screenshots below. With so many new engines, is it time for yet another Android chess engine tournament ?

The list of chess engines compiled for ARM-based Android devices keeps growing. Someone pointed me to Borko Boskovic's Umko engine. I tested this UCI engine in Chess for Android , and it works well. Some screenshots below.

Group A has finished a complete thirty seconds-per-move tournament in Chess for Android , played from both sides of all positions in the Nunn opening suite under the conditions described earlier. Congratulations to Richard Vida for Critter 's victory in this tournament! All games can be downloaded from the tournament page . This completes the Android tournament with longer time controls (although since many more engines are available now, perhaps another one is already necessary!).                        1         2        3         4         5                     1 Critter 1.2 32-bit       *     11.5-8.5  9.5-10.5  15.0-5.0  11.5-8.5  47.5/80 2 Stockfish 2.1.1 JA    8.5-11.5     *    13.0-7.0    9.5-10.5 11.0-9.0  42.0/80 3 Komodo32 2.03 AB     10.5-9.5   7.0-13.0    *      13.0-7.0  11.5-8.5  42.0/80 4 RobboLito 0.085g3l    5.0-15.0 10.5-9.5  7.0-13.0      *     12.0-8.0  34.5/80 5 IvanHoe-Beta v999947c 8.5-11.5  9.0-11.0 8.5-11.5   8.0-12.0     *     34.0/80

Jim Ablett kindly compiled Jon Dart's Arasan engine for ARM-based Android devices so that it can be imported in Chess for Android . The engine supports multithreading, Nalimov endgame tablebases, and clocked at about 100Kns out of the opening on my Nexus S.  

As posted earlier, Jim Ablett posted an Android Chess Engine Bundle , which various UCI and Win/XBoard engines that can be imported in Chess for Android . Because the Win/XBoard protocol feature is still relatively new in Chess for Android and conducted a test tournament between all the XBoard engines (except gfc-08-rev5-ja which often claims a mate without actually making the move; I am not sure if the standard allows this, but it seems weird that the GUI should verify the claim). During this tournament I found a few opportunities for improving the GUI's handling of the protocol, which will be released soon. Also, the next release will add the much requested pondering feature (also called permanent brain ). Games available on request.                           1  olithink-530-ja          34.5/38 2  crafty-234-ja            32.0/38 3  phalanx-xxii-ja          29.5/38 4  chess-one-201-ja         29.0/38 5  gullydeckel-215-pl10-ja  25.5/38 6  sloppy-023-ja            25.5

Group B has finished a complete thirty seconds-per-move tournament in Chess for Android , played from both sides of all positions in the Nunn opening suite under the conditions described earlier. Regrettably I found that Crafty was put at a slight disadvantage (not something that would have changed the outcome though) due to a misinterpretation of XBoard's resign plus move command, causing a resign by illegal move in the next game. This issue has been fixed now. Congratulations to IvanHoe for its promotion to Group A. All games can be downloaded from the tournament page . The games of the final group A have started!                        1        2        3         4        5                     1 IvanHoe-Beta 999947c    *     15.0-5.0 17.0-3.0  19.0-1.0 19.0-1.0 70.0/80 2 scorpio              5.0-15.0     *     7.5-12.5 17.5-2.5 14.5-5.5 44.5/80  3 Toga II 1.4.1SE      3.0-17.0 12.5-7.5     *     12.0-8.0 13.0-7.0 40.5/80  4 crafty               1.0-19.0  2.5-17.5 8

Jim Ablett very kindly posted an Android Chess Engine Bundle with various UCI and XBoard engines that can be imported in Chess for Android . UCI: daydreamer-175-ja  greko-82-ja    redqueen-098-ja  stockfish-211-ja diablo-051b-ja     jazz-501-ja    rotor-04-ja      sungorus-14-ja doublecheck-21-ja  komodo-13-ja   simplex-098-ja garbochess-3-ja    pepito-159-ja  sissa-20-ja XBOARD: uzz-os-11-27-08          kmtchess-121-ja   scidlet-361-b2-ja chess-one-201-ja         knightcap-36-ja   sjeng-112-ja crafty-234-ja            mizar-030-ja      sloppy-023-ja exchess-054-beta-ja      mskcp-145-ja      surprise-43-beta13-ja gfc-08-rev5-ja           natwarlal-014-ja  toledo-nanochess-2010-ja gk-090-ja                olithink-530-ja   zzzzzz-351-ja gullydeckel-215-pl10-ja  phalanx-xxii-ja

Group C has just finished a complete thirty seconds-per-move tournament in Chess for Android , played from both sides of all positions in the Nunn opening suite under the conditions described earlier. Congratulations to Gary Linscott for GarboChess' promotion to Group B. All games can be downloaded from the tournament page .                            1        2         3         4        5                     1 GarboChess3                 *     10.5-9.5   9.5-10.5 15.0-5.0 16.0-4.0  51.0/80 2 Daydreamer 1.75 JA        9.5-10.5    *     12.0-8.0  14.5-5.5 13.0-7.0  49.0/80 3 GNU Chess 5.07.153.3b-32 10.5-9.5  8.0-12.0     *     11.0-9.0 16.0-4.0  45.5/80 4 Pepito v1.59              5.0-15.0 5.5-14.5  9.0-11.0     *     9.0-11.0 28.5/80 5 Rotor 0.6a                4.0-16.0 7.0-13.0  4.0-16.0 11.0-9.0     *     26.0/80

After many more cycles on my Nexus One, Group D has just finished a complete thirty seconds-per-move tournament in Chess for Android , played from both sides of all positions in the Nunn opening suite under the conditions described earlier. Quite a shuffle-up in the results this time compared to the qualification tournament. Congratulations to Aaron Becker for Daydreamer's promotion to Group C. All games can be downloaded from the tournament page .                       1        2         3         4        5 1 Daydreamer 1.75 JA     *     12.0-8.0  11.0-9.0  14.5-5.5 16.0-4.0  53.5/80 2 sloppy              8.0-12.0     *     14.0-6.0  10.5-9.5 16.0-4.0  48.5/80 3 RedQueen 0.9.8 JA   9.0-11.0  6.0-14.0     *     11.5-8.5 14.0-6.0  40.5/80 4 gaviota v0.84       5.5-14.5  9.5-10.5  8.5-11.5     *    15.0-5.0  38.5/80 5 Diablo 0.5.1b JA    4.0-16.0  4.0-16.0  6.0-14.0  5.0-15.0    *     19.0/80

The Micro-KIM arrived today! I did some initial experimentation with my 6502 cross-assembler and was happy that the paper tape format l recently added could be uploaded to the device without any problems. What better first program to write than "HELLO WORLD" (except only HELLO fits on the display)? It was fun figuring out how to control the display using low level 6502 programming.