Aart's Blog

Vaclav Vavra set up a new website for Virutor Chess , an UCI engine available for Windows, ARM-based Android devices (and Linux soon to follow). The Android version imports without any issues in Chess for Android . I also ran a quick tournament between the built-in engine, BikJump, and Virutor. The results are show below.                          1    2     3   1 BikJump              *   9.5  10.0   19.5/20   2 Chess for Android   0.5   *    8.0    8.5/20   3 Virutor Chess       0.0  2.0    *     2.0.20

Another engine that can be imported in  Chess for Android  just became available . Martin Sedlák released a new version of his engine Cheng3 , and Jim Ablett kindly made a binary available for ARM-based Android devices. The engine functions well, although it responds with " no GTB found" for the Gaviota endgame tablebases, even thought the cp4 versions reside in /sdcard/gtb. The results of a quick tournament with different engines varying in strength is shown below. Quite impressive!                      1          2          3          4          5         1 Stockfish 2.1      ********** 1111111111 1111111111 1111111101 1111111111 39.0/40 2 cheng3 1.07 JA     0000000000 ********** 10½0½100½1 11111½0111 1111111111 26.5/44 3 GarboChess3        0000000000 01½1½011½0 ********** 11110½½010 1111111111 21.5/40 4 Daydreamer 1.75 JA 0000000010 00000½1000 00001½½101 ********** 1½11111111 16.0/40 5 BikJump v2.1P      0000000000 0000000000 0000000000 0½00000000 **********  1.0

I just released version 3.1.1 of Chess for Android at the Android market and as direct download with the new Setup Position feature. Update : There was a minor bug in defining the halfmove clock of a position, something that is relevant only for positions affected by the fifty move rule. I have posted a fix in version 3.1.2 on my website (or you can wait for the next release through the market).

I finished the new Setup Position feature, which I hope to release really soon. The board editor allows specifying a full FEN position, that is, a board position together with castling rights, the side-to-move, and possibly an en-passant file and halfmove clock counter (for the fifty-move rule). Touching a piece outside the board changes the "pen" to that piece. Alternative, touching a piece on the board changes the "pen" into that piece, and removes the piece from the board (useful to move pieces on the board to another position). The landscape and portrait layouts are shown below.

By popular demand, I am working on a Setup Position feature in Chess for Android  (file, clipboard, and MIME type operations to import and export games are already supported).This new feature is still in prototype stage, but it is going to look something like shown below.

Starting with v3.1, Chess for Android registers itself as a viewer for the application/x-chess-pgn MIME type. This implies that when other Android applications request viewing a game in PGN format, Chess for Android, or any other chess program that supports this type, will open the game. I am new to this mechanism, but the following two ways of viewing a game seem to work well. To request viewing a game in PGN format that resides in a file (with proper permissions, so that other applications can read it), simply use the following code sequence: Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW); File file = ... file in pgn format ....; intent.setDataAndType(Uri.fromFile(file), "application/x-chess-pgn"); startActivity(intent); Alternatively, to view a game in PGN format that resides in a String, use the following code sequence (in this case, avoid confusing characters such as ':' in the String format): Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW); String

I just released version 3.1 of Chess for Android, available from the Android Market or as direct download . New features include: engine pondering (UCI and XBoard) fixed coach bug with move from/to a1 added application/x-chess-pgn MIME support

Richard Vida released Critter 1.4 , including a version for Android. This ARM binary imports well into Chess for Android . A quick 1-second-per-move tournament from both sides of all opening lines in the Nunn test suite on a Nexus S ended in favor of the previous version though.

Lucas Braesch released DoubleCheck 2.3  and I put an ARM binary on UCI and XBoard engines for Android  (you can find another binary for ARM on Jim Ablett's website ). Below, I show the results of a quick one-second-per-move tournament played from both sides of all lines in the Noomen test suite 2012  between some recent versions (32MB hash size, Nexus S).                   1         2          3                             1 DoubleCheck 2.3     *     36.5-23.5  39.5-20.5  76.0/120 2 DoubleCheck 2.0 23.5-36.5     *      35.5-24.5  59.0/120 3 DoubleCheck 1.3 20.5-39.5 24.5-35.5      *      45.0/120

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