Bonanza

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[ Bonanza team performs distributed tree search [1] Bonanza, (Bonanza Feliz)

an XBoard compliant open source Shogi engine developed by primary author Kunihito Hoki, started in 2004, at times supported by Takuya Obata, Takuya Sugiyama, and Takeshi Ito [2]. Bonanza is top contender at Computer Olympiads and World Computer Shogi Championships and so far two times champion, winning the WCSC16 in 2006, and the WCSC23 in 2013 [3].

Description#

Bonanza is written in C and utilizes 9x9 Bitboards in form of three 32-bit unsigned integers. It is a fractional ply alpha-beta engine performing a principal variation search with transposition table, null move pruning, recursive iterative-deepening for PV-nodes, various extensions, reductions, and futility pruning. Bonanza pioneered in large-scale machine learning of static evaluation functions, a supervised tuning method based on move adaptation, dubbed the Bonanza Method which evolved to Minimax Tree Optimization (MMTO). Bonanza utilizes and tuned piece-square tables indexed by king location and further two-piece locations and side to move (turn), dubbed KPP, KKP or KPPT, which was used in many other Shogi programs [4], and has influenced the design of NNUE [5].

Beside a parallel tree search, Bonanza is able to apply parallelization by the so called Consensus method [6], a kind of triple-brain approach where multiple, slightly modified instances of the same engine vote for the best move [7] [8].

Publications#

• Kunihito Hoki (2006). Optimal control of minimax search result to learn positional evaluation. 11th Game Programming Workshop (Japanese)
• Takuya Obata, Takuya Sugiyama, Kunihito Hoki, Takeshi Ito (2010). Consultation Algorithm for Computer Shogi: Move Decisions by Majority. CG 2010
• Takuya Sugiyama, Takuya Obata, Kunihito Hoki, Takeshi Ito (2010). Optimistic Selection Rule Better Than Majority Voting System. CG 2010
• Tomoyuki Kaneko, Kunihito Hoki (2011). Analysis of Evaluation-Function Learning by Comparison of Sibling Nodes. Advances in Computer Games 13
• Kunihito Hoki, Tomoyuki Kaneko (2011). The Global Landscape of Objective Functions for the Optimization of Shogi Piece Values with a Game-Tree Search. Advances in Computer Games 13
• Kunihito Hoki, Masakazu Muramatsu (2012). Efficiency of three Forward-Pruning Techniques in Shogi: Futility Pruning, Null-move Pruning, and Late Move Reduction (LMR). Entertainment Computing, Vol. 3, No. 3
• Kunihito Hoki, Tomoyuki Kaneko (2014). Large-Scale Optimization for Evaluation Functions with Minimax Search. JAIR Vol. 49, pdf [9]
• Kunihito Hoki, Seiya Omori, Takeshi Ito (2014). Analysis of Performance of Consultation Methods in Computer Chess. Journal of Information Science and Engineering, Vol. 30, pdf
• Takenobu Takizawa, Takeshi Ito, Takuya Hiraoka, Kunihito Hoki (2015). Contemporary Computer Shogi. Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games

Forum Posts#

• Source file of Bonanza 4.0.3 became available to downloadable by Takodori, SHOGI-L, January 29, 2009
• XBoard version of Bonanza by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, October 20, 2010
• The Japan Times on-line 20111102 and Shogi by Alain Van hentenryck, SHOGI-L, November 02, 2011
• Bonanza wins Computer Shogi Championship by Hiroshi Yamashita, SHOGI-L, May 06, 2013
• Bonanza version adapted for interactive analysis (release) by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, September 14, 2013
• Bonanza version adapted for interactive analysis by Harm Geert Muller, SHOGI-L, September 14, 2013
• better appearance of BONANZA by shogipl…, SHOGI-L, October 21, 2014

External Links#

Shogi Engine#

• GitHub - ianfab/bonanza: strong shogi engine (with support for XBoard protocol) hosted by Fabian Fichter
• Bonanza Shogi Engine hosted by Harm Geert Muller
• Bonanza’s ICGA Tournaments
• Famous Shogi Games: Bonanza vs Watanabe (March 21, 2007), YouTube Video

Misc#

• bonanza - Wiktionary
• Bonanza (disambiguation) from Wikipedia
• Bonanza from Wikipedia
• Feliz from Wikipedia

References#

1. ↑ Photo of the main cast of Bonanza. From left - Dan Blocker (Hoss), Michael Landon (Little Joe), Lorne Greene (Ben), Pernell Roberts (Adam), September 20, 1959, Author: NBC Television. Category:Bonanza (TV series) - Wikimedia Commons
2. ↑ WCSC20 Participant List by Nobu, SHOGI-L, February 02, 2010
3. ↑ Takenobu Takizawa, Takeshi Ito, Takuya Hiraoka, Kunihito Hoki (2015). Contemporary Computer Shogi. Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games
4. ↑ The 25th World Computer Shogi Championships by Reijer Grimbergen on behalf of Takenobu Takizawa, SHOGI-L, February 11, 2015
5. ↑ 機械学習エンジニアのための将棋AI開発入門その1 Introduction to Shogi AI development for machine learning engineers Part 1, May 03, 2020 (Japanese)
6. ↑ Bonanzaの特徴は、 Characteristics of Bonanza - wcsc23 2013
7. ↑ Takuya Obata, Takuya Sugiyama, Kunihito Hoki, Takeshi Ito (2010). Consultation Algorithm for Computer Shogi: Move Decisions by Majority. CG 2010
8. ↑ Kunihito Hoki, Seiya Omori, Takeshi Ito (2014). Analysis of Performance of Consultation Methods in Computer Chess. Journal of Information Science and Engineering, Vol. 30, pdf
9. ↑ MMTO for evaluation learning by Jon Dart, CCC, January 25, 2015

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