Protector
[.jpg) Dharma Protector [1] Protector,
an UCI compliant open source chess engine written by Raimund Heid in C, distributed under the GNU General Public License GPL. Protector already started its life in early 2000 [2] , and over the time incorporated many public ideas and techniques known from other open source programs, notably Crafty, Fruit, Toga, Glaurung/ Stockfish and RobboLito. It can be compiled to run under Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Protector is incorporated in the cluster chess project GridProtector by Kai Himstedt which had its debut at PT 49.
Photos & Games
WCCC 2015
WCCC 2015, round 2, Steve Maughan and Timo Haupt in Maverick vs. Protector [3]
WCSC 2015
WCSC 2015, round 2, Harvey Williamson and Timo Haupt in Protector vs. HIARCS waiting for 20.Qa8+
Description
Move Generation
Protector is bitboard based and applies Lasse Hansen’s plain magic bitboards to determine sliding piece attacks. Staged move generation considers PV- and hash move, winning captures and up to four killers early, and otherwise orders captures by SEE and quiet moves by the history heuristic and various static move properties.
Search
Protector uses a pool of threads to perform a parallel search loosely synchronized by a shared hash table. The serial principal variation search with null move pruning and verification, razoring, futility pruning, late move reductions, IID, check- and restricted singular extensions is embedded inside the common iterative deepening frame with aspiration.
Evaluation
The evaluation caches pawn structure and king safety stuff in thread local hash tables. Opening and endgame scores of various features are computed and aggregated speculatively and finally interpolated by a tapered eval on the current game phase.
Acknowledgment
See also
Forum Posts
2009
- Protector - new UCI engine by Denis P. Mendoza, Toga Developers Discussion Board, August 12, 2009
- Found 2 New Engines: Protector and BDI Chess by Swaminathan, Winboard Forum, August 16, 2009
- Protector 1.2.7 by Patrick Buchmann, WBEC-Ridderkerk Forum, August 27, 2009
- Re:Original project by Ruxy Sylwyka, CCC, August 29, 2009
- What was the verdict on Protector 1.2.7? by Graham Banks, CCC, October 03, 2009
- Protector 1.2.9 executables with egtb access by Volker Pittlik, CCC, October 22, 2009
- Protector 1.3.2 released by Graham Banks, CCC, November 26, 2009
2010 …
- Protector by Olivier Deville, Winboard Forum, March 04, 2010
- Protector 1.5 is coming! by Jesús Muñoz, CCC, January 29, 2013
- Unofficial Protector 1.6 by Jose Mº Velasco, CCC, December 21, 2013
- Protector 1.7.0 is released… by Dr.Wael Deeb, CCC, September 21, 2014
2015 …
- Protector 1.8.0 ?! by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, May 20, 2015
- Protector 1.8.0 officially released by Graham Banks, CCC, May 27, 2015
- Protector 1.9 Available for the Mac by Michael B, CCC, November 24, 2015
- Re-release Protector 1.9 for the Mac by Michael B, CCC, January 02, 2016
External Links
Chess Engine
- Protector | Free software downloads at SourceForge
- Protector’s ICGA Tournaments
- Interview with Raimund Heid, by Frank Quisinsky, Schachwelt.de, February 20, 2010 (German)
- Protector in CCRL 40/40
Misc
- protector - Wiktionary
- Protector (disambiguation) from Wikipedia
- Protector (DC Comics) from Wikipedia
- Protector (Marvel Comics) from Wikipedia
- Protectors (comics) from Wikipedia
- Protector (novel) from Wikipedia
- Protector (title) from Wikipedia
- Pak Protector from Wikipedia
- Protectorate from Wikipedia
- Protection (disambiguation) from Wikipedia
- Dharmapala from Wikipedia
- Citipati from Wikipedia
- Iron Savior - Protector, Condition Red (2002), YouTube Video
References
- ↑ Dharma Protector, Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh Gaya, Flickr Image by Anandajoti Bhikkhu, Penang, Malaysia, March 16, 2013, Wikimedia Commons
- ↑ Interview with Raimund Heid, by Frank Quisinsky, Schachwelt.de, February 20, 2010 (German)
- ↑ WCCC 2015 and WCSC 2015 photos by Gerd Isenberg
- ↑ Acknowledgment from Protector_1_9_0.zip/readme.txt file
- ↑ Thank you! ( Gerd Isenberg, March 16, 2013) My own contribution to Magic Bitboards was the line-wise forerunner, dubbed Kindergarten Bitboards, also tried with “random” factors, while Lasse Hansen had the idea to hash both lines simultaneously. I was initially skeptical whether the huge tables pay off.