by Jonathan Kreuzer
www.3dkingdoms.com/checkers.htm
Files:
You should unzip all the files to the same directory, then run guicheckers.exe.
If you want to use the .dll in CheckerBoard, you should copy to your checkerboard
directory, guicheck.dll, opening.gbk, and database.jef.
Gui Checkers will run without complaining even without opening.gbk and database.jef
in the same directory, but won't be able to use them.
Search Info Display:
Depth: 20/30 (0/8) Eval: -101 Move: 24-20 Time: 2.03s KNodes: 5500 KN/sec: 2730
This line means the computer started searching depth 20 but got information
back from 0 of 8 moves, so it only completed up to depth 18. The 30 is the depth
of the longest line it searched.
For the Evaluation, negative values are good for white, positive good for black,
and 100 is about equal to one checker.
Also given is the best move found so far, the amount of time spent searching,
and amount of kilonodes searched, and the number of kilonodes searched per second.
Menu Options:
Game->Save Game: Save the game as a .pdn file. If the file exists,
it will be written over.
Game->Load Game: Load the game from a .pdn file.
Edit->Position Edit: Set a new start position for this game. See
instructions in the bottom window.
Edit->Copy FEN: Copy a position to the clipboard as a text FEN string.
FEN is a standard format.
Edit->Paste FEN: Paste a FEN position from the clipboard.
Edit->Copy PDN: Copy a full game to the clipboard as a PDN string.
PDN is a standard checkers game format.
Edit->Paste PDN: Paste a PDN game from the clipboard.
Level->Beginner: The computer will search at most 2 ply.
Level->Advanced: The computer will search at most 8 ply.
Level->Expert: The computer will search as far as possible in the
time given.
Level->x Secs/Move: The computer will think for about number of
seconds, almost never more than twice this number.
Level->User Defined: Type in max search depth and max seconds per
move.
Options->Flip Board: Toggle between white or black pieces on the
bottom.
Options->Computer Off: The computer won't move any pieces, you'll
play both sides.
Development Menu Options: (you probably won't use these features)
Options->Hashing Toggle: Turn off hashing, slowing down the search.
Options->Clear Hash: Clear the hash table, this is needed to research
a test position from scratch, etc.
You can add/alter positions in the opening book in memory with the keyboard.
You can then manually save the book.
Positions have a value associated with them on whether they're neutral '0',
good for white, or good for red.
The computer will randomly choose from positions which are good for it, or neutral
if there are no good positions. It will ignore bad positions.
'3' - Add Current Board position / adjust towards '0'
'2' - Add/Adjust to being good for red
'4' - Add/Adjust to being good for white
'6' - Remove Position
'C' - Clear Opening Book in memory
'S' - Save Opening Book
Miscellaneous:
Future Plans:
Add a separate thinking thread to the guicheckers.exe, so the search can be
stopped and started at anytime, and I can add an analysis mode.
Try out a bitboard board representation.
Why is it named Gui Checkers?
The first version had a ASCII interface and a simple engine, and was called
"simple checkers." (Not a very original name, I have later found 3
other programs with that name.) When I added the graphical user interface, I
changed the name to "Gui Checkers."