Sargon II Chess

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16KVIC20
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by 16KVIC20 »

Thanks Mayhem, that would be great.
16KVIC20
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by 16KVIC20 »

Well that was irritating! Second game in a row which had to be abandoned after less than 10 moves due to the sheer length of time being taken on each move!

Unfortunately time was at a premium today as I had to take the car to the garage and then go back to pick it up later, leaving me a smaller window than I would have liked.

There is definitely an imbalance between Sargon II and Cyrus. Today, based on average length taken over move, I left Sargon on Level 4 (which is 6 minutes - huh, if only!), and I cranked Cyrus up to level 7, which is also supposed to be 6 minutes. At that level even the Dragon 32 takes quite a long time to respond, sometimes as long as the VIC 20. The difference is though, that the VIC 20 works at 4 or 5 Ply, whereas the Dragon 32 works at 7 Ply.

Maybe next time I should try to marry up two levels that work on the same number Ply.

Anyway, that won't be until mid way through the week after next at earliest.
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cercamon
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by cercamon »

After a bit of struggle with the emulator, I was able to start Sargon II on xvic (in the weekend I'll try on the real hw).
First game I was black at level 0, tried to discover how to move, got distracted, lost my queen soon. Game over. Next game, with White I won a Ruy-Lopez game, where Sargon II (black) was really aggressive and attacking. The final position:

Image

And the PGN from move 23. when I started to annotate the game:

Image

1.a4 Rd6 2.Re8+ Rd8 3.Qe6+ Kb8 4.Rxd8+ Ka7 5.Rxd4 cxd4 6.Nb5+ axb5 7.axb5+
Kb8 8.Qe8#

It was very demanding for me and I took quite some time each move but then Sargon II at level 0 seems not unbeatable... You could make it too, 16KVic20! :-)
16KVIC20
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by 16KVIC20 »

Thanks Cercamon. I'm sure I could too, if I really put my mind to it. I also think it would help if I set up a real chess set and emulated the moves on it. There is something a bit odd about seeing it plan view only.

Alas the sad fact is that I'm not really a very good chess player, but surely even I can muster a victory against Sargon II at level 0!

Cercamon, well done, although I'm pleased it was hard. Now I know that 33 years was not in vain! ;)
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cercamon
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by cercamon »

Alas the sad fact is that I'm not really a very good chess player, but surely even I can muster a victory against Sargon II at level 0!

Cercamon, well done, although I'm pleased it was hard. Now I know that 33 years was not in vain! ;)
Yes, I'm sure you can beat it. What I find very impressive is the strength of the AI algorithm of Sargon II, even at level 0. I'm not a chess player but I have a little experience about the game and about chess software (I'm trying to collect them all, for all platforms). Sargon II is quite impressive as in just 8K you really have a strong opponent. It would be very interesting to look at the source code and the algorithm behind it.
16KVIC20
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by 16KVIC20 »

Have a go at Cyrus Chess on a Dragon 32 Emulator, I think XRoar is one that people use.

See how you get on with that. If you do, it's default level is 2. I just played it in level 2, and didn't really find it any harder than Sargon II in level 0. I still lost though, but I made it hard for it!!!
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cercamon
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by cercamon »

Dragon 32 emulator... Barely know what a Dragon 32 is.. Gotta Google for it. Thanks. I used to play Cyrus chess on my old XT 8086 pc with a Hercules hires card... Those were the days.
I remember that Cyrus was very strong even at first levels. It must be the same game ported to many platforms, like Sargon was as well.
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Mayhem
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by Mayhem »

16KVIC20 wrote:Thanks Mayhem, that would be great.
Had a look, couldn't see it in my crates of Vic20 games, so probably don't have it. If I do acquire down the road, I'll let you know heh.
Lie with passion and be forever damned...
16KVIC20
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by 16KVIC20 »

Mayhem, that would be great; thank you so much for checking.
16KVIC20
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by 16KVIC20 »

cercamon wrote:Dragon 32 emulator... Barely know what a Dragon 32 is.. Gotta Google for it. Thanks. I used to play Cyrus chess on my old XT 8086 pc with a Hercules hires card... Those were the days.
I remember that Cyrus was very strong even at first levels. It must be the same game ported to many platforms, like Sargon was as well.

Well that's pretty much the case for most of us that lived through the micro era here in the UK as well. It was a very short lived platform, but I remember at the time I thought it looked like a good machine. I recently acquired mine from my brother in law. He had a computer shop in the early 80s and still had a Dragon 32 in his garage. He heard of my geeky interest and decided to give it to me. As the name suggests it is supposed to have 32K of RAM, mine didn't, it only had 8K, so nothing would load. Luckily a kind Dragon technician was able to fix it for me, and it works beautifully now. It was basically the TRS - 80 Co - Co re badged for the UK. A pretty good machine, much underrated.
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cercamon
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by cercamon »

Thanks for letting me know about this machine. I heard something about it in the 80s but never seen one in action. Yesterday I was able to emulate it with XRoar and started Cyrus Chess ROM image. Also found the game manual. Pretty strong opponent at lowest levels. I did find a lot of information and games / applications, and docs to be downloaded. My retro-collection of hardware now needs another UK machine other than the Acorn Micro BBC/Electron or even Archimedes. Now I need to find a Dragon 32/64 or a Tandy TRS... Really fascinating 8-bit machine. Thanks again! :)
TNT
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by TNT »

TNT wrote:I have C64 Sargon II disassembly somewhere. If I have a free evening or two next week I will assemble it to $a000 area to check if VIC 20 code is the same.
Too many code changes to make it fit VIC-20 memory for easy comparison, so I did partial disassemply of VIC-20 version. As far as I can see, C64 plays identical game.

C64 computer move code is at $4b12, starts with

Code: Select all

4B12 20 2C 5F     JSR CalcMove
4B15 AD 61 33     LDA scoreH_stack
4B18 C9 00        CMP #0
4B1A D0 07        BNE _1
4B1C AD 54 33     LDA scoreL_stack
4B1F C9 01        CMP #1
4B21 F0 33        BEQ _mate0
4B23          
4B23          _1
4B23 20 FA 4D     JSR SelectMove
VIC-20 code is at $aae9 (routine starts at $aae1)

Code: Select all

AAE9 20 E2 BB     JSR     CalcMove
AAEC A5 30        LDA     scoreH_stack
AAEE D0 06        BNE     _1
AAF0 A5 23        LDA     scoreL_stack
AAF2 C9 01        CMP     #1
AAF4 F0 38        BEQ     _mate0
AAF6          
AAF6          _1
AAF6 20 76 AD     JSR     SelectMove
Digging deeper from that point shows same routines.
16KVIC20
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by 16KVIC20 »

cercamon wrote:Thanks for letting me know about this machine. I heard something about it in the 80s but never seen one in action. Yesterday I was able to emulate it with XRoar and started Cyrus Chess ROM image. Also found the game manual. Pretty strong opponent at lowest levels. I did find a lot of information and games / applications, and docs to be downloaded. My retro-collection of hardware now needs another UK machine other than the Acorn Micro BBC/Electron or even Archimedes. Now I need to find a Dragon 32/64 or a Tandy TRS... Really fascinating 8-bit machine. Thanks again! :)

No problem. Glad you got XRoar to work. It's an often overlooked machine.
16KVIC20
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by 16KVIC20 »

TNT wrote:
TNT wrote:I have C64 Sargon II disassembly somewhere. If I have a free evening or two next week I will assemble it to $a000 area to check if VIC 20 code is the same.
Too many code changes to make it fit VIC-20 memory for easy comparison, so I did partial disassemply of VIC-20 version. As far as I can see, C64 plays identical game.

C64 computer move code is at $4b12, starts with

Code: Select all

4B12 20 2C 5F     JSR CalcMove
4B15 AD 61 33     LDA scoreH_stack
4B18 C9 00        CMP #0
4B1A D0 07        BNE _1
4B1C AD 54 33     LDA scoreL_stack
4B1F C9 01        CMP #1
4B21 F0 33        BEQ _mate0
4B23          
4B23          _1
4B23 20 FA 4D     JSR SelectMove
VIC-20 code is at $aae9 (routine starts at $aae1)

Code: Select all

AAE9 20 E2 BB     JSR     CalcMove
AAEC A5 30        LDA     scoreH_stack
AAEE D0 06        BNE     _1
AAF0 A5 23        LDA     scoreL_stack
AAF2 C9 01        CMP     #1
AAF4 F0 38        BEQ     _mate0
AAF6          
AAF6          _1
AAF6 20 76 AD     JSR     SelectMove
Digging deeper from that point shows same routines.
Thanks TNT, so no point setting the C64 against the Dragon using Sargon II then!
16KVIC20
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Re: Sargon II Chess

Post by 16KVIC20 »

Unfortunately my Atari Flashback 3 seems to have died in its sleep. So I shan't be doing Atari VCS 2600 Video Chess any time soon.
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