how to play a vairation in a pgn in winboard?

[evergreen1]

while watching a game pgn in winboard, at a certain point, if i want to test a variation of the game, how can i do that?

[H.G.Muller]

What do you mean by 'test'? Just play it for yourself? Or let an engine think about it?

If you don't care whether the remaining moves of the original game will be erased, you can simply go to the position with < > buttons, select Edit Game (or Analysis Mode), and play the variation. If you want to be able to revert to the old main line, you should play the deviating move with Shift pressed. The only difference this makes is that you can use the Revert menu item later to abandon the variation when you are done with it (or Annotate if you want it to be added to the PGN), and restore the old main line.

[evergreen1]

What do you mean by 'test'? Just play it for yourself? Or let an engine think about it?

thanks for the response. I want to see what will happen if i play such a move. then the engine should make the response. again i will make the move. so on it will continue.

what i want to achieve is , in a certain point of the game, i will branch out . and make moves by myself. against which the engine should respond.

as per your instruction .i went on

edit mode by clicking on MODE button and selecting edit game.

i branched out at move No. 23. and played black . now the engine should play the white. when i looked engine play white etc are greyed out.
how can i achieve this task?
i want to explain again.

i will open a pgn. at certain point, say move NO.23 for example, i want to play the black. i want the engine should play white hereafter. after my "test" it should revert back to the original line.

btw where can i see which engine is loaded? is it in the engine button? there at the bottom i can see Fairymax 4.8. is it the engine name?

[H.G.Muller]

If 'Machine White' is greyed out it means that you have not started WinBoard with an engine, but that you are in Game Viewer mode. I don't know how you started WinBoard. (By clicking the PGN file? That would indeed strat it in Game Viewer mode.)

You can use Engine -> Load 1st Engine to load / install an engine when you are in Game Viewer mode.

The last items on the Engine menu are 'recently used engines'. They are provided as a short-cut to the Load 1st Engine dialog. So if you want Fairy-Max 4.8 to play against the moves you try, you could click that menu item.

[evergreen1]

(By clicking the PGN file? That would indeed strat it in Game Viewer mode.)

exactly that was what i did.I followed your instrustion. open an fary-max 4.8 engine.(says> it does not allow analysis mode!)


now i could see the engine play white option. done/

now i would like to ask you where i can find the option to off the flag so that the time factor will not come into play. thanks for the guidelines.

btw . as you said, in the mode button menu , the engine name shows is what we have used last, then how can i know that which engine is in action now?

[H.G.Muller]

In 'Machine White/Black' mode engines will always pay attention to the time on their clocks. You can instruct WinBoard not to forfeit engines that go over time (Auto Flag in General Options), but that won't affect the engine. (You could cause it to allow yourself more time, though.)

Normally WinBoard would print the engine name in the window title at startup. And in Machine White mode it would print the name of both players (i.e. your user name and the engine's there). Normally you would know what engine you are using, because you just loaded that, or requested it through the startup dialog. WinBoard never loads an engine on its own initiative.

[evergreen1]

(Auto Flag in General Options)

thanks a lot for the suggestions. after loading an engine , i could see the autoflag option. after loading the engine i could see the name at the top of the wb as you suggested.after loading an engine today and worked for a few hours, then tomorrow if i open the wb, you mean to say that there would be no engine loaded? that means, everytime i load wb, i have to load an engine first.am i right?

[H.G.Muller]

It depends on how you open WinBoard. The install creates entries in the Windows Start menu to start it with some specific engines that come with the package (Fairy-Max, Fruit, Pulsar). You can also start through the Startup Dialog, and select an engine there from the combobox. If you start it through clicking a PGN file, however, it is configured to start up in Game Viewer mode, i.e. without engine.

You can reconfigure it to do behave otherwise, though: start it up through the Startup Dialog (e.g. by clicking winboard.exe), and type as 'Additional options'

-viewerOptions {-fcp "ENGINE.exe" -fd "ENGINEFOLDER" -engineOutputUp true -saveSettingsOnExit false}

This would reconfigure Game Viewer mode (which remains the mode you will start in by clciking on a PGN file) to invoke the mentioned engine. (If that is a UCI engine, you would also have to add the option -fUCI between the {}.)

[evergreen1]

thanks for the response.

(If that is a UCI engine,

i have seen this term in many places. what is UCI engine? if some engines are termed UCI, there is certainly other type of engines and what are they? how can i know that a particular engine is UCI? what are the advantageous of a UCI over other type?

[H.G.Muller]

There are two standardized methods of communication between engines and GUIs: WinBoard protocol and Universal Chess Interface. The former is WinBoard's native mode of communication (as the name suggests). But UCI engines would not understand it, but have to be 'spoken to' in UCI. To tell this to WinBoard you have to include the option -fUCI (for first engine) or -sUCI (for second engine). Fruit, the other engine that comes with the WinBoard install, is an example of a UCI engine.

[evergreen1]

two standardized methods of communication

HGM,
thanks a lot for the description. have a nice day.