Open Winboard directly with Crafty as the engine

[Peter Zachariades]

I have added crafty to the winboard.ini file as the first chess program and it does appear in the drop down list, which is how I currently select it. However, is it possible to edit the winboard.ini file to have crafty open as soon as you click the Winboard.exe shortcut?

[Pradu]

I have added crafty to the winboard.ini file as the first chess program and it does appear in the drop down list, which is how I currently select it. However, is it possible to edit the winboard.ini file to have crafty open as soon as you click the Winboard.exe shortcut?

Use command line parameters. They should be listed in the Winboard help file.

[Dave Acevedo]

Peter,
Winboard may be started with any engine ready for analysis or for a match with another engine using a batch file that you create containing commands. See the Winboard Help file and read all of the contents under "COMMAND LINE OPTIONS." The command may also be entered at a command prompt with the same result.
A batch file is a text file containing one or more commands that execute themselves when the batch file is run. A batch file has the .bat extension. Each command line statement within the batch file must appear on its own line without text wrapping. If you write with the Windows "Note Pad" text editor you must turn "word wrap" off.

A batch file command line to start Winboard with Crafty, for analysis or a match versus yourself or against itself, will look like this however you must edit the "path" to show the location of your Winboard.exe and engine executables.

start /wait D:\Winboard\Winboard -cp -fcp Crafty2013 -fd D:\engine\Crafty -scp Crafty2013 -sd D:\engine\Crafty

Only one engine will be running unless you want to match "two machines". Be sure to turn on "Periodic Updates" under Winboard's "General Options" when using the engine for analysis. Alessandro Scotti's "Winboard X" has more useful features for working with engines than the standard Winboard release.

A command line to run an engine v. engine match will look like this. This command line uses a Winboard engine versus a UCI engine that is using the UCI to Winboard adapter "Polyglot."

start /wait D:\WinboardX\winboard_x -cp -fcp WildCat7 -fd D:\engine\WildCat -scp "Polyglot Naum.ini" -sd D:\Polyglot -initString "new\n" /mg 50 /tc 15 /inc 0

Here the Time Control is 15 0 and will run continuous matches of the two engines up to 50 games before exiting. Be sure to turn "Auto Flag" on under Winboard's "General Options."
Add another command string below this one to run a tournament of more than two different engines. Arranging the engines to resign will save considerable time. Also 'Pondering' must be off for both engines so they are not "thinking" at the same time, unless you have a multiple processor computer. Also any compound statement within a batch files command line, such as C:\Program Files\Winboard or Polyglot Naum.ini, must be surrounded with quotes to be understood by Winboard. This is correct, C:\"Program Files"\Winboard, "Polyglot Naum.ini"

Dave A.