A question about kibitz

[Niyaz Khasanov]

I read that in CCC every engine must kibitz.
Winboard protocol specification says:

In Zippy mode, for compatibility with older versions of Crafty, xboard passes through to ICS any line that begins "kibitz", "whisper", "tell", or "draw". Do not use this feature in new code. Instead, use the commands "tellall", "tellothers", "tellopponent", "tellics"...

I have two questions:
1) Which command should be used?
1) What information should be kibitzed by an engine? PV or something else?

[Fabien Letouzey]

I read that in CCC every engine must kibitz.
Winboard protocol specification says:

In Zippy mode, for compatibility with older versions of Crafty, xboard passes through to ICS any line that begins "kibitz", "whisper", "tell", or "draw". Do not use this feature in new code. Instead, use the commands "tellall", "tellothers", "tellopponent", "tellics"...

I have two questions:
1) Which command should be used?
1) What information should be kibitzed by an engine? PV or something else?

Hi,

1) You already know the answer, since it's in the extract you posted. Don't worry, e.g. "tellall" will be replaced with "kibitz" on servers where it is appropriate (abstraction).

2) I guess at least depth, score and PV. You are free to add more (time, nodes, NPS, ...).

Fabien.

[Pallav Nawani]

Use tellall. It works with both Winboard and Arena. People have reported problems with 'tellics' & Arena.

[Niyaz Khasanov]

Thank you for infomation.
I implemented tellall now.
However, another problem occurs.
Winboard creates a lot of popup kibitz windows (one per each PV) on a local machine. (One window behind another).
I must press 'OK' many time to close these windows.
How did you solve this problem?

[Pallav Nawani]

That is strange. I have never had this problem. Perhaps there is some winboard settings that you can change? Here is the batch file I use to connect to ICS, maybe it will help?

C:
cd "\Program Files\WinBoard\"
WinBoard -zp -zadj -zab -ics -icslogon icc.ini -icshost chessclub.com -fd "C:\Program Files\WinBoard\Natwarlal" -fcp natwarlal -icshelper timestamp -zippyGameEnd="\nseek 5 0\nseek 2 12\nseek 5 6\n" -zippyGameStart="say This is an automated computer.\n" -zippyMaxGames 3 -sgf iccgames.pgn -autoflag

Best regards,
Pallav

[Niyaz Khasanov]

Thank you for good answers.
I tried to use your advices in my Winboard 4.2.7.
Unfortunately, these multiple message-boxes (everyone with own "OK" button) occur anyway.
Of course, all message-boxes are hidden behind the first one.
Nevertheless, they steal the system resources.
I give up and get rid of kibitz in Ufim.

[Pallav Nawani]

Hi,

I just now realised the cause of your problem. Sorry, my brain was turned off until now You should use the 'tellall xxx' command only if you are playing on ICS. If you use it all the time, winboard will pop up kibitz messages on the local machine. From the winboard specfication:

Code: Select all

tellall MESSAGE
    This command lets the engine give a message to its opponent and other people watching the game, independent of whether the opponent is a user on the local machine or a remote ICS user (Zippy mode). MESSAGE consists of any characters, including whitespace, to the end of the line. When the engine is playing against a user on the local machine, xboard pops up an information dialog containing the message. When the engine is playing against an opponent on the ICS (Zippy mode), xboard sends "kibitz MESSAGE\n" to the ICS.


If you are using WB2 protocol 2, You can send ics=1 along with feature command. After you do this, winboard will send you ics command whenever your engine is playing. If it is on a local machine, you will get

Code: Select all

ics -

if it is on ics, you will get

Code: Select all

ics hostname

where hostname is the name of the chess server. So now if you get 'ics - ' put your engine in local mode, and do not kibitz. If you get 'ics <somename>' you can start kibitzing.

Hope this helps.
Pallav