Winboard Forum

I just stumbled across an old mini-project that I was working on a while ago--adding UCI support to an open source chess engine called cheops:

http://www.nothingisreal.com/cheops/

You can download the UCI version here:

http://web.mit.edu/myee/www/chess/cheops-1.1uci.zip

The executable is in the bin subdirectory (along with the required cygwin1.dll file). To start it in UCI mode, you need to use the command:

cheops --uci

It seems to work fine under arena (on a windows XP system).

Some comments/warnings:

- has no time control
- takes a long time to search, so set the search depth UCI parameter pretty low (maybe 3 or 4?)
- not too strong (maybe around pyotr amateur level?)
- still could be fun for beginning humans to play
- has a lot of static eval parameters to tweak
- likes to get its queen out early

Michael

Hi Michael

Thanks a lot for this new engine.

I must have missed something, but Cheops does nto work here under Arena.

- Where do you put the command cheops --uci ? I tried both command lines of General and Special menus, but it does not help

- Please remind me where are the UCI parameters

Olivier

Hi Michael!
thank you for your engine! under Arena Cheops played only first game. when i changed depth ply, your engine was stoped.

regards, Michael

I found out what I was doing wrong : I set "cheops --uci" in command line, when only "--uci" is needed under Arena.

Still, I can't remember where are the UCI settings (I know, I am dumb )

Olivier

Olivier Deville wrote:I found out what I was doing wrong : I set "cheops --uci" in command line, when only "--uci" is needed under Arena.

Still, I can't remember where are the UCI settings (I know, I am dumb )

Olivier

Hi Olivier,

Yep, you figured out the command line parameter issue.

As for the UCI settings... Once cheops is loaded, you can right-click on its name in the engine output (thinking) area and then select "Configure CHEOPS 1.1". Or, using the menus, you can go to Engines --> Engine 1 / Cheops 1.1 --> Configure (if cheops was engine 1).

By the way, just to clear up something from my initial post, the author of cheops is Tristan Miller. I only added the UCI support

Michael

Mihail Croitor wrote:Hi Michael!
thank you for your engine! under Arena Cheops played only first game. when i changed depth ply, your engine was stoped.

regards, Michael

Hi Mihail,

When you say "stopped", do you mean that it wouldn't play a single move and didn't display any output? If the search_ply is set to anything 5 or above, it could take a *very* long time to search depending on the position.

I tried reproducing your steps under my Arena setup (play one game, then change search_ply, then try again). It seemed to work fine here. (Also, I tried both with and without letting cheops use an arena opening book.)

I should mention that the UCI support I added is only designed for playing regular games. For example, it doesn't support starting from an arbitrary FEN position. It probably wouldn't even be able to analyze unless Arena sent it the whole game history up to that point.

By the way, as I mentioned to Olivier, the author of the engine is actually Tristan Miller--I just added basic (possibly buggy!) UCI support.

Michael

Michael Yee wrote:

Olivier Deville wrote:I found out what I was doing wrong : I set "cheops --uci" in command line, when only "--uci" is needed under Arena.

Still, I can't remember where are the UCI settings (I know, I am dumb )

Olivier

Hi Olivier,

Yep, you figured out the command line parameter issue.

As for the UCI settings... Once cheops is loaded, you can right-click on its name in the engine output (thinking) area and then select "Configure CHEOPS 1.1". Or, using the menus, you can go to Engines --> Engine 1 / Cheops 1.1 --> Configure (if cheops was engine 1).

By the way, just to clear up something from my initial post, the author of cheops is Tristan Miller. I only added the UCI support

Michael

Thanks Michael, I did not know this trick

Olivier

Olivier Deville wrote:

Michael Yee wrote:

Olivier Deville wrote:I found out what I was doing wrong : I set "cheops --uci" in command line, when only "--uci" is needed under Arena.

Still, I can't remember where are the UCI settings (I know, I am dumb )

Olivier

Hi Olivier,

Yep, you figured out the command line parameter issue.

As for the UCI settings... Once cheops is loaded, you can right-click on its name in the engine output (thinking) area and then select "Configure CHEOPS 1.1". Or, using the menus, you can go to Engines --> Engine 1 / Cheops 1.1 --> Configure (if cheops was engine 1).

By the way, just to clear up something from my initial post, the author of cheops is Tristan Miller. I only added the UCI support

Michael

Thanks Michael, I did not know this trick

Olivier

Also the key combination Ctrl 1 to configure engine 1 and Ctrl 2 to configure engine 2. This is much easier and faster for me.

Regards
Dave