Winboard Forum

Volker Pittlik wrote:

Naum wrote:Hi Volker,

FRC works only in the UCI mode. You could always use the Polyglot if you want to run it under WB...

Thanks. I'll try it soon. I'm thinking about a good test setup for FRC. The version for "normal" chess works fine with wine under linux and performed well here:

Code: Select all

Rank Name                                      Elo    +    - games score oppo. draws
   1 Spike 1.2 Turin                          2854   27   26   960   85%  2421   12%
   2 Fruit-Toga 1.2.1                         2837   59   55   200   84%  2416   13%
   3 Rybka 1.0 beta 32 bit                    2779   57   54   200   79%  2416   10%
   3 Glaurung 1.2.1                           2777   57   54   200   80%  2416   13%
   5 Naum 2.0                                 2772   56   53   200   79%  2416   12%
   6 Fruit 2.1                                2755   25   25   960   77%  2423   11%
   7 Shredder Classic 1.3                     2751   53   51   200   78%  2416   17%
   8 Ruffian 2.1.0                            2718   53   51   200   74%  2416   14%
   9 Glaurung 1.2                             2714   54   52   200   75%  2416   13%
  10 Pharaon 3.5                              2705   52   50   200   74%  2416   17%
  11 Colossus 2006f                           2660   50   49   200   70%  2416   18%
  12 Scorpio 1.8                              2637   52   51   200   68%  2416   12%


Test conditons look here.

Naum wrote:I tested the FRC version under Arena 1.1 only...

Uh oh, let's hope it works with xboard too. Arena does not work properly under wine/linux.

Naum wrote:I know for sure it doesn't work under Shredder Classic (can't understand why SMK decided to re-invent the wheel).

Alex

The confusion about the different notation styles are a big handicap for FRC. However, the discussion about it took place between grown-up people. Unfortunately some characteristics of that discussion have been ignorance on the one side and obstinacy on the other.

Nothing unusual in this world and in online forums in particular, but a nuisance in any case.

Volker

I want to know if there are engines that can play FRC not as UCI engines so I may test movei as winboard FRC engine under winboard or under arena.

I am going to implement the UCI protocol but the problem is that
the UCI protocol does not give me information about the time control and as I explained in another thread it means that I cannot implement smart time management.

Uri

Uri Blass wrote:...
I want to know if there are engines that can play FRC not as UCI engines so I may test movei as winboard FRC engine under winboard or under arena...

AICE does. I'm not sure about Spike. Polyglot works well in this regard too.

Uri Blass wrote:...I am going to implement the UCI protocol but the problem is that
the UCI protocol does not give me information about the time control and as I explained in another thread it means that I cannot implement smart time management.

Uri

Can't that be tested separately? I read your other post and the first thing I asked me was: who plays at 40 moves in 2 hours and 1 minute for the rest of the game? Of course it's nice a program can handle this, but is it really necessary?

Volker

Volker Pittlik wrote:...AICE does. I'm not sure about Spike. Polyglot works well in this regard too...

For developing/testing it seems to be a possibility to use only those FRC start positions in which king and rooks stand on the same squares as in normal chess. There are 16 of this positions IIRC. Then you can use all winboard engine which support board setup.

Volker

Volker Pittlik wrote:

Uri Blass wrote:...
I want to know if there are engines that can play FRC not as UCI engines so I may test movei as winboard FRC engine under winboard or under arena...

AICE does. I'm not sure about Spike. Polyglot works well in this regard too.

Uri Blass wrote:...I am going to implement the UCI protocol but the problem is that
the UCI protocol does not give me information about the time control and as I explained in another thread it means that I cannot implement smart time management.

Uri

Can't that be tested separately? I read your other post and the first thing I asked me was: who plays at 40 moves in 2 hours and 1 minute for the rest of the game? Of course it's nice a program can handle this, but is it really necessary?

Volker

it is only an extreme case to demonstrate the point but I think that even in time control of 2 hours/60 moves+30 minutes for the rest of the game(time control that was used in WCCC) it may be better not to use all the 2 hours for the first 60 moves.

Uri

Volker Pittlik wrote:

Uri Blass wrote:...
I want to know if there are engines that can play FRC not as UCI engines so I may test movei as winboard FRC engine under winboard or under arena...

AICE does. I'm not sure about Spike. Polyglot works well in this regard too.

I tried Aice and it does not work for me under winboard(I did not try to use polyglot because polyglot is only for UCI engines).

I could make it start a game simply by copy fen paste fen but winboard claimed illegal move when aice tried to play long castle.


My winboard_x is from 29.1.2006 and I wonder if I use the latest version

[Event "Computer Chess Game"]
[Site "URI-PC"]
[Date "2006.09.19"]
[Round "-"]
[White "AICE 0.99.2 "]
[Black "movei"]
[Result "0-1"]
[TimeControl "40/300"]
[Variant "fischerandom"]
[FEN "rkrbnqbn/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RKRBNQBN w CAca - 0 1"]
[SetUp "1"]

{--------------
r k r b n q b n
p p p p p p p p
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
P P P P P P P P
R K R B N Q B N
white to play
--------------}
1. e4 e5 2. Nd3 Ng6 3. f4 Qe7 4. f5 Nf8 5. Bf3 c5 6. Qe2 c4 7. Ndf2 f6 8.
Rf1 Bf7
{Forfeit due to illegal move} 0-1

Uri Blass wrote:...I could make it start a game simply by copy fen paste fen but winboard claimed illegal move when aice tried to play long castle....

Sorry for the impertinent question: are you sure winboard complains? If "check leaglity" is enabled and your engine rejects the move then it looks like winboard rejects the move when if fact it has been rejected by the engine.

Volker

I can add that I could play movei in FRC against aice under arena.
both movei and aice castled with no problem.

Uri

Volker Pittlik wrote:

Uri Blass wrote:...I could make it start a game simply by copy fen paste fen but winboard claimed illegal move when aice tried to play long castle....

Sorry for the impertinent question: are you sure winboard complains? If "check leaglity" is enabled and your engine rejects the move then it looks like winboard rejects the move when if fact it has been rejected by the engine.

Volker

Here is part of the debug file
movei pondered when aice tried to play
9.0-0-0

It seems that winboard still not support FRC and I can play only under arena

220734 <first : 10 133 793 1397908 9.O-O-O Bb6 10.Ng3 Nc7 11.Nh5 g6 12.Ng3 d5 13.ed5 Bd5 14.Kb1
222469 <second: 10 1 968 1097798 d8b6 f2d1 b6g1 f1g1 e7c5 e2e3 e8d6 e3c5 c8c5 d1e3 b7b6
222484 <first : move O-O-O
GameEnds(32, Forfeit due to illegal move, 4)
222484 >first : result 0-1 {Forfeit due to illegal move}
Interrupting second
222484 >second: result 0-1 {Forfeit due to illegal move}

Uri

Hi Volker and Uri,

Both of your posts may indicate that WB or Polyglot do not accept a castling move specified with the letter 'O'. Maybe they expect castling moves to use '0' (number zero). Just guessing.

I will test Polyglot/WB combination for Naum in a day or two, and if there is a problem it will be fixed quickly.

Alex

Aice is using the letter 'O 'but movei is using number '0'

It seems to me that the problem is not O or 0
arena understand both.

It seems that the problem is simply that winboard without polyglot translate castling to e1g1 or e1c1

I can add that I think before giving up and deciding that a move is illegal move to check if it is e1g1 or e1c1 and in case that it is e1g1 to translate it to short castling and in case that it is e1c1 to translate it to long castling

Of course the same is going to hold for e8g8 and e8c8

Uri

In second thought I am not going to support buggy winboard for the simple reason that it is impossible to do it for all cases.

The problem is that the engine has no way to know if e1g1 is castling(by king from d1 to g1 and rook from h1 to f1) or simply queen from e1 to g1.

Uri

Naum wrote:...
Both of your posts may indicate that WB or Polyglot do not accept a castling move specified with the letter 'O'. Maybe they expect castling moves to use '0' (number zero). Just guessing.
...

I use Tord's version of xboard. I guess the problem has been discussed in detail in this thread.

Volker

I can add that movei accept both O o and 0

The problem is what I should print
printing "0" at least work under arena.

Glaurung solve the problem by simply not priniting king take rook
but I want to support winboard first.

Uri Blass wrote:I want to know if there are engines that can play FRC not as UCI engines so I may test movei as winboard FRC engine under winboard or under arena.

the Baron plays FRC as a winboard engine.
But the FRC implementations in winboard are not very stable at the moment. I changed a few lines in winboard_x to make it work at ICC but haven't tested it with engine/engine games or human/engine games.
Richard.

Richard Pijl wrote:...
But the FRC implementations in winboard are not very stable at the moment. I changed a few lines in winboard_x to make it work at ICC but haven't tested it with engine/engine games or human/engine games...

And it is getting worse it seems. Meanwhile I have in my collection:

==> the original source code
==> the xboard FRC version by Fabien and Tord
==> Milix's variation of it
==> Alessandro's winboard_x version
==> the source code with your changes

Some of these in two variations with a small extension from my side to kill the engine process if it doesn't terminate correctly.

IMO it would be very useful if someone combines these different branches.

Volker

Volker Pittlik wrote:

Richard Pijl wrote:...
But the FRC implementations in winboard are not very stable at the moment. I changed a few lines in winboard_x to make it work at ICC but haven't tested it with engine/engine games or human/engine games...

And it is getting worse it seems. Meanwhile I have in my collection:

==> the original source code
==> the xboard FRC version by Fabien and Tord
==> Milix's variation of it
==> Alessandro's winboard_x version
==> the source code with your changes

Some of these in two variations with a small extension from my side to kill the engine process if it doesn't terminate correctly.

IMO it would be very useful if someone combines these different branches.

As far as I know the code changes of Fabien and Tord are also included in winboard_x. I also sent my changes to Alessandro. I just hope he can find the time to do something with it.

Richard.