It seems that ?3.9? wasn?t really a good number for a ?final? version!
Well, I?ve discovered a bug which I already ?introduced? in version 3.6
during a bigger code change - but this is only a problem with a very special
function (playing through the solution variants with ?DefenderMoves? didn?t
work correctly any longer), and so probably nobody has found this error yet.
Since of course such a bugfix would not really be enough for changing the
version number to 4.0, I?ve also implemented a few new (quite useful) features:
1) new option ?UseDatabase?: in ?Special?- and ?Automatic?-mode ChestUCI now
searches in the included file ?ChestUCI.epd?, if a given chess problem is
is already present in this database.
If the position (and its solution parameters) is found, these parameter values
are automatically adjusted and used for the calculation - so for already solved
problems there?s no need to manually set these parameters once more.
2) new ?SearchMode=RetroAnalysis?: this new mode provides a comfortable way
trying to verify an already existing (supposed) solution of a chess problem
and to find a suitable set of parameters, which (hopefully
) allow ChestUCI
to solve this problem.
You simply have to go back through the solution from the end to the beginning
(in any steps), and let ChestUCI solve the remaining problem. During this
process ChestUCI remembers all parameter values having found yet (similar to
the ?backward analysis? of some normal chess engines), and tries these values
first - only if there?s no longer a solution possible, these parameters will
be changed and re-calculated again.
At the end of this retro-analysis (i.e. when reaching the start position), the
correctness of the solution should be verified, and the complete solution with
its parameters are available - if its not TOO difficult for ChestUCI.
Well, these are in short the most important news -
much fun with the (this time really final) version of ChestUCI!
Best regards,
Franz.
Download of ChestUCI 4.0 under:
http://www.uciengines.de/UCI-Engines/Chest/chest.html
