Tourney - Pause Between Games Option

[tvt2020]

Hi Everyone,
I'm having problem with Tourney's pause between game option can someone help me. I wanted to allow time between games for CPU to cool down but doesn't matter what I put in, for example 120,000 ms, Winboard would start the next game immediately.

[H.G.Muller]

I think the time between games is limited to 10 sec. Not sure if there is a good reason for that. Originally (in 4.2.7) it was fixed at 10 sec, and that annoyed me, so I made it possible to make it shorter (but not longer) through an option. Perhaps it would be better to lift that restriction?

[tvt2020]

I hate to see a system meldown instead of tourney result.

[Harry]

Hello,

on an old and slow computer many machines need this match pause and ten seconds in wb 4.2.7 was a good idea. This also works fine in wb 4.5.3.

In wb 4.6.2 match pause do not work, because it is on the wrong place; between new,... and go command. All machines which need this pause don't work. On an old and slow computer.

regards,
Harry

[H.G.Muller]

The pause was not intended to aid the new game, but to give the previous game time to finish. Some engines resign after printing a move, so that their opponent has already started thinking when WB receives the resign, and terminates the game. Now some engines are unresponsive while thining, so there would be no way to stop the thinking engine before it has printed its move. And if you immediately start the next game, that move might come within it, where it is illegal. With engines that support ping this cannot happen anyway.

So it doesn't matter whether the pause is before or after the 'new', as long as it is before the 'go'. Because engines only start sending moves after receiving 'go', any move that comes in before it must be a left-over move from the previous game.

[Harry]

Yes, you are right.

But I know some machines, which stumble and don't run, if they get immediately after the previous game a new command. Older Craftys and AnMon stumbles and ProDeo stumbles sometimes, and I think, I know some other machines, but I don't test it.
I don't know the reason, not rearly.

But so I am and also many, many other people are not able to use the new and great tournament mode in the new winboard, because it don't work.

Best regards
Harry

[H.G.Muller]

You can always install flaky engines with the option /xreuse (adding it to their engine line with the Engine->Edit Engine List menu dialog). Then a new engine process would be started for any game. I though Crafty only runs in this mode anyway (requesting it itself through feature reuse=0).

If you play one game per pairing (and then as many cycles as you want games between each participant), no engine would have to play two games in a row anyway. (Perhaps except when you have less than 6 participants.)