pulsar crazyhouse engine

[MikeSeatle]

hi,

I'm getting ready for a new release of pulsar. Now one program that features atomic, 3checks, 2kings, giveaway/suicide, losers, and crazyhouse. Also regular chess.

I have a question on how to offer crazyhouse support for homeplay. All variants should be able to be handicapped with a fixed depth search of 1-5 or/and a time handicap.

When you play crazyhouse on icc or fics there is on top [PPK] [Q] etc to help you know what the piece count is that you can drop or your opponent. I tried it in home play and there was no such piece count. Not sure if my winboard needes to be updated, though its not that old, or if i have to turn something on. When you right click to drop in homeplay it has a menu were you can choose pawn or rook etc, but all pieces say 0. Any way to get that to say how many pieces you have to drop?

I have done two things that make it more playable as is. One i have turned on pulsar checking for legality of drops. Without it, even with move legality on, the player can drop pieces he doesnt have.

the other thing I did was that if you make an illegal drop, pulsar not only takes back the move, i.e. tells winboard its illegal, but sends the user a message that tells him what the material is he can drop or pulsar can drop. Looks like: Player [PPN] Pulsar [QP].

Any suggestions for how to further improve it are welcome.

thanks,
Mike Adams

I fear i mispelled Seattle.

[Teemu Pudas]

I have a question on how to offer crazyhouse support for homeplay. All variants should be able to be handicapped with a fixed depth search of 1-5 or/and a time handicap.

When you play crazyhouse on icc or fics there is on top [PPK] [Q] etc to help you know what the piece count is that you can drop or your opponent. I tried it in home play and there was no such piece count.

I recommend using Crazyhouse Challenger instead of Winboard. Very few people play crazyhouse with WB because there are interfaces that handle it much better. Another excellent crazyhouse/bughouse interface is BPGNView, which can also be used for analysis.

[MikeSeatle]

hi,

I got pulsar working with crazyhouse challenger, but there is no takeback button in crazyhouse challenger. I'd like my users to be able to take back moves, particularly less experienced players.

I tried bpgn view but couldnt start a game. it said to go to game/ new or right click on board and choose newgame. i right clicked on baord one and two and had no such option and game/ new was grayed out along with most of the game menu? any ideas? also does bpgn view offer takeback?

thanks
Mike Adams