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D.3 Chessmaster 8000, 9000 and 10,000 (The King) D.3.1 General overview. From Chessmaster 8000 onwards, there is support for the Winboard protocol. This means that you can import Winboard engines (Crafty,Gnuchess,Yace etc) into Chessmaster. To play against. Either against yourself or you can pit it against Chessmaster itself. Chessmaster 9000 1.1.3 MAC by admin55 23 Chessmaster 9000 introduces gamers to the principles and methods of chess, whereas constructing abilities by way of enjoyable but complete tutorials.
Section D
[D] Engine Specific problems- [D.1] Bringer
- [D.1.5] What is the best memory allocation for Bringer?
- [D.1.5] What is the best memory allocation for Bringer?
- [D.3] Chessmaster 8000/9000/10000 [The King]
- [D.4] Crafty
- [D.5] Francesa
- [D.7] Knightcap
- [D.8] Little Goliath
- [D.9] SOS
Forward to Section E
[D] Engine Specific problems
[D.1] Bringer
[D.1.1] General overview
Bringer is a German Program written by Gerrit Reubold. Bringer is a strong program and is probably within the top 20 free Winboard programs. Bringer is unusual compared to most Winboard engines because it comes with it's own stand alone Graphical User Interface but also works in Winboard. Bringer requires the extra command /winboard in the Winboard.ini for it to run properly.
Another unusual feature is that Bringer unlike most programs allow you to allocate memory among 3 transposition tables instead of the more usual two. Bringer supports Nalimov Tablebases.Bringer 1.9 is now available! [27 June 2001]. Peter Berger has also written a document on the use of Bringer in Chessbase,Shredder,Chess Partner/Rebel and Chess Genius . You can download it together with Bringer here .
[D.1.2] When I run Bringer in Winboard the Bringer Graphical Interface starts as well. How can I remove it?
You can't. Closing the GUI will cause the Engine to stop running as well.
[D.1.3] How can I change the language in Bringer from German to English?
To change the language from German to English, go to 'Ansicht' scroll down to 'sprache' and choose 'Englische'. Unfortunately, there is still no English online help, but you can download the English translation from here.
[D.1.4] How do I change the Transposition Table memory allocation for Bringer?
Unlike most Engines, there is no ini file to edit to change the size of the transposition tables. You need to do it in the Bringer GUI and then save.
[D.1.5] What is the best memory allocation for Bringer?
For 16Mb RAM , the author suggests using 10/2/2 [Position/Evaluation/Pawn] allocation and another 2 Mb for Tablebases caches. For allocating 32 Mb RAM a 20/4/4 Split might be best. You could also try optimising the memory allocation yourself, but this requires some understanding and monitoring of the line 'Hash% Pos: 1%/5%, Eval 53%/16%, pawn 99%/80%' etc in the program.
'Hash% Pos 1% / 5%' means : the positional hashtables are 1% filled, and 5% of the 'probes' were successful (a transposition was detected). Note that the remaining 95% of the probes were not useless, they improve the move ordering. The other values mean the same thing: 'filled percentage' / 'percentage of successful probes'.
[ Gerrit Reubold in a posting to the Winboard forum 05-07-2000 ]Note: when you try to optimise Hashtables size, pay attention to the second value: if you double (for example) the size of the Hashtables, and the 'percentage of successful probes' increase from 80% to 82%, the gain is only 2%.
Typical values for the 'percentage of successful probes' in the middlegame are 5-10%; 30-40%; 70-80%. '
[D.3] Chessmaster 8000 , 9000 and 10,000 (The King)
[D.3.1] General overview
From Chessmaster 8000 onwards, there is support for the Winboard protocol. This means that you can import Winboard engines (Crafty,Gnuchess,Yace etc) into Chessmaster. to play against. Either against yourself or you can pit it against Chessmaster itself.
Chessmaster's support of the Winboard protocol is pretty good ,except there is one oddity. If the 'thinking lines' window is open, Chessmaster's GUI will send the '.' command (which normally is sent only during analyse mode) so that it can get a regular update on the progress of the search. Some engines choke on this.Here's a detailed analysis of The Winboard protocol implementation in Chessmaster 8000.
More importantly (for many users) the Chess engine (or chess playing part) that powers Chessmaster 8000 , 9000 and 10,000 - namely The King by Johan De Koning is now a Winboard engine, which means that it can be exported outside Chessmaster to be used in any interface that supports the Winboard protocol.
There is a complication though, if you treat TheKing.exe as a normal Winboard engine, you will find that when used in for example Winboard, The King will start moving instantly regardless of the time control. This is because there is a copy protection scheme.To avoid this, you need to send a number called the 'OPK number' with the parameters. This OPK number is time keyed. This can only be obtained from the CD, and if you reset the computer, the OPK number changes.See later sections for more
[28-02-03] There is a patch posted that dis-enables the OPK check for Chessmaster 8000, 9000 and 10,000[D.3.2] How do I use Winboard engines in Chessmaster?
Both Chessmaster 8000 , 9000 and 10,000 support only Winboard protocol 1, but this should work fine for most engines since most of them support both protocol 1 and 2.
The procedure for setting up Winboard engines is explained clearly in the user's manual page 62 for Chessmaster 9000, so I won't waste space explaining it here.Chessmaster 8000 users should get the 1.0.4 patch which fixes a few bugs.
Chessmaster 8000 users should refer to the Chessmaster FAQ .
Don't be surprised though if some of the imported engines don't work too well. Most should do okay though.
[D.3.3] What are the main differences between Chessmaster 8000, 9000 and 10,000 in terms of Winboard support?
The patched version of Chessmaster 8000 is very similar to 9000 but there are some differences. Chessmaster 10,000 appears to be exactly the same (in terms of Winboard features) as Chessmaster 9000 though. The main differences (besides the engine versions of 3.12d vers 3.23d) are as follows
- Chessmaster 9000 allows imported and created personalities (including imported Winboard engines) to be rated (you can change the rating or play rated games, but the rating will not be updated automatically), Chessmaster 8000 does not.
- Chessmaster 9000 also supports the use of a secondary time control for time controls in tournament mode. This secondary time control is always in minutes. So for example you can play a time control like 40 moves in 40 minutes followed by 25 minutes sudden death.This is done using the extended level command.
- Chessmaster 9000 but not 8000 now supports the use of Endgame tablebases, so when importing a Winboard engine, you can choose to allow the Winboard engine to benefit from them. Note however, that many Winboard engines already support endgame tablebases (usually Nalimov format) on their own and can benefit from them if setup normally in either Chessmaster 8000 or 9000. Those that do not, can use the De koning endgame tablebase (which Chessmaster 9000 uses) if you prefer.Note, De koning endgame tablebases are not probed in search unlike the Nalimov tablebases, so I would prefer using the Nalimov if possible.
- Chessmaster 9000 allows additional parameters to be altered compared to Chessmaster 8000 so you can send/alter more parameters with The King. Unlike Chessmaster 8000, the latest version allows you to set separate values for The King's valuation of it's own King safety,mobility,Passed Pawn and Pawn weakness and yet another set of values for The King's valuation of the opponent's King safety,mobility,Passed Pawn and Pawn weakness. Also, the maximum selective search value you can use in Chessmaster 9000 has increased to 16 as compared to 12 in Chessmaster 8000. The defaults have also changed from 6 to 9.
- Chessmaster 9000 uses a slightly different book format.Although opening books in CM9000 and 8000 might be interchangeable, old book converters for Chessmaster 8000 will not work to convert them into other formats e.g ctg.
The last point might be important when exporting The King.
- Chessmaster 9000 allows imported and created personalities (including imported Winboard engines) to be rated (you can change the rating or play rated games, but the rating will not be updated automatically), Chessmaster 8000 does not.
[D.3.4] How do I get Chessmaster [The King] to play in Winboard , Arena etc?
As mentioned in the general overview it is possible to export The King to be used in other interfaces that support the Winboard protocol. It is however a fairly complicated and tedious process with many drawbacks .
WARNING: This section and the next is by far the most complicated parts in the whole FAQ, and if you are not familiar with Winboard engines, you have little hope of getting it to work. There are also many possible refinements, but my instructions are among the simplest that allow it to work.
As preparation you should be familiar with how to setup additional Winboard engines in Winboard through the 'Winboard.ini method'.
Okay.Here are the steps needed. The main idea is to find the OPK number after which you can send the OPK number parameter in the interface of your choice.
About the Patch that disables the OPK check
There is a patch (direct link 62K) posted that dis-enables the OPK check for for Chessmasters to date (8000,9000,10000) so you can avoid the steps below if you apply the patch.Two Things to take note.1. The patch should not be applied on Theking.exe which you use in Chessmaster since this causes problems in the Chessmaster GUI, so the best method would be to apply the patch on a copy of Theking.exe that you wish to use outside Chessmaster GUI.
2.The maker of the patch main purpose in removing the OPK check is so that it can be used together with Odd Malin's wbtouci adaptor in Fritz , and as such it may not work properly elsewhere. For example, users have reported problems when the patched The King is used in Winboard in analysis mode. As such the method outlined below to manually find the OPK number is preferredThere are a few methods to obtain the OPK number,including using inbetween but this is not usually necessary since in most interfaces you can send the OPK number directly. Here's one way that does not use inbetween.
a)Obtaining the OPK number
- In your Chessmaster directory, look for the file 'TheKing.exe' and rename it to say 'TheKing.old'
- Copy the winboard version of crafty (or other WinBoard engine, which writes decent logfiles, I assume you use Crafty) to the Chessmaster 8000/9000/10000 folder and rename it to 'TheKing.exe'. The crafty.rc file is not necessary.
- Start Chessmaster8000/9000/10000 and start a game against a Chessmaster personality that you wish to use in Winboard .
- Exit Chessmaster, and take a look at the log file (usually log.001 or log.oox) created by Crafty in the chessmaster folder.
- Look for a line that says .... opk=xxxxxx (where x is a number) Copy the OPK number and any parameters needed if you are not using a default personality,
- Reverse steps 1-2, to return Chessmaster back to normal.
Basically you replaced theKing.exe with crafty.exe and when chessmaster is run the commands needed (including the OPK number) to be sent to Chessmaster will be sent to Crafty instead.From there you can extract the information needed from Crafty's log file
b) Other Chessmaster's parameters
In general all you need is the OPK number and it will work fine with every other parameters set to default. However you might want to set hash table size, or use a custom personality. In such cases, you need to send additional parameters to Winboard,Arena or whatever interface you are using.
Additional parameters for Chessmaster 9000..Instead of cc,mob,ks,pp,pw, you get :
c) Setting up The King in Winboard compatible interfaces.
There are several Winboard compatible interfaces and in theory The King should work in all of them. I don't have the space and time to show all of them so I will just demonstrate with 3 popular interfaces - Winboard,Arena and SCID and Old Chessbase interfaces, you should be able to figure out the rest once you get the hang of this.
d) Setting up the King in Winboard
Here's the line in my Winboard.ini for playing in Winboard 'TheKing' /fd='d:chessmaster 8000' /firstInitString='xboardnpost nnewncm_parm tts=67108864 ttu=8ncm_parm opk=260544 /firstProtocolVersion=1
For example, in the above line, I'm using Chessmaster with 64Mb hash,default settings. If you want to use personalities you can add parameters like opp=97 opn=107 which will change the values Chessmaster placed on the opponent's pawn and Knight compared to default.
Here's the so-called Chessmaster 8877 setting which is claimed by some to be stronger than the default in longer time controls.
'TheKing' /fd='d:chessmaster 8000' /firstInitString='xboardnpost nnewncm_parm tts=67108864 ttu=8ncm_parm opk=260544 opp=103 opn=121 opb=127 opr=121 opq=123 myp=103 myn=121 myb=127 myr=121 myq=123 cc=112 mob=123 ks=160 pp=117 pw=133 cfd=0 sop=100 avd=-2 rnd=0 sel=12 md=99n /firstProtocolVersion=1
The /firstprotocolversion=1 tells Winboard to revert to Winboard protocol 1, as Chessmaster does not have Protocol 2 support.
Once you manage to get The King working in Winboard, you can in theory import it into Chessbase,ChessPartner,Shredder or [basically any software that supports Winboard engines] etc like any normal Winboard engine!
Using inbetween
Advanced users might want to use Odd Malin's inbetween utility. Inbetween is basically a utility that sits between an engine and interface and transfers messages from one to another. The idea is that instead of connecting The King directly to the interface (eg Arena,SCID,Winboard) you go through inbetween.exe which can send anything you desire to the engine or interface. In the case of using The King, instead of letting the interface send the OPK number, inbetween will do it.
Inbetween is a very powerful tool.One example of a advanced use is it allows you to 'cure' engine compatibility problems if you know what is causing the engine to fail in a given interface. Here's a basic guide to using it.
- From the point of view of the interface, the engine used will be inbetween.exe, so set it up as a normal Winboard engine as usual in your favourite interface
- Inbetween in turns 'talks' to the real engine. This is specified by changing theinbetween.ini file. You should change the line CommandLine := c:xxx.exeto where-ever the real engine is.
- Next you might like to change the line (in inbetween.ini again) under [Client2Server] if you want to send any commands to the engine. In the case of The King, you normally send the OPK number and other parimeters. This explains the use of The King in Arena with inbetween.
- The next line that is usually left alone is the line under [Server2Client].It is used for sending commands to the interface. This is seldom used, although it can be used to translate Chessmaster's display of depth. For example, from 3001 to 3
There are many more things you can do with inbetween such as setting up personalities, but this you have to figure out yourself.
In practice I find that if you use a lot of different GUI with Winboard support it's much easier to setup The King using Odd Malin's inbetween utility once, and then in each GUI point to the inbetween.exe (which you can rename to The King if you wish). This avoids the hassle of passing all the parameters separately for each GUI. On the other hand, you might need customise inbetween set-ups to 'cure' some of the problems in each GUI.
For other GUI [Chess Partner/Chess Assistant], you can find the instructions in the InbetweenAndEngines.txt that comes with inbetween. Here's another new instructions for Chesspartner
e) Setting up The King in Arena and SCID
To use The King in SCID, you need to use inbetween, see the instructions in the yellow box below. You can use the same method for Arena, or if using Arena 0.95 and above you can do the following.
- Set up The King normally in Arena. In the Type field make sure it says Winboard 1
- Click on the special tab, and in the init field type cm_parm opk=xxxxxx tts=33554432, ttu=7 . xxxxxx should be replaced by the correct OPK number of course and you can set as much as hash tables as you like.
- You might want to click on the books tab, change the settings to give The King a opening book in Arena.
This matter works, but if you want to have a nice display, add more parimeters/personalities, it is better to use the inbetween adaptor as detailed below.
| While the method for obtaining the OPK number is the same ,to get The King to work in Arena and SCID, you need to use inbetween itself to sit inbetween and send the OPK number to The King.Change the inbetween.ini file with a text editor to the following line: [InBetween] CommandLine := c:chessmaster9000theking.exe [Client2Server] xboard := xboardnpostnnewncm_parm opk=561252ncm_parm ana=1ncm_parm defaultncm_parm opp=100 opn=100 opb=100 opr=100 opq=100 myp=100 myn=100 myb=100 myr=100 myq=100 mycc=100 mymob=100 myks=100 mypp=100 mypw=100 opcc=100 opmob=100 opks=100 oppp=100 oppw=100 cfd=0 sop=100 avd=0 rnd=0 sel=9 md=99ncm_parm tts=67108864 protover := hard [Server2Client] cm_parm ana=1 := feature setboard=1 cm_parm default := feature analyze=1 2001 := 2 2002 := 2 3001 := 3 3002 := 3 3003 := 3 4001 := 4 4002 := 4 4003 := 4 4004 := 4 5001 := 5 5002 := 5 5003 := 5 5004 := 5 5005 := 5 6001 := 6 6002 := 6 6003 := 6 6004 := 6 6005 := 6 6006 := 6 7001 := 7 7002 := 7 7003 := 7 7004 := 7 7005 := 7 7006 := 7 7007 := 7 8001 := 8 8002 := 8 8003 := 8 8004 := 8 8005 := 8 8006 := 8 8007 := 8 8008 := 8 9001 := 9 The commandline and OPK number should be changed of course to where your copy of the Theking.exe is and the OPK number you obtained from the process described above.This will work for SCID too.Note: Adding ncm_parm ana=1 is necessary for Chessmaster 9000 to force it into analysis mode. The lines such as 1001 :=1 are an additional touch and are used to convert the display of The King into nice ply depth. You should add more up to perhaps 15015 := 15. |
Once you achieve this, it means that you will have a easy way to use The King as a engine on online servers either through Winboard or Arena/Chess partner/Chess Assistant/Chess Vision interface!
[D.3.5] How do I get Chessmaster [The King] to play in Fritz,Junior etc or other Chessbase GUI.
Getting The King to work in Chessbase interfaces like (Chessbase 7 and above or Fritz 5.32,Fritz 6, Junior 6/7,Hiarcs 7.32,Nimzo 8), etc is pretty tricky (although there are some benefits mainly because Chessbase interfaces unlike Winboard or Arena can provide opening books which The King lacks)
For steps to convert chessmaster's OBK opening books to Fritz's CTG.,
Part of the reason why this is so is because Fritz ,Junior etc do not directly support the Winboard protocol which is needed for The King (which is a Winboard engine) Notice Fritz (unlike The King) itself is not a Winboard or UCI engine, so it cannot be exported outside to be used in Chessmaster or Winboard.
Another reason has you have seen already is that unlike most Winboard engines, The King requires the additional sending of the OPK number which complicates matters.
If you own Fritz 5.32 & 6 ,Junior 6 & 7, Nimzo 8 ,Hiarcs 7.32,Shredder 5.32,Chess Tiger 14 , go to section a), otherwise (you own Fritz 7,Shredder 6, Hiarcs 8 or newer) skip to section b)
a) Winboard adaptor method for older Chessbase interfaces
If you are using the older Chessbase interfaces (Fritz 5.32 & 6 ,Junior 6 & 7, Nimzo 8 ,Hiarcs 7.32,Shredder 5.32,Chess Tiger 14 ) you will have to use the Winboard adaptor method for running Winboard engines (The King is just one example.) Please be familiar with this before you begin.
For the King you need to use Odd Gunnar Malin's useful free utility 'In-between'.You can find both the program and instructions on how to get The King to run it has a Winboard engine in Chessbase GUI here.
Before you go there please note that there is a broken link on the above page and you can download the Winboard adaptor here .b) Using the WinboardtoUCI adaptor for newer Chessbase interfaces (Fritz 7,Shredder 6, Hiracs 8)
The newer Chessbase interfaces Shredder 6,Fritz 7 (after patching), Hiracs 8 etc also support the UCI protocol.
Given the known problems of running Winboard engines (which are gravely weakened) using the Winboard adaptor, if you own Fritz 7,Shredder 6 (Chessbase version) or Hiracs 8 , a better method would be convert theKing from a Winboard engine into a UCI engine through Odd Malin's Winboard to UCI adaptor then running it in uci mode.
The steps to do so
- Obtain the OPK number as explained above
- Download the Winboard to UCI adaptor and unzip it in any directory.
- Open the file engine.txt which comes with the adaptor.
- Copy the line below (taken from engine.txt) and copy it to wb2uci.eng
;---------------------------------------------------------------- ; The King 3.12d Advanced
[ENGINE]
Name=The King 3.12d
Author=Johan de Koning
Filename=Wb2Uci.exe[OPTIONS]
Program=TheKing3.12d.exe
InitString=cm_parm defaultncm_parm opk=xxx
HashCommand=cm_parm tts=%i004096
;ShowThinkingMove=true
;Logfile=true
Visible=Ponder,Hash,ShowThinkingMove,Logfile,Extras[EXTRAS]
Opponents Pawn (opp)=cm_parm opp=%i spin 100 0 4500
Opponents Knight (opn)=cm_parm opn=%i spin 100 0 1500
Opponents Bishop (opb)=cm_parm opb=%i spin 100 0 1500
Opponents Rook (opr)=cm_parm opr=%i spin 100 0 900
Opponents Queen (opq)=cm_parm opq=%i spin 100 0 498
Kings Pawn (myp)=cm_parm myp=%i spin 100 0 4500
Kings Knight (myn)=cm_parm myn=%i spin 100 0 1500
Kings Bishop (myb)=cm_parm myb=%i spin 100 0 1500
Kings Rook (myr)=cm_parm myr=%i spin 100 0 900
Kings Queen (myq)=cm_parm myq=%i spin 100 0 498
Contempt (cfd)=cm_parm cfd=%i spin 0 -500 500
Strength (sop)=cm_parm sop=%i spin 100 0 100
Attack Defend (avd)=cm_parm avd=%i spin 0 -100 100
Randomness (rnd)=cm_parm rnd=%i spin 0 0 100
Selective Search (sel)=cm_parm sel=%i spin 6 0 12 (For CM9000 values should read 9 0 16)
Max Depth (md)=cm_parm md=%i spin 999 0 999
Centre Control (cc)=cm_parm cc=%i spin 100 0 600
Mobility (mob)=cm_parm mob=%i spin 100 0 600
King Safety (ks)=cm_parm ks=%i spin 100 0 600
Passed Pawn (pp)=cm_parm pp=%i spin 100 0 600
Pawn Weakness (pw)=cm_parm pw=%i spin 100 0 600;----------------------------------------------------------------
If you are using Chessmaster 9000 instead, do the same as above except that you should replace the last 5 parameters with
My Centre Control (mycc)=cm_parm mycc=%i spin 100 0 600
My Mobility (mymob)=cm_parm mymob=%i spin 100 0 600
My King Safety (myks)=cm_parm myks=%i spin 100 0 600
My Passed Pawn (mypp)=cm_parm mypp=%i spin 100 0 600
My Pawn Weakness (mypw)=cm_parm mypw=%i spin 100 0 600
Opponent's Centre Control (opcc)=cm_parm opcc=%i spin 100 0 600
Opponent's Mobility (opmob)=cm_parm opmob=%i spin 100 0 600
Opponent's King Safety (opks)=cm_parm opks=%i spin 100 0 600
Opponent's Passed Pawn (oppp)=cm_parm oppp=%i spin 100 0 600
Opponent's Weakness (oppw)=cm_parm oppw=%i spin 100 0 600Also, the selective search values can now be increased to up to 16 as compared to a maximum of 12 in Chessmaster 8000. The default Selective search is 9 as mentioned before so the line for selective search should read
Selective Search (sel)=cm_parm sel=%i spin 9 0 16 - Remember to alter the line below options that says Program=TheKing3.12d.exe to the path where The King engine lies.For example Program=c:chessmaster8000Theking.exe
- Replace InitString=cm_parm defaultncm_parm opk= xxx with the OPK string obtained in step 1.
- Remember to save
- When creating a UCI engine in Fritz7,Shredder 6 etc select wb2uci.exe as the file.
| ABOUT [EXTRAS] Because we are using The King as a UCI engine (via the adaptor), we can actually send different parimeters via the GUI options to alter the chessmaster personality . That is what all the lines after [Extras] actually do, they set up all the dialog boxes in the GUI. However, Manfred Meiler and Kurt Utzingerhave assured me that when personalities options are altered this way (as opposed to via text files or init string), they don't seem to work as expected. This determination was made by comparing solution times on various test suites. |
[10-02-2002] Here is a Visual Basic script or The King under Fritz to automate the whole process of getting the OPK number when running The King under Chessbase You will have to change the paths for it to work
| NEED HELP? Perhaps the whole process is too complicated for you.Luckily, Manfred Meiler has kindly agreed to setup everything for you in 2 nice zip files that will automatically get the OPK number and start Chessmaster in Fritz if you email him at Manfred.Meiler@t-online.de the following information.
UPDATE: You can find the basic files for this here (under Method 2). |
[D.3.6] How do I get Chessmaster (The King) to play online at ICC or FICS? What about Yahoo servers?
As mentioned above once you can get Chessmaster or The King running in Winboard or Arena, you can treat it like a normal Winboard engine and use it on the servers.
You should already know how to run Winboard engines on ICC or FICS using zippy and Winboard.
Here is now I got it to run it in FICS through Winboard C:WinBoardwinboard.exe /zp /ics /icshost=freechess.org /icshelper=timeseal /fcp='theking' /fd='d:chessmaster 8000' /firstInitString='xboardnpostnnewncm_parm opk=270080ncm_parm tts=8388608' /firstProtocolVersion=1 This is actually no different from any other Winboard engine. But it lacks a opening book. You can find another instruction guide for using The King plus bookthinker plus OPK patch. You need the files CM9 Winboard.zip and CM9 Winboard readme.txt.
There is however one very big problem.John Merlino lead programmer of Chessmaster 8000 and 9000 writes
There is 'a bug' in The King that is not apparent the CM GUI, but will be VERY IMPORTANT if you use The King against a human opponent on ICC or against a computer opponent that offers draws. In essence, if The King receives a 'draw' command, it will IMMEDIATELY stop its search and you probably will not be able to get it started again! The upshot is that, if your opponent offers The King a draw, it is likely that The King will lose on time because it will never make a move after the request is received! This isn't a problem in the CM GUI, because the GUI handles all draw requests from humans (and WinBoard engines) internally -- The King never receives the draw request. But, this DID happen to me when I was playing with The King on ICC, so YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! There are ABSOLUTELY NO PLANS to fix this in a patch!
This problem appears to still exist in Chessmaster 10000.
The note here regarding Winboard engines on Yahoo or other web-based chess server also applies to The King/Chessmaster.
[D.3.7] Why is Chessmaster [The King ] when exported outside Chessmaster not using a opening book? How do I provide an opening book with bookthinker?
If you export Chessmaster [The King] to Winboard , you will notice that Chessmaster doesn't have a opening book. This is because Chessmaster [The King] actually relies on the interface/GUI to provide the opening book. While some interfaces like Fritz or Arena 1.0 provide opening books to engines, Winboard currently doesn't.
However there is a book engine called bookThinker , whose job is to simulate a opening book by playing the first few moves based on a database of opening moves before passing control over to the bookless engine once it has run out of moves. In theory it should work with The King, but for technical reasons it doesn't work well when coupled with the need to send command line parimeters in the winboard.ini file. The King of course needs to send the OPK number as a command line parameter.
There are several work arounds , but here's my favourite one with involves using inbetween to help. Of course, if you used the patch that disabled the opk check, all you need to do is to use The King as any other engine with bookthinker, as described here . .
- Download and install Thinkboard (engine and interface any version) , then transfer the files bookthinker.exe (the book engine) and thinker.dat (the actual book file) into for example c:enginestheking. At the same time,copy the file theking.exe from your chessmaster directory to the same directory c:enginestheking. You could do this all in the default chessmaster directory of course, but it would get too confusing with all those files.
- Download inbetween , unzip the files and copy inbetween.exe and inbetween.ini to the same directory c:enginestheking.
- Get the OPK number as usual.
- Now set up inbetween. Edit the inbetween.ini file(remember to put in the correct OPK number). It should look something like this.
- Finally setup in your winboard.ini file the following
In brief this works, because instead of passing control to Theking.exe directly after bookthinker runs out of moves, winboard 'calls' inbetween which then feeds The King the correct OPK number. For aesthetic purposes you can rename bookthinker.exe and/or inbetween.exe if desired.
If you are using Fritz for example, there is no need to do so, because the Fritz interface/gui automatically provides a opening book.
For more discussion see this section on GUI opening books.
[D.3.8] How do I match Chessmaster 8000 versus 9000?
The basic concept is similar. You import Chessmaster 8000 as a Winboard engine into Chessmaster 9000 and play then there. Or you could use both of them in other GUI like Fritz or Winboard.Same holds for 10000.
This post by Mike Bryne might prove useful too
[D.3.9] How do I use Chessmaster personalities outside Chessmaster? Where can I find more Chessmaster personalities?
As you have seen above it is also possible to export Chessmaster personalities out of Chessmaster for use by sending personality strings. The simplest way to do this is to first setup the Chessmaster personality in Chessmaster then follow the method outlined in Section [D.3.4] and copy the output.
It's also possible to manually change the settings outside Chessmaster once you know what each of the variable stands for. For example if you want own control of center to be set at 105 ,just send mycc=105.For material values it's calculated has a percentage of the default. For example, the default value of Own Knight is 3.0. If you want Chessmaster to value it's own knight at 6.0, this is a 200% of default. So you must send myn=200.Still it's unclear how chessmaster handles fractions. For example, changing Own Knight to 3.4 , yields a parameter setting of myn=100.13333% etc. What parameter should we send? Currently I suspect you drop the fraction.. There is also a further complication if you change the material/Positional setting where a positive value will increase/decrease all the positional factors and the material values.
Similarly it's unclear what happens (if anything) when a manual value of myn=115 is set, since this is equal to a value of 3.45 which is impossible in a Chessmaster setting since you can set only either 3.4 or 3.5 in Chessmaster.
For this reason, It's advisable (espically when testing via Malin's winboardtouci adaptor which where easy self adjusting settings within uci gui might tempt you to try strange values) to convert from Chessmaster settings first rather than work on manual values.
Chessmaster has always being famous for the degree in which you can custom different Chessmaster personalities (since Chessmaster 2000 I think).
And as always, 'tuning' of personalities to obtain the strongest chessmaster personality has always interested many fans.In the past before Chessmaster 8000 introduced Winboard support, this tuning was limited to auto-games between chessmaster personalities. Some have questioned whether this is effective, since the personality that is best in beating the default chessmaster might not necessary be strongest when pitted against other programs.After all, the aim is to get the strongest chess program not the one best at beating chessmaster personalities.
But course if you own chessmaster 8000,9000 you can import strong winboard engines into chessmaster for testing. But even so , most people prefer to export chessmaster into Fritz etc to allow them to battle against chessbase engines (Fritz,Junior etc) which are generally stronger than the best Winboard engines.Below you can find some sites where people have done such testing of their own personalities against Fritz etc..
You must keep in mind though, each tester might claim his personality be 'best', but this is often dependent on tester's hardware (most testers have high end machines compared to the typical user) and time controls used in testing. In fact some have found that while a given personalities (say Kurt Uztinger's) is a lot better than the default against various chess programs, in long time controls (40 moves/40 mins for example), it's performance suffers when in blitz compared to default. For instance, it is suspected that higher selective search values are better for longer time control.Overall the default personality appears to be a good compromise.(Not to say that a better all-rounder cannot be found though).
Also take note of the specific version of chessmaster used. Personalities that are good for say chessmaster 8000 are not always good also for other versions (say 9000). because of differences between each version.You have being warned. Below are some of the places where such testing has being done.
- Surak's chessmaster page- Surak has a nice chess computer tournament page with thousands of games. But more importantly he has painstakingly collected many chessmaster personalities (posted in various forums such as the Winboard forum and CCC) and has tested many of them. Like most testers, he uses Chessmaster in UCI mode in Fritz. So the settings are in odd Malin's wbtouci adaptor modes. Be sure to read his page on how to convert them to normal settings and the warning attached.
- Utzinger Page's - The Kurt Utzinger pages promote the Utzinger settings, which appear to be very strong at longer time controls against the best Chessbase engines. Like Surak he tests only in Chessbase GUI with the Malin wbtouci settings so you can find them only in that mode.
- Shep's computer chess site - Settings for some of the older chessmaster personalities I.E Chessmaster 5000 and 6000. .
- Harald Faber's Pages- Some testing of Utzinger's personalities.
Credits
This long and complicated section would not have being possible without Odd Gunnar Malin who discovered that sending the OPK method allowed Chessmaster to be used as a full fledged Winboard engine. His excellent inbetween and wbtouci adaptor also quickly became the 'must-use' tools by everyone. I would also like to thank Manfred Meiler, who pointed out a couple of errors in this section and for his kind offer of helping users.
[D.4] Crafty
[D.4.1] General overview
Crafty is probably the most famous Winboard engine [after GNUChess perhaps] and is generally considered the strongest free Winboard program around and is often used as a benchmark for authors who wish to go commercial. While currently [01-11-2002], there are some freeware which are slightly stronger* , there is without doubt that Crafty has the most features available of any Winboard engine both free and commercial . Crafty can among other things process EPD , annotate games into a html output file .The documentation [this is for Crafty 181] that accompanies Crafty is also exceptional and gives a full review of all the features. Download Crafty . You might also want to join the Crafty mailing list administered by the author Dr Robert Hyatt. To subscribe, send a email to majordomo@cis.uab.edu with 'subscribe crafty-list' in the body
A backup site with source codes of very old crafty versions (8.x is the oldest) can be found at Frank Quisinsky's website.
Note. In the past, positions that were favourable for Crafty were shown as a plus score and vice versa. Crafty after version 18, now displays a plus score, when the position is favourable for White and vice versa and this is regardless of the side Crafty is playing! Also Crafty versions after V18 support only SAN [Standard Algebraic Notation e.g. d4 ] instead of co-ordinate notation [e.g. 1 d2-d4].
If you are new to this and want help setting up Crafty, I suggest looking at my general setup for Winboard engines. There are also specific guides for Crafty like Mark's Setup and John/Sasha's one. .
* There are many others freeware acknowledged generally to be the equal if not better of Crafty. Eg Ruffian,Aristarch,Yace,Goliath etc. However, Crafty is still the only one where the source is available.
[D.4.2] Do I need a crafty.rc file? Where can I get one?
In general, Crafty works perfectly even without a crafty.rc file. However if you wish to have more control over Crafty a Crafty.rc file is necessary. You can either build your own using a text editor. Here's an example
hash 12M
hashp 2M
cache 2M
log off
learn 7
book on
book random 1
book width 2
resign 6
tbpath=cWinboardtb
egtbdisplay extstat You should change the tbpath to the directory where your Tablebases are and change the memory allocations. Be sure to leave the line of the crafty.rc file empty or put exit [not necessary for newer versions of Crafty after 17.14] on the last line by itself or it will not work!
If you are using Crafty 19.03 and above ,crafty can use 'Adaptive hash tables' this means that it will automatically adjust the hash tables according to the time control.In general, the longer the time control the large the hash needed. See Discussion about size of transposition tables.Add the following line
adaptive 0.8M 12M 192M 3M 48M
Crafty needs to know the approximate speed of your computer and the first entry 0.8M would be the speed of crafty of 0.8 million Nodes per second or 800,000 nodes per second (obtained from running bench in crafty console mode). Based on the speed and average time per move , and time control (which is automatically available to crafty whenever the' level' command is sent at the start of a game) .Crafty will assumes that one of every 8 positions will be stored and allocate hash tables of this size. This can of course lead to very large hash tables so the next two entries allows you to control this. They represents the minimum and maximum hash tables you want to allow, while the last two entries represents the minimum and maximum hash tables you want to allow for pawn hash.
[D.4.3] THE UAB site has only the source code of the latest Crafty, where do I get the complied versions for Windows?
In general, Crafties complied by Eugene Nalimov are the fastest. Dann Corbit compiled versions probably come close but the best way to find out is by using the Bench command. Nalimov compiled versions will eventually be available at the usual UAB ftp after Dr Hyatt releases the source code.
Another site that you might consider looking at if the UAB site down (or if you are from Europe) is ftp://anonymous@145.94.41.27:21/Yet another mirror is http://www.chesslib.no. If you are impatient ,you could use Dann Corbit's complied versions. (Click on download)
[D.4.4] How do I compile a opening book and other book learning related matters?
The best way to learn is to read the Readme and FAQ . A common misconception is that book learning occurs in the book.lrn file. In fact, any changes due to the book learning are written into the Book.bin files as well, but the book.lrn files serves as a record of the changes done. This allows Crafty users to swap book.lrn files to be imported.
[D.4.5] What is bookc.bin? How do I use it?
Booksc.bin which you can download with Crafty is in fact no more than a ordinary books.bin file. It can be built using the command 'bookc create xxx.pgn 60'. It was built from the file start.pgn but after removal of unsound , especially gambit lines to ensure that a more suitable book can be built against other computers.
[D.4.6] Why does Crafty play the same opening over and over again against other Chess engines?
For Winboard version beyond 4.0.7 , whenever a engine match is played locally, Winboard will send the 'computer' command. This is supposed to 'alert' the engine that it is playing another computer. In Crafty's case, it will automatically overwrite your settings to play in a more cautious style. One of the changes is that book width is set to minimum value and book random is set to zero, and this will cause Crafty to always play the same 'best' opening move. Against another engine [or in a mirror match against itself] that has little randomness in opening play ,this will lead to the same games being repeated over and over again. Apparently a few other engines like Dorky do something similar when the computer command is set.
Fortunately, from 4.2.3 onwards, you can over-ride this by preventing Winboard from sending the Computer Command by adding /firstComputerString ' or /secondcomputerstring ' to your Winboard.ini file.
Other GUIs don't send the computer command, so this might lead to the opposite problem where Crafty plays with a extremely wide book, including unsound openings.To correct this, you can manually set the book values, or add computer in the crafty.rc file.
[D.4.7] How do I weaken Crafty?
Crafty is a really strong program and you may want to 'dumb' it down. Depending on how strong you are you may need to do a bit of experimenting to get Crafty to play at a level you are comfortable at.
The main idea is to study crafty.doc carefully to see which parameters you can change in crafty.rc
Here are some possibilities
- Turn off opening book , endgame tablebases (if you have them) and/or reduce size of hash tables.
- In the crafty.rc file, do either 1 of the 3
- Set SD = X ,where x is the search depth Crafty will reach.
- Set SN = X ,where x is the maximum number of nodes crafty will search. - Set this too low [say 150], and Crafty will declare a stalemate! This occurs when the position is too complicated and Crafty cannot get a score for the 1st depth after searching 150 nodes.
- Set ST = X ,where x is the time crafty will spend per move. - Set it to values as low as 0.1
- Switch off extensions and null move.(from a posting by Dr Hyatt to CCC at 07/10/01)
- Check the 'extension' command in crafty.doc. You can use this to tone down the search extensions and reduce its tactical acuity. You can set them to zero, which will definitely weaken the tactical part of the search.
- You can tone down (or even disable) the null-move search. You can try sel=2/3 (the default) then sel=2/2, sel=1/1, and finally sel=0/0 which will turn null-move off. This will further reduce the search depth and overall strength.
- Check the 'evaluation' command and start cutting the 'weights' down. They default to 100, so reducing these reduces the influence of 'knowledge' in the search. IE reducing the pawn evaluation weight to 25 will reduce the effective-ness of pawn structure analysis to 1/4 of its original 'smarts'.
If you have problems adjusting the strengths downwards, you might want to try a weaker Winboard engine. See Section A.7 .
[D.4.8] When I run the annotateh command no diagrams are displayed.
You will need to download the bitmaps, bitmaps_tar.gz from ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/common/, unzip the files and copy the whole bitmaps directory into the same directory as the Crafty executables.
[D.4.9] How do I get Crafty to stop generating Log files and the game.00x files?
Putting the line log=off in the crafty.rc file will stop the log files from being generated. But there is no way to stop the game.001 etc files from being generated.
[D.5] Francesa
[D.5.1] General overview
Francesa is another strong free Winboard program by Tom King. I have found that Francesa is not a good Blitzer but it plays well in Time controls of X moves in Y minutes. Versions 0.80 [including all MAD versions] and above can use incremental time controls, but the author mentions that the time management is still 'crude' and can be improved upon.
[D.5.2] What is MAD?
MAD is probably Francesa's answer to the aggressive Rebel Tiger. MAD contains more knowledge than the normal Francesa but is slower as well. Tom King has indicated that the normal Francesa is probably stronger in short time controls, but MAD might be better in longer time controls and/or faster machines. Download both Mad and Francesa here.
[D.5.3] How do I adjust the size of the transposition Table
You can't. They are fixed, I believe at the time when they are compiled.
Play Free Chessmaster 9000
[D.5.4] Francesa stops moving after the first game?
Francesa needs to be 'refreshed' after each game. Merely resetting doesn't work. This can be accomplished by adding the/xreuse command if Francesa is the first engine and/xreuse2 if Francesa is the second engine.
This holds true as well if you are adding the /mg command.
Mad 0.7 no longer has this flaw.
Windows 10 Chessmaster 9000
[D.7] Knightcap
[D.7.1] General overview
The author of Knightcap is Andrew Tridgell. Knightcap is unusual among Winboard programs in that it has no opening book. Knightcap learns rapidly as well, the more Knightcap plays the stronger it gets. Dann Corbit has managed to get a version ported for Window users, however the port is not working perfectly, and there may be problems with the learning.
[D.7.2] How do I set up Knightcap?
Setting up Knightcap is not easy. Here are the steps
- Download Knightcap.zip from Dann Corbit's website.
- Extract coeffs.dat, and knightcap.exe.
- Get a copy of the latest CygWin1.dll file and copy that to your Windows/system directory. Make sure that you have the latest copy of cygwin1.dll
- For Win95/98 users create a c:/tmp directory [assuming Windows is in c:]
- Run ipc-daemon -i [included in knightcap.zip] . One easy way is to set up a shortcut.
- Alter the Winboard ini file as usual but add the command line options -N -X .
- Run Winboard.
[D.8] Little Goliath
[D.8.1] General overview
Little Goliath is written by Michael Borgstädt. Goliath has a reputation for being a extremely fast and tactical engine. It even solves some test suites faster than Fritz! Recent versions, are no longer as fast. A opening book generator is available as well. Download both the program and the opening book generator from the author's website.
Goliath Light (Chessbase versions) can be downloaded from Chessbase
Versions 3.6 and above are available only in UCI mode.
[D.8.2] What is the difference between the Winboard version of Little Goliath 3.0 and the one available at Chessbase in the 'Young Talents' CD?
There is essentially no difference between Goliath 3.0 and the Chessbase Native version of Goliath available for sale on 'Young Talents' CD, except for the fact t1hat the latter supports endgame tablebases.You can find the latest Chessbase Native Goliath Light 1.5 at Chessbase. Seems to be removed now. Similarly the Winboard version Little Goliath 3.5 is almost exactly the same as Goliath Light 1.5 .
Also note, that the version 2.9a was actually released after version 3.0. In fact, 2.9 and 3.0 versions are actually slightly difference 'lines' , the former is optimised for speed and is strongest at Blitz, while the later is supposed to do better with longer time limits.
[11-01-02] There is also a new Goliath Blitz 1.0 (also Winboard compatible) is available free for Chess Academy 2000 registered users. Goliath is the reigning Blitz World computer champion. [14-03-02]Free UCI version Little Goliath 3.5b is available. Versions 3.6 and above are currently only UCI.
[D.8.3] Little Goliath resigns immediately, when it has lost the prior game when using the /mg command. What should I do?
Running Winboard with:
C:WinboardWinboard /mg X/-reuse /-reuse2
where X= no of games should solve the problem.
[D.8.4] Goliath is not using it's opening book?
First check that you have turned the opening book on in Goliath.ini. Secondly, if you are using the new Goliath 3.0, you should be aware that the opening book names have changed since 2.9a. They need to be named Lgbook.dat ,Lgbook.ind for version 3.0 instead of book.datand book.ind respectively in the older versions. The format doesn't appear to be changed though, so all you need to do is the rename the file names.
[D.9] SOS
[D.9.1] General overview
The author of SOS is Rudolf Huber. SOS is a another Strong engine and it won the title of the best Amateur program in 2000. The latest Winboard SOS version is 11/99 [Nov 1999]. A beta version of March 2000, might exist but it was never released to the public. Instead the latest available version is a Chessbase Native version sold under the 'Young Talents' CD. Also the package Shredder 5.0 by Millennium 2000 also offers a UCI version of SOS, which presumably is a newer version than the Winboard version.
Lastly, a free UCI only version of SOS is available with Arena.
The free Winboard version of SOS uses a fixed Hash of 20 Mb and can be downloaded at WBEC .
[D.9.2] Help! SOS 10/99 or SOS 11/99 refuse to work!
First check that you have a copy of cgywin1.dll. If it still doesn't work, try using SOS 11/99 or 10/99 respectively. Either one or both should work.
Note, SOS 10/99 does not appear to support endgame tablebases unlike SOS 11/99. [Unconfirmed]
[D.9.3] Help! SOS refuses to run when i upgraded to Winboard 4.2.1 and above!
From Winboard 4.2.0 (a beta version) onwards, a new Winboard protocol is used. In theory, older Chess engines that did not support the newer protocol should run just as well, but for some reason SOS totally failed to work. From 4.2.1 onwards a new command /firstProtocolVersion=1 was introduced. For SOS to work , i have this line in my Winboard.ini file:
'SOS10 c:chessengTb' /firstProtocolVersion=1 /fd=c:chessengSOS10
[D.9.4] Help! SOS refuses to run in Chessbase/CM8000!
Because of some particular problems in SOS requires the use of inbetween by Odd Gunnar Malin.
. The instructions are as follows5. Using SOS1199.exe with Fritz 6
The engines folder for Fritz is after a normal installation located at: C:Program filesChessbaseEngines
- Download the Winboard adapter from Chessbase’s web site and put it in the engine folder for Fritz, and rename it to sos.eng
- Make a new sub-folder in the engines folder and give it the name sos.
- Copy the Sos.exe file (11/99) to this new folder and rename it to sos1199.exe
- Copy InBetween.exe to this new folder and rename it to sos.exe
- Make a new text file and add the following text to it:
[Parameter] CommandLine =
Author= Rudolf Huber
Engine= SOS 11.99
Debug = False
LogFile = False
[Support]
AnalyzeMode = False
PonderMode = False
CastleAndEP = False
EvaluationWhite = FalseSave the file in sos sub folder and give it the name sos.init
- Make new text file and add the following lines to it:
[InBetween] CommandLine := sos1199.exe
Priority := low[Client2Server] xboard := xboardnnewnlevel 0 5 0
fritz :=
reset :=Save the file in your sos sub-folder with the name InBetween.ini
Taken from the Inbetweenandengine.txt file
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