Author: Dave Gomboc
Date: 22:20:45 11/02/03
I've top-posted this because it's not in reply to any other message in particular. It strikes me as odd that CM9000 gets blame for not being able to auto-play in ChessBase's GUI. One could turn this around and point the finger at Fritz/Junior/et al because they cannot be autoplayed in CM9000's GUI. Both GUIs support an open protocol (in CM9000's case, Winboard, and in ChessBase's case, UCI). The problem is that neither of these products are designed in such a way that they can play each other. In fact, they may even be designed so that they cannot play each other. Issue #1 is that much commercial chess software is not interoperable by default. This criticism is not specific to a particular vendor. I understand that CM9000's proprietary protocol is only a slight adjustment from the public WinBoard protocol, which at least makes it possible to attempt to use it under Fritz/Junior/et al. However, when doing this, its book isn't usable, because the book software is built into CM9000's GUI. Similarly other programs (e.g. Fritz/Junior/etc.) also bundle opening book (and in some cases book learning) into the GUI rather than the engine. Issue #2 is that it is not the sole responsibility of the chess engine to determine the moves that are played. Again, this criticism is not specific to a particular vendor. If either of these issues were resolved, it would be possible to conduct CM9000-Fritz matches without encountering the difficulties being complained about vis-a-vis CM9000 being tested with a book made by a competitor. Computer vs. computer matches are evidently interesting to many enthusiasts in this area. Therefore, I don't think it is too much to ask vendors to make their software interoperable. It should be possible to write a third-party tournament/match-manager, using a basic interface disclosed by chess software manufacturers, that provides the board position to and retrieve played moves from commercial chess software, and to use that manager for SSDF testing. Therefore, I ask you to urge the makers of the chess software products you purchase to provide sufficient technical information that this "problem", which has appeared in many guises over the years, can be put to rest. Dave
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