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Subject: Re: Fritz6 and Winboard Engines

Author: Dieter Buerssner

Date: 17:06:19 11/18/00

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On November 18, 2000 at 12:16:44, Hermano Ecuadoriano wrote:

>Has the hashtable-clearing outrage been fixed yet? [In the Wb Adapter]

Engines, that are not specially prepared for the WB adapter, will show this
problem. Nevertheless, to me it seems rather easy for the engine author to avoid
this problem, when he is aware of the technical documentation of
chessbase about he WB adapter.

But there are many more problems in this environment. I.e. implementing learning
features under the CB WB adapter is IMO an order of magnitute more difficult,
than under the real WB of Tim Mann. It is doable. But doing this, cost much more
time for me, than to make my engine work under WB.

Then there is the pondering issue. Engines, that don't implement the CB specific
ponder command, will have a disadvantage. But even engines, that implemented
this (I am only aware of Gandalf and Yace, that implemented this) will have a
disadvantage. The CB interface "lies" to the engine. It will make the engine
search with ponder mode set and unset. With ponder mode set, probalby most
enginse will allocate more time. This is (almost?) impossible under CB. Even if
permanent brain is set, the WB adapter will tell the engine somtimes, that it
shoud search, and no PB is set.

Also, saving killer moves from one search to the other is much more complicated
under CB, than under any other GUI.

Sometimes, an WB engine may hang under CB without having a chance to do
something against it. My engine Yace will hang, when it detected a 3-fold
reption in the early game. It will send "1/2-1/2" to CB, (as defined in the WB
protocol). But CB doesn't seem to respect this, and waits ...

You may ask yourself, why I post this here. The reason is, that bug reports to
CB are mostly ignored. I am not a customer of CB. Perhaps a few customers of CB
will complain, and things might get better.

Regards,

Dieter "Why are they making everything so hard?" Bürßner





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