Author: John Merlino
Date: 11:52:28 05/22/01
Go up one level in this thread
On May 21, 2001 at 20:24:33, Dieter Buerssner wrote: >On May 21, 2001 at 14:06:37, John Merlino wrote: > >>On May 21, 2001 at 12:06:51, Carlos Pesce wrote: >> >>>Hi, John! >>>In the new patch, CM Gui will send "hard" and "easy" to the winboard engines? >>>I think that its much important..maybe you can implement it. > >>The current state of the patch does not do this, as Chessmaster assumes that the >>engine's default operation is what the user wants. If another version of the >>patch is required (in other words, if any bugs are found in the current >>version), then this might be added. >> >>However, you can send any command that you want to any imported engine via the >>Engine Monitor windows. > >First, I want to say that I do not own CM 8000. However I have seen quite a few >log files of my engine running under thi GUI as a WB engine. > >Also, from quite a few messages, I get the feeling, that CM 8000 is very popular >for running tournaments for WB-engines. But, I guess now there is a problem. >Some WB engines will default to ponder on, and others will default to ponder >off. Now many problems can arise. I think, it will be not too obvious to all >users, which engines default to what. The tournament results can be very tilted, >because one engine can get 75% of the CPU on single CPU systems, while the >opponent gets only 25%. > >For Yace, I decided to make ponder off the default. Perhaps this was the wrong >decision, but I have some reasons to do this - it is less than one minute work >for me, to default for ponder on. > >I think, the Xboard protocoll described by Tim Mann is not very clear about this >issue. However, all the logs I have seen under different GUIs show all the same >behaviour. They either send hard or hard and easy. The only exception is CM, >and I think this is very unfortunate. > >Please also note, that your suggestion, to just send easy to turn ponder off is >not sufficient. In the WB protocol, easy is a toggle, while hard is a switch. >So, to turn ponder off, you have to send hard followed by easy. To me it seems >difficult, to explain all this to the "normal" user. A seleciton for permanent >brain on or off in the GUI looks much easier, when the GUI will send the right >commands to the engine afterwords. I cannot see, why you want to prefer to the >engine default. > >Regards, >Dieter The WB protocol seems pretty clear to me. Here's what it says: ---------- hard -- Turn on pondering (thinking on the opponent's time, also known as "permanent brain"). xboard will not make any assumption about what your default is for pondering or whether "new" affects this setting. easy -- Turn off pondering. ---------- Therefore, your statement to turn off pondering "you have to send hard followed by easy" doesn't seem to be true. According to the above, if pondering is on by default, you SHOULD only have to send "easy" to turn it off. Perhaps the standard implementation among engines assumes that what you have said is correct, but the protocol states otherwise. However, I have noticed that WinBoard does send "hard" automatically at the beginning of every game, and THEN sends "easy" if pondering has been turned off in the GUI. I don't know if it HAS to do it this way, though. Either way, if the patch needs to be tweaked further, I will make sure that, at the very least, "hard" is sent automatically. If possible, I will add something in the GUI to allow the user to select whether pondering is on or off for that personality. jm
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