Author: Mike Byrne
Date: 17:31:31 06/07/03
Go up one level in this thread
On June 07, 2003 at 20:07:32, Lyn Harper wrote:
> In CM9K you can import winboard engines, and I did just that. I've got
>Crafty
>and Yace to run in CM. Oddly, I even got Ruffian into CM, which I thought was a
>UCI engine, but it accepted it ok.
> My question: Will Arena take the CM engine? It's a piece of cake to download
>and install a winboard engine into Arena, but when I tried to add CM the engine
>would'nt start, saying the file I stored in the path was not found. I tried
>several times with no luck.
> You might ask why I want CM in Arena. Well, I'm sort of partial to the Arena
>interface, and I heard CM plays best outside it's own interface.
> Perhaps if you type here the full path you would use?
> Thanks
> Lyn
That's not a short answer - you may start here.
http://www.aarontay.per.sg/Winboard/Winboard4.html#[D.3]
[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 familar 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 disenables the OPK check
[28-02-03] There is a patch posted that dis-enables the OPK check for
Chessmaster 9000 so you can avoid the steps below if you apply the patch.2
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 not totally useless.
There 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 folder
and rename it to "TheKing.exe". The crafty.rc file is not necessary.
Start Chessmaster8000/9000 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.
Some parameters and what they mean (taken from Odd Gunnar Malin's excellent
work)Xboard - Tells the engine to set itself in Xboard mode.
cm_parm - parameter1=value parameter2=value ...
Some possible parameters with theirs default value.
default ; set the engine to default.
opp=100 ; Opponents pawn
opn=100 ; Opponents knight
opb=100 ; Opponents bishop
opr=100 ; Opponents rook
opq=100 ; Opponents queen
opk=0 ; Opponents king
myp=100 ; Kings pawn
myn=100 ; Kings knight
myb=100 ; Kings bishop
myr=100 ; Kings rook
myq=100 ; Kings queen
myk=0 ; Kings king
cc=100 ; Control of centre
mob=100 ; Mobility
ks=100 ; King safety
pp=100 ; Passed pawn
pw=100 ; Pawn weakness
cfd=0 ; Contempt for draw
sop=100 ; Strength of ply
avd=0 ; Attacker/defender
rnd=0 ; Randomness
sel=6 ; Selective search (Note for Chessmaster 9000 the
default is now 9)
md=999 ; Max search depth
tts=1048576 ; Hash size
ttu=1 ; Hash unit
ana=0 ; Unknown (CM don’t use this)
Comment:
Max search depth (md)
- CM set this to 99 but it don't seem to any changes to the strength
Material/Position
- This value is sent by adjusting the material (opX and myX) and the
positional values (cc, mob, ks, pp and pw).
Hash settings (tts and ttu)
- When hash=0 tts=4096, ttu=0
- When hash=512Kb tts=524288, ttu=1
- When hash=1Mb tts=1048576, ttu=2
- When hash=2Mb tts=2097152, ttu=3
- When hash=4Mb tts=4194304, ttu=4
- When hash=8Mb tts=8388608, ttu=5
- When hash=16Mb tts=16777216, ttu=6
- When hash=32Mb tts=33554432, ttu=7
- When hash=64Mb tts=67108864, ttu=8
Additional parameters for Chessmaster 9000..Instead of cc,mob,ks,pp,pw, you get
:
mycc=100 ; My Control of centre mymob=100 ; My
Mobility myks=100 ; My King safety mypp=100 ; My
Passed pawn mypw=100 ; My Pawn weakness opcc=100
; Opponent's Control of centre opmob=100 ; Opponent's Mobility
opks=100 ; Opponent's King safety oppp=100 ;
Opponent's Passed pawn oppw=100 ; Opponet's Pawn weakness
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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="xboard\npost \nnew\ncm_parm
tts=67108864 ttu=8\ncm_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="xboard\npost
\nnew\ncm_parm tts=67108864 ttu=8\ncm_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=99\n /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 compatiability 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, altough 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 seperating 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
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:\chessmaster9000\theking.exe
[Client2Server] xboard := xboard\npost\nnew\ncm_parm opk=561252\ncm_parm
ana=1\ncm_parm default\ncm_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=99\ncm_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 additonal 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 familar 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 default\ncm_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|600
Also, 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:\chessmaster8000\Theking.exe
Replace InitString=cm_parm default\ncm_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.
[10-02-2002] Here is a Visual Basic script or
http://www.computerschach.de/freeware/ 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.
Here's his generous offer.
It's enough if your readers give me the EXACT paths (incl. possible spaces
between) to their folders
Chessmaster 8000 or Chessmaster 9000
Fritz 7 (or another UCI compatible ChessBase GUI) or Shredder5, Schredder 6
Classic or Arena
ChessBase\Engines.
With these prepared files you can start the CM8000 or 9000 engine "The King
3.12d" or "The King 3.23d" (as UCI engine with the Wb2Uci adapter of Odd Gunnar
Malin) in Fritz 7 very simply - including the possibility to switch between some
special CM settings (like CM_default, CM_Fun, CM8777_Kleinert, CM_Schuele,
CM_Pillen) in an easy way.
[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:\WinBoard\winboard.exe
/zp /ics /icshost=freechess.org /icshelper=timeseal /fcp="theking"
/fd="d:\chessmaster 8000" /firstInitString="xboard\npost\nnew\ncm_parm
opk=270080\ncm_parm tts=8388608" /firstProtocolVersion=1 This is actually no
different from any other Winboard engine.
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!
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?
If you export Chessmaster [The King] to either Winboard or Arena , 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 provide opening books to engines, Winboard and
Arena currently don'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. The King
of course needs to send the OPK number as a command line parimeter.
There is a way around it for using The King with bookThinker when used in Arena
but not in Winboard.
In brief, when used in Arena, you can use Bookthinker to provide a opening book
to The King, but not in Winboard. 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.
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 parimeter setting of myn=100.13333% etc. What parimeter should we send?
Currently I suspect you drop the fraction.. There is also a furthur complication
if you change the material/Positional setting where a postive value will
increase/decrease all the postional 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 depedent 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 painstakenly 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.
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Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.