Author: Drexel,Michael
Date: 09:01:46 11/03/03
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On November 03, 2003 at 04:28:54, macaroni wrote: >doesn't work for me either :( Fritz on Internet Chess Club with no serial ports HOWTO Updated 04/07/03 - now using Ebbi's new Winboard232d adapter and Fritz 8 GUI. This HOWTO will tell you how to get any Chessbase engine to play on ICC. The good news is that there are no serial ports or null-modem cables required. This works with the Fritz 6, 7, or 8 interfaces. Each of them have their quirks. With Fritz 6, you will need an update from Chessbase that supports named pipes. It will also only work with Windows 2000 or XP and not Windows 95/98/Me because they don't support named pipes. Steps: 1. Download Winboard232d.zip from here. 2. Download Winboard 4.2.6 from Tim Mann's chess page. 3. Install Winboard. 4. Unzip Winboard232d.exe into the Winboard directory (This will probably be C:\Program Files\Winboard). 5. Open your favorite text editor and create a file in the Winboard directory called wb.cmd with the following line: winboard.exe -zp -ics -fcp "Winboard232d.exe -pipe" -icshost chessclub.com -icshelper timestamp (Note: You could also create a windows shortcut with the same command and click on it if you're afraid of command lines, but I won't promote such activities :) See Valheru's page for a screenshot) 7. Now you're ready to go. Fire up Fritz - choose your favorite engine, hash sizes, opening books, etc. 8. In Fritz, go to Game, levels and set the time control to what you want. Hint: Use an increment and set Fritz to one second less than the ICC increment. Also use at least 5 seconds of Human bonus increment in Fritz. For instance, if you want a 5, 5 game set it up like this: This will make up for the lag and lack of time sync in the auto232 protocol, and also make sure Fritz never stops playing because he thinks your opponent is out of time. (Update 04/07/03 - the Human Bonus is only needed with the Fritz 7 GUI. Neither Fritz 6 nor Fritz 8 will stop playing if your opponent runs out of time. Setting your increment is lower than the ICC increment may not be necessary with Fritz 6, but it is necessary on Fritz 7 and 8 as they suffer from lag) 9. Open a Command Prompt (DOS prompt) and change to the Winboard directory. (This is done by typing "cd\Program files\Winboard" for the command line challenged among you. If you don't know how to open a command prompt, I'm afraid I can't help you :) Keep this window open, you will use it in a moment. 10. Go to tools, connect hardware. Highlight Auto-232 1.0 at the top, then check the box beside "Server name" and uncheck the box beside "Unload after autoplay". It should look like this: Click OK. (For the technical among you, it puts a dot (.) in for server name which is how it indicates localhost for a named pipe. Whenever you create a named pipe session the server just uses dot as it's server name, then the client that is attaching to it can use either a dot (.) if it is running on the same name or a hostname or IP address if it is on another machine.) 10. In your command prompt from step 8, type "wb". This will fire up Winboard for you and connect to ICS. Go ahead and login. If you want it to automatically login, create a file called ics.ini with your username and password in it and put it in the Winboard directory. 11. UPDATE 03/12/03 If you're using the Fritz 6 GUI at this point Fritz will immediately start a two-computer match and you don't have to do the step below. Just clik Close to the technical messages and you are ready to play. 12. Finally, go to file, new two computer match. Fritz may warn you about not having tablebases installed or not being complete, or not having an opening book selected. This is a good sign. Say yes you'd like to continue anyways until you get to the dialog below: Uncheck "Master" and "This game only" but leave "Opponent save" checked. You can put whatever you want in Opponent and Title. Click OK. (If Fritz pops up a dialog like we saw in step 9 then it has lost the auto232 connection. Go back to step 9 and start over. But first open task manager and kill any spare Winboard232d.exe processes hanging around) 13. Fritz should pop up a dialog box that says "Technical Messages" just click "Close". 14. Now Fritz is ready to play. Challenge whoever you want on ICC and watch him go. Issues / additional notes: 1 Now using Ebbi's adapter it is working flawlessly so far! Thanks Ebbi! 2.Update 04/07/02. When using Chessbase programs other than Shredder, I've now settled on Fritz 8. You may ask why, since Fritz 6 doesn't have the lag problems as bad. Well sometimes using the Fritz 6 GUI my engine simply stops playing and I lose on time. I'm not sure if the engine or the GUI is to blame, but it doesn't happen with Fritz 8. Your mileage may vary. I would avoid Fritz 7; it crashes when trying to resume games and will stop playing if your opponent runs out of time. You'll need a patch for Fritz 6 to support named pipes which you can get from Valheru's page. Hint: If you have to use Fritz7 and get disconnected and if you have another chess engine like ChessTiger laying around you could resume the game with the other engine. And thanks to Remi Coulom, Tim Mann, and the Arena authors (for their auto232 documentation). Arena also supports Auto232 using named pipes but not for ICC play. Questions / comments / rants to strops_2000@yahoo.com or strops on ICC
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