Author: Heiko Mikala
Date: 15:48:39 12/15/98
Go up one level in this thread
On December 14, 1998 at 20:22:12, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On December 13, 1998 at 20:13:47, Heiko Mikala wrote: > >>[...] >>After your engine has finished calculating and output a move , Fritz (or >>any other engine) is on move and after that there comes again the command- >>sequence "new" "hard" "easy" "force" and so on. > >Surely you are kidding? If not this is the absolute grossest piece of >programming garbage I have seen/heard of. IE Crafty carries things from >search to search through the hash tables, the killer move tables, the >history counts, and so forth. "new" resets everything, including any idea >of how much time is left in the time control and everything. It's absolutely the same for my own engine. Regarding the time control see below... >This is going to significantly weaken Crafty, and probably any other program >that gets treated this way by the interface. IE I would discount any engine >vs engine games played with this sort of nonsensical interface... I agree with you when speaking about fast blitz / lightning games. I don't think it's that bad for longer time controls. But it surely hurts, no doubt! >>3. THIS IS IMPORTANT: I think this is the reason, why many engines don't >> work correctly in Fritz concerning time-management: >> Your engine has to implement not only the "level 0 1 0" form of the >> level command, but also the "level 0 0:42 0" form! This form is not >> being used by Winboard, but it is documented in the engine-inf file! >> I think that many programmers didn't implement this version of level >> command, because it's never sent by Winboard (just like me..), but >> Fritz uses this command to tell your engine how much time is left! >> It uses it instead of the "time" command, and it's logical that it >> uses it, because after a "new" command a "level" has to be set... > >this is also stupid. IE when I predict a move correctly, I expect to save >time, or when I move quickly for an obvious recapture, I expect to get that >time to use later. Apparently my time control logic is *also* screwed up by >a poor interface programmer? No, not really. You are always told how much time is left before each move, just as in Winboard. It's only a different command, "level" instead of "time". I'm sure you're using the Winboard "time" info to correct your internal timing too. At least I do. You don't lose any time, you get all the time that you save. Does this make a big difference for Crafty? >It's bad enough that the database stuff is messed with What do you mean? >, and that engines get stuck with the "fritz book"... You can still use your own, see below... >>4. You don't need an opening book. Using the above commands and the >>force >> mode, Fritz sends your engine opening moves taken from Fritz opening >> book (tree). This means, that you can utilize Fritz opening book, and >> that you can play matches between different engines using the same >> book. Find out, how good your engine is with a good book! > >this is also stupid. IE In tournament mode, I search the book moves, but never >get the chance in this interface... From my perspective, I call this "totally >broken..." You can use your engines own opening book by disabling Fritz book in the book-options dialog for your engine. I did this, and my engine used it's own book instead of Fritz book. (although at the moment I prefer Fritz book ;-) >>The positive things: >>Man, this is fun! This is so much fun!! It's really unbelievable, a dream >>come true. I always hoped that Chessbase would make their engine-interface >>public, so that I could be able to use the Fritz-interface. Now it's >>possible! > >Sort of like saying "Boy an elephant is a neat pet, but look at all of this >crap in my yard!" > >:) Oh, come on ;-) No, really, it's really much fun! I don't know if you own Fritz or have ever tried it. I'm sure that everyone who tried it fell in love with all it's features and possibilites and the professional tools in it. Now imagine using all this stuff in conjunction with your own engine. It's really great. > >Actually I'm thinking of making mine *not* work, in light of the above >nonsense.. :) > Please don't. There's no reason for you to do that anyway, because Crafty is available as a real Fritz-engine, we don't have to use the Winboard engine. By the way, in all tournaments I ran in Fritz 5.32, Crafty 16.1 finished second behind Fritz in front of all other Winboard engines. It still works, even in Fritz! ;-) Heiko.
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