Author: John Brownlee
Date: 07:29:26 04/16/05
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Hi Gregory,
I can provide some other factors which might affect time management under Arena.
1) I always try to configure every engine with Pondering = OFF.
Some engines have bugs in pondering mode. I have fewer time forfeits under
Arena with pondering off.
2) I set the Priority for Arena to Low Priority. It seemed that when I used
High Priority, my computer spent too much time on chess and it was very
slow to respond in other applications (email, web surfing, etc.)
3) I changed my Windows XP setting for automatic updates from
automatic download and install to
automatic download but manual install.
Sometimes the Automatic install was rebooting my PC
during a chess tournament.
4) I checked some of my larger PGN files today and discovered some
time forfeits that occurred with some engines.
All Time Controls are 40/20 min repeating (40 moves every 20 minutes).
Unfortunately I detected 1 of 73 tournament games played by Prodeo WB
forfeited on time (to Thinker) after 34 plies. The game was very even
with no advantage for either side.
I have noticed other time forfeits under Arena that seem to correlate with
certain engines. I do not have all the numbers on the percentage of games
forfeited for each engine listed, but maybe this list will provide a clue
to engine and GUI programmers to solve the time forfeit issue.
Pharaon - time forfeit 2 times in 141 games:
Pharaon (W) - Zappa (B) 0 - 1 Time Forfeit after 82 plies
Crafty (W) - Pharaon (B) 1 - 0 Time Forfeit after 1 ply
Somehow Arena thought that Pharaon was a human,
and not a program.
SOS - time forfeit 2 times in 140 games:
SOS (W) - Crafty (B) 0 - 1 Time Forfeit after 4 plies
Zappa (W) - SOS (B) 1 - 0 Time Forfeit after 13 plies
Notice the opponents in both cases were Crafty and Zappa.
Maybe that is significant (or maybe not).
Also I had frequent time forfeits by Atlas, Aldebaran,
and less frequently by Celes
and 1 time forfeit by Naum in 73 games. Naum was slightly ahead in the game.
Score was Arasan (W) = -0.54 Naum (B) = +0.89. Ply count = 67.
I hope some of the items listed above may be of help to you and others.
Regards,
John
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