Help needed: Gauntlet with the black pieces

[pferd]

I want to run a gauntlet from this position(white to move) with stockfish always playing the black pieces and a couple of engines trying to defend with the white pieces. I am not interested in the reverse games with stockfish playing white.

[D] r1b1k1r1/ppp1qppp/2p2n2/2b1p3/4P3/3P1N1P/PPP2PP1/RNBQ1RK1 w q - 1 8

I tried setting up the gauntlet with xboard and cutechess-gui and Stockfish ends up playing with the white pieces.

Is there a gui out there which allows me to select Stockfish playing with the black pieces every game? Linux is prefered, but I could boot into Windows if necessary.
Kind regards

[Nordlandia]

Hermann Krause:

Fritz gui suppor this option.



Uncheck "alternate colours" for locking engine as black.

A request on cutechess github page asks for this option.

[Guenther]

...

Is there a gui out there which allows me to select Stockfish playing with the black pieces every game? Linux is prefered, but I could boot into Windows if necessary.
Kind regards

xboard surely can do this. I come back soon with the command (don't remember it now from memory).

[Guenther]

https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/manual/xboard.pdf

page 32 chapter 4.1 engine options:

Code: Select all

-sameColorGames n
Automatically runs an n-game match between two chess engines,  without alternating colors.
Otherwise the same applies as for the *-matchGames* option, over which it takes precedence if both are specified.
(See there.)  Default:  0 (do not run a match).

Not sure how to combine it with the gauntlet setting. I would probably set it up via batch commands. Actually I never needed this so far.

[hgm]

...

Is there a gui out there which allows me to select Stockfish playing with the black pieces every game? Linux is prefered, but I could boot into Windows if necessary.
Kind regards

xboard surely can do this. I come back soon with the command (don't remember it now from memory).

The required option is -sameColorGames N . It is only available as a command-line option, because there didn't seem to be any mainstream interest in it. But if you start XBoard with this option on the command line (or WinBoard with this option as 'Additional option'), it will suppress color alternation in any match or tournament, and play N games per pairing (possibly overruling the number of games specified in the Tournament Options dialog).

[pferd]

Thanks for your suggestions. I will try them over the next couple of days and will report back if I run into problems.

[Colin-G]

In linux, xboard can be launched from the command line.
If you use the parameter "-mg 1" and set "-scp" to use the polyglot executable with a Stockfish.ini file that includes all your Stockfish option settings and "-fcp" set to the test program executable, one game will be played with Stockfish as Black.
You can set the start position with "-lpf" parameter.
By using multiple lines in a bash script with different "-fcp" values, Stockfish will play one game as Black against each of the test programs.