Any free GUI that shows 2nd best move

[Kohflote]

Hi all,

Is there a free GUI that will show and allow us to choose the 2nd best move of a chess engine?

Thank you,
Kah Huat
- from Singapore

[Dann Corbit]

Hi all,

Is there a free GUI that will show and allow us to choose the 2nd best move of a chess engine?

Thank you,
Kah Huat
- from Singapore

Under Arena, set multi-pv to whatever number you want (default is usually 1, but if you want to see 1st and 2nd best moves, set it to 2) and you will see first and second best moves during game play and analysis.

[swami]

Hi all,

Is there a free GUI that will show and allow us to choose the 2nd best move of a chess engine?

Thank you,
Kah Huat
- from Singapore

It's not free but Fritz does that. In Infinite analysis mode, It shows up not just 2 best moves, but the entire list altogether along with scores for each of the moves. And you can choose whichever variation you want. And all without slight bit of delay from the GUI.

If you want something free. Arena is excellent too!

[Bill Rogers]

I think you guys have misunderstood what he wants. He wants not only to see the second best move but to be able to make it play instead of the first best move.

[swami]

I think you guys have misunderstood what he wants. He wants not only to see the second best move but to be able to make it play instead of the first best move.

Nope.

Re-read what he has written. His exact words were:

"Is there a free GUI that will show and allow us to choose the 2nd best move of a chess engine?"

It exactly matches mine and (Dann's) suggestion as to using infinite analysis mode in Fritz. It will "show" and "allow us" to "choose" the 2nd best move (manually) and research through the variation more deeply.

[Kempelen]

Hi all,

Is there a free GUI that will show and allow us to choose the 2nd best move of a chess engine?

Thank you,
Kah Huat
- from Singapore

It's not free but Fritz does that. In Infinite analysis mode, It shows up not just 2 best moves, but the entire list altogether along with scores for each of the moves. And you can choose whichever variation you want. And all without slight bit of delay from the GUI.

If you want something free. Arena is excellent too!

Dont forget also you engines capables to show multipv..... there are only a few of them which can.

[hgm]

This is mainly something tht the engine decides. Most engines only calculate the best move (as this makes them nearly 2 times faster than showing the second-best move as well).

If an engine does calculate and print the second-best move, I guess most GUIs would show it. E.g. WinBoard / XBoard would show it in the engine-output window. If the engine supports analysis mode as well, you can set it for analyss, and if you think it has thought long enough, you can simply perform its second-best move on the board.

It would be eay enough to automate this, and have a GUI always play the second-best move of a multi-PV engine aftr a certain time, but this is not very useful: frequently the second-best mve is ridiculously much worse than the best move (e.g. if we can recapture a Queen in ony one way, after the opponent trades Queens).

[Kohflote]

Hi all,

Thank you so much for your kind help and valuable info.

Best Regards,
Kah Huat
- from Singapore