Is Stockfish's (1.7.1 of course) detection/utilization of polyglot books influenced in any way by the GUI being used? I can't imagine why it would be happening, but with Arena, Stockfish seems to utilize its polyglot book less than half of the time I play with it (this seems true whether or not I have Stockfish set to use Arena's book). But when I use Aquarium (the Rybka 3 era Aquarium, not the new one), Stockfish uses its book every game.
I realize Stockfish's Readme file states it has "experimental" support for polyglot books, which might (maybe?) explain the behavior. But I thought I would ask for advice just in case there is some small detail in Arena's options I might be overlooking and inadvertently causing it myself. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
And just in case Stockfish's authors are reading, thank you very much for freely sharing your programs with everyone! Chess enthusiasts are lucky that three such generous and talented people enjoy programming as a hobby. I'm very anxious for what's to come.
Well, I don't think they've touched PolyGlot support at all since Glaurung, so it probably is still experimental. But it's always worked for me (all 3 times I've had it use its book ).
Actually Arena and Aquarium are the only GUI's I have, but since you asked I downloaded the Tarrasch GUI (I'm assuming since book support is engine-based in this situation, I can't choose a "wrong" GUI to test with right?), and it seemed the book wasn't working here either.
As a side note, this obviously this isn't a big problem for me since it seems to work quite consistently in Aquarium (although I don't know why I'd get different behavior depending on the GUI). I just thought I'd ask for advice in case there's some common oversight I'm ignoring while using Arena.
Justin Sherron wrote:Actually Arena and Aquarium are the only GUI's I have, but since you asked I downloaded the Tarrasch GUI (I'm assuming since book support is engine-based in this situation, I can't choose a "wrong" GUI to test with right?), and it seemed the book wasn't working here either.
As a side note, this obviously this isn't a big problem for me since it seems to work quite consistently in Aquarium (although I don't know why I'd get different behavior depending on the GUI). I just thought I'd ask for advice in case there's some common oversight I'm ignoring while using Arena.
In theory, the GUI shouldn't matter. Different GUIs handle UCI differently, so maybe that has something to do with it. I guess.
Well, I guess just make sure the OwnBook option is checked. This is rather unsatisfying.
If you're referring to checking the OwnBook option in the configuration window for the engine, it actually doesn't show up there in my Arena (maybe I should take that as a hint from the GUI ), although I believe it is true by default, and the correct book file is selected. For the longest time I thought it simply didn't work in Arena, but then last week Stockfish surprised me by spontaneously using its own book. Now the book either works or doesn't each time the program is started, seemingly randomly.....well, as far as I can tell anyway.
Justin Sherron wrote:If you're referring to checking the OwnBook option in the configuration window for the engine, it actually doesn't show up there in my Arena (maybe I should take that as a hint from the GUI ), although I believe it is true by default, and the correct book file is selected. For the longest time I thought it simply didn't work in Arena, but then last week Stockfish surprised me by spontaneously using its own book. Now the book either works or doesn't each time the program is started, seemingly randomly.....well, as far as I can tell anyway.
Okay, that's just weird.
EDIT: This might be the problem: Arena has a common setting for engines to use their own book. In Engines->Manage go to the UCI tab and uncheck "Common 'own book' setting". Now Stockfish's OwnBook option shows up. Try enabling/disabling it from there. No idea why, but perhaps Stockfish doesn't always understand when Arena uses the global OwnBook setting. Just a theory.
aha! Un-checking "common 'own book' setting" does cause the UCI option to display again in the configuration window.
...unfortunately the behavior hasn't been resolved though
Oh well, I'll stick with Aquarium if I feel compelled to use its own book. I do appreciate the effort to help though, thanks.
I'm very anxious for what's to come.
).
), although I believe it is true by default, and the correct book file is selected. For the longest time I thought it simply didn't work in Arena, but then last week Stockfish surprised me by spontaneously using its own book. Now the book either works or doesn't each time the program is started, seemingly randomly.....well, as far as I can tell anyway.