I remember that Winboard allows the editing of (most) .bin books. Are there other/better ways to edit such books? How does one create a .bin book in the first place?
Thanks,
Carl
Re: Best .bin book editor/creator?
Posted: Sat May 09, 2020 12:13 pm
by carldaman
Lately I've made a habit of answering my own posts.
Thanks to Steve Maughan's video, linked below, I was able to create my own bin book with polyglot and edit it using ScidvsPC.
The process was not entirely clean, as I've had to add some lines back through the GUI, which were left out by the polyglot pgn merge.
Thanks, Ed. I kind of knew about those, but I really wanted to create a really small, shallow book for Nezh. Not just for variety's sake, but to play the first couple of moves rather quickly so the opponent would not be tempted to abort the game while waiting for the first move. I tried to leave out openings that Nezh does not favor on its own.
carldaman wrote: ↑Sun May 10, 2020 3:27 am
to play the first couple of moves rather quickly so the opponent would not be tempted to abort the game while waiting for the first move.
Ah, yes, this problem.
It's about entertainment for the person playing the engine. What I've never liked is that one is "taken" out of the game when after a series of quick moves (from book) the engine suddenly goes into a long think and continues to play its moves much slower. Only engines play like that!
I just had this idea where the first move from book is played instantly, the next takes 1 second, the next takes 2 seconds, and so on, so the engine gradually plays slower and slower so when the engine is out of book it isn't noticeable and just appears like the next step in the series.
Probably differing by an amount depending on time control, though some "outsmarter" that plays a random move to get the engine out of book early would break the illusion.
I don't think I've seen someone implementing this before, getting rid of the abrupt change in pace between instant book moves and a long think, which can be unpleasant.
