How do I make gnuchess really really dumb?

[chessdev]

Hi! I'm trying to get gnuchess to play really badly so it is a fun opponent for kids. Does anyone know which parameters would be best to set? Has anyone done this before?

I imagine we need to put depth at 1 (or zero?). And also set time? What about ponder? What else am I missing?

Thank you!!

[Greg Strong]

Hi! I'm trying to get gnuchess to play really badly so it is a fun opponent for kids. Does anyone know which parameters would be best to set? Has anyone done this before?

I imagine we need to put depth at 1 (or zero?). And also set time? What about ponder? What else am I missing?

Thank you!!

Ponder would have to be off. Time probably can't be short enough to limit it that way. I think fixed depth of 1 is your best bet. Can't make it "really, really" dumb by just setting options, though. Probably you'd need to change the code to make it randomly overlook moves ...

[jwes]

Have you looked at crafty? It has a skill option (needs to be compiled in) that I have read works pretty well.

[chessdev]

the problem is that i need it to run in java...

[Dirt]

I'd try setting the material evaluation for pawn, knight, bishop, rook, queen to 1, 2, 2, 2, 3.

[chessdev]

how do i set those in gnuchess?

[wgarvin]

how do i set those in gnuchess?

If you are compiling it yourself (you can get the source from here) then you could open up common.h and scroll down to this bit of code around line 256:

Code: Select all

/* Material values */
#define ValueP   100	
#define ValueN   350
#define ValueB   350
#define ValueR   550
#define ValueQ   1100
#define ValueK   2000

The values appear to be in centi-pawns. Its probably a bad idea to change the value of the pawn itself (ValueP). You might be able to change the other pieces though, maybe like this:

Code: Select all

/* Material values to PLAY BADLY */
#define ValueP   100	
#define ValueN   200
#define ValueB   200
#define ValueR   300
#define ValueQ   300
#define ValueK   2000

And then compile it in the normal fashion. For Windows, maybe you can use a mingw distribution of GCC to compile it; I'm not really sure.

[Dann Corbit]

Change the evaluation function so that it does absolutely nothing but wood count.

[Greg Strong]

the problem is that i need it to run in java...

Gnuchess isn't Java...

[Dirt]

the problem is that i need it to run in java... :)

Gnuchess isn't Java...

I thought that was strange too, but a Google search shows that someone made a port.