On-line engine blitz tourney September

[hgm]

The monthly on-line engine blitz tourney for September will take place on:

Saturday September 19, 3pm Boston time (21:00 Amsterdam time)

To connect:

winboard -zp -ics -icshost winboard.nl -icshelper timeseal -fcp ENGINE.exe -fd ENGINEFOLDER -autoKibitz

(for UCI engines, add -fUCI)

[brtzsnr]

Is there any client that can run in text-mode only and doesn't require a GUI?

[Joost Buijs]

Did you already make a decision about allowing engines on low level hardware besides the ones on high end hardware?

[Joost Buijs]

Is there any client that can run in text-mode only and doesn't require a GUI?

There is something called ICSDrone, this is for the Winboard/xboard protocol only.
You can probably use it for UCI by adding Polyglot or UCI2WB into the mix.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/icsdrone/

[hgm]

Well, as far as I am concerned we could allow such participation this time as a try-out. It is always difficult to argue about the good or bad of something that has never been tried...

[Joost Buijs]

Well, as far as I am concerned we could allow such participation this time as a try-out. It is always difficult to argue about the good or bad of something that has never been tried...

Ok, I will add my engine on an old Intel Atom, which has about 1/20th of the speed of my regular hardware.
I guess it will be something like 300 Elo weaker.

[Henk]

Does this tourney also has a B or C category. Or does the system already make that engines with low rating play against engines with low rating. If Skippers opponents play far much better, games are not that interesting.

[hgm]

Yes, the Swiss system tries to pair against opponents with equal points, so that except for the first few games that need to create the initial differences you will meet opponents of near-equal strength. But for that to work well needs many participants. If we have 9 rounds and only 18 participants, it cannot be avoided that the number last also has to play against an opponnet from the top half.

[D Sceviour]

I have never tried it. What is necessary? Is there a special addition called zippy? Is a password necessary? What is the best interface or is Winboard prerequisite? Is there a debug chat window?

[Henk]

Yes, the Swiss system tries to pair against opponents with equal points, so that except for the first few games that need to create the initial differences you will meet opponents of near-equal strength. But for that to work well needs many participants. If we have 9 rounds and only 18 participants, it cannot be avoided that the number last also has to play against an opponnet from the top half.

Isn't it possible or easy to (very fast) simulate the first games or set the initial differences to rating differences. Of course if a top engine has a bad bug this will fail too.