Thinker with Ponder Off?

[Ovyron]

I'm been having problems playing Thinker with ponder off. Other engines do it automatically, but when the GUI tells Thinker to not ponder it just refuses. It is stealing 50% CPU of its opponent, so I wonder if someone knows how to set ponder off?

Thanks.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

I'm been having problems playing Thinker with ponder off. Other engines do it automatically, but when the GUI tells Thinker to not ponder it just refuses. It is stealing 50% CPU of its opponent, so I wonder if someone knows how to set ponder off?

Thanks.

Which GUI are you using,under Arena Thinker 5.1c doesn't ponder....

[Ovyron]

ChessPartner GUI. Setting options to Ponder off, running a tourney with ponder off or putting ponder=off on the ini isn't helping with Thinker 5.1C.

I guess I'll try a WB to UCI adapter (I remember I can set ponder off from there.)

Thank you.

[Ovyron]

WB2UCI solved the problem - I guess ChessPartner and Thinker didn't get along for some reason, but everything if fine now.

Also, Passive Thinker is not Passive at all, and I'm impressed.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

WB2UCI solved the problem - I guess ChessPartner and Thinker didn't get along for some reason, but everything if fine now.

Also, Passive Thinker is not Passive at all, and I'm impressed.

Good,use the Passive Thinker for eng-eng matches,the Active one is designed to play humans,but it will perform much worse against other chess engines....

[Ovyron]

Good,use the Passive Thinker for eng-eng matches,the Active one is designed to play humans,but it will perform much worse against other chess engines....

Thanks, but I think I'll test both versions. If the engine plays so differently, I think that Active Thinker deserves to be tested against engines just like Rybka Winfinder deserves to be tested against engines (Even though it's much weaker than Rybka 2.3.2a - I guess most people also don't test Winfinder, but the playing style is so different that I consider them different engines. I guess this is the case with Active Thinker, so I'll test the 2 Thinkers .)

[Dann Corbit]

Good,use the Passive Thinker for eng-eng matches,the Active one is designed to play humans,but it will perform much worse against other chess engines....

Thanks, but I think I'll test both versions. If the engine plays so differently, I think that Active Thinker deserves to be tested against engines just like Rybka Winfinder deserves to be tested against engines (Even though it's much weaker than Rybka 2.3.2a - I guess most people also don't test Winfinder, but the playing style is so different that I consider them different engines. I guess this is the case with Active Thinker, so I'll test the 2 Thinkers .)

Winfinder is not a chess engine. It (instead) is a tactical chess problem solver.

It works by changing the score for the best move seen so far by +1/2 pawn. That makes the searches run ludicrously fast (since it is very unlikely to improve over the actual best move found by search by 1/2 pawn) and so it is able to sometimes search very deeply and discover solutions that standard searches cannot see. But (due to the strange search behavior) it should not be used as an ordinary chess engine as that is not the intended purpose.

[Ovyron]

But (due to the strange search behavior) it should not be used as an ordinary chess engine as that is not the intended purpose.

Just like Active Thinker is not intended to be used against chess engines.

But my aim is to produce interesting games*, and in my opinion, the games produced by Rybka Winfinder are more interesting than the games produced by Rybka (For example, Winfinder may be losing but the opponent blunders and Winfinder is very fast in finding the best move and win while other engines would not find it and only draw, etc.)

I know what you mean, but the only way to have Winfinder's playing style in my games is to use it.

(* Not to get a exact rating for the engines, everyone else is doing that.)