On Using WinBoard for Shatranj Tournaments

[sscg13]

In the near future, I will attempt to make a preliminary shatranj engine rating list. 1 min, 1 sec increment, using double back row randomization (I consider it valid if on both sides the alfil / ferz placements are consistent with the original colors). I am using WinBoard for this since old shatranj engines have decided to insist on 50 move rule, which is incompatible with cutechess expecting a 70 move rule. (Furthermore, I can modify the source code of newer open-source engines to adhere to 50 move rule).

I have an issue where WinBoard 4.8.0 decided to read my epd file and discard the en passant/castling fields of the FEN, leading it to send something like "... w 0 1" which confuses all engines that were expecting "... w - - 0 1" instead. Is there a way this can be worked around?

[hgm]

Shatranj has no e.p. capture or castling. I am afraid this would require modification of WinBoard to think it has. WinBoard has a commandline option -first/secondEngineUsesNonComplientCastlingRights (or something like that) which could be used to override the castling field in FENs. But this was intended for engines that did not support Shredder FEN in Chess960. I don't think it would add a castling field if WinBoard does not try to add one.

It might be possible to use InBetween as an engine-GUI adapter, to perform a substitution for traffic in the engine direction. Like replacing " w " by " - - w " etc.

[sscg13]

I managed to modify the UCI2WB adapter to fix the issue. Now I am curious about how to run a swiss tournament with 2 games/pairing? (In the tournament file, modifying "defaultMatchGames" has no effect.

(If this is not feasible, I am fine with making manual pairings.)