best free GUI?

[Richard Allbert]

I've tried each of the later "beta" versions that came out, and have always had problems, either with illegal moves, or engines not working, under the same conditions as using the original Arena 1.1.

I think there are a few testers who use the original 1.1 as a preference.

I haven't tested the latest version much (1.99beta 5?), I downloaded it a few weeks ago, loaded a couple of test engines I use as Lime's opponents, and had Illegal Move errors straight away. So I uninstalled it and carried on with Winboard

Richard

[hgm]

I don't see this point of testing with an external book and have all engines use that same book. Seems to me that this is fully equivalent to randomly picking an opening line from that book, and use the position at the end of that line as a starting point for the game. And that is of course something that WinBoard could do without problem. Just generate a PGN file containing random booklines, let WinBoard feed them to the engines through /loadPositionFile, and let the engines play from there...

[hgm]

Well, the WinBoard package (WinBoard, PSWBTM, Polyglot), of course! That can do it all.

No, you can't play Dark Chess.

Seriously i will try to convince you or Matthias to put support for this amazing variant and maybe write an engine for it.
But that(my try to convince you ) will come in some days.....

You will

A) ((try to convince us to support it) and (write an engine for it))

or

B) try to convince us to ((support it) and (write an engine for it))

???

Supporting it in the GUI would not be a big deal, as far as I could see. In fact it would not so much be a different variant to the GUI, as a different display mode (intermediate between normal and blindfold).

It is playing it that gives you the head-ache. I don't suppose this is one of the variants Dabbaba can play?

But seriously: would you not want of a GUI for Dark Chess that is displays also the information you could deduce from what happened in the past? I.e. if you discovered that there was a black Pawn on e6 by attacking e6, but now no longer attack e6, but have been attacking e5 all the time, and nothing appeared there... should the Pawn on e6 continue to be displayed? And what if you did not observe the e file at all for some time, but now move a pieces such that you attack e5, e4, e3, e2, e1, and there is no Pawn there. Should the Pawn on e6 re-appear?

[hgm]

(snip)
Just generate a PGN file containing random booklines, let WinBoard feed them to the engines through /loadPositionFile, and let the engines play from there...

I don't know how to create such a file. Even if I could, that file should be generated over and over again else all matches will have the same random choice of openings.
Something I miss (apart from mental capabilities)?

Just play as many 1-second games as you need, with an engine (in selfplay) using that book, e.g. through Polyglot, and exits or forfeits on time as soon as as it has to move itself (e.g. Akiba). And then use the PGN of that match.

[Graham Banks]

I think there are a few testers who use the original 1.1 as a preference.

Richard

Yep - I recommend using Arena 1.1 for serious testing. The later betas have bugs.

[George Tsavdaris]

Well, the WinBoard package (WinBoard, PSWBTM, Polyglot), of course! That can do it all.

No, you can't play Dark Chess.

Seriously i will try to convince you or Matthias to put support for this amazing variant and maybe write an engine for it.
But that(my try to convince you ) will come in some days.....

You will

A) ((try to convince us to support it) and (write an engine for it))
or
B) try to convince us to ((support it) and (write an engine for it))
???

B). I always say that i will finish learning C but i just keep my laziness in higher priority.

In fact my goal of learning C is nothing more, for a start, than creating:
•A Chess program with the ideas i have in mind.
•An Atomic Chess program(for Atomic Chess without check rule as this makes game MUCH more interesting) for playing the game in a superb way much stronger than Opossum and TrojanKnight(Sjaak). I used to play this game in one of the highest levels before 3-4 years so i had that time many ideas about that also.
•A Dark Chess program although i understand this would be a difficult task to make anything decent.

Supporting it in the GUI would not be a big deal, as far as I could see. In fact it would not so much be a different variant to the GUI, as a different display mode (intermediate between normal and blindfold).

OK since we opened this discussion, here is how the best version of Dark Chess i know is(it's very simple actually):

Dark Chess follows all normal Chess rules except that:

•The squares the player see must follow at least one of the above conditions:
-A player's piece stands on that square.
-The player can move* a piece to that square. This means that he can see empty squares that he can move* to and he can see an opponent's piece that he can capture*.
-The square is (directly in front of one of player's pawns) OR (2 squares in front if the Pawn is on its starting square) OR (it is an adjacent forward diagonal from one of player's pawns).
-The square is an adjacent right or left to a Pawn and an opponent Pawn has moved there directly in its previous move coming from its starting square(this rule is simply to letting the player know that he can capture en-passant).

*"Can move" and "can capture" means and since there is no check in this game that a movement or capture that exposes own King to check is a legal move.

•There is no check or checkmate. Each player can freely move his King to a position where the opponent can capture it.
•There is no 50-move rule, no 3-fold repetition and no stalemate.
•In case 2 bare Kings left in the board if after 3 moves there is no capture then game ends as a draw.
•The player who captures the opponent's king wins the game.

Here is a small example:

Here is what white sees in the starting position.
Obviously he has full information about the board position even he doesn't see it.


Here is what white sees after playing 1.Nf3
Obviously black doesn't know that white has played 1.Nf3


Here is again what white sees after black's first move too.
Obviously black was careless enough and played 1...g5 so we can now see the Pawn on g5.


Here is what white sees after he played 2.Nxg5
Black does NOT see the white Knight on g5.
But he can understand that one white piece captured his g5-Pawn as he can't see the g5 Pawn any more.

But seriously: would you not want of a GUI for Dark Chess that is displays also the information you could deduce from what happened in the past?

No this is not necessary to do.
Except that it would provide more information than one should have playing this game, it's difficult to find a decent way of doing this.
It would be interesting for analysis of Dark games, but not for game play.

I.e. if you discovered that there was a black Pawn on e6 by attacking e6, but now no longer attack e6, but have been attacking e5 all the time, and nothing appeared there... should the Pawn on e6 continue to be displayed?

As i've said for normal play of course not. It should NOT been displayed.

[Kirk]

I really like SCID (Database). A lot of improvements from the original. Chess Database programs are expensive and this has a lot to offer for free

http://prolinux.free.fr/scid/ (has a Windows compile too)

Screen shots: http://prolinux.free.fr/scid/scid_newfe ... inesupport

There is also Chessbase Light

http://www.chessbase.com/download/cblight2007/

[Dann Corbit]

Which free GUI do you prefer and why?
Arena is maybe the most famous but it exists a lot of other that I don't know very well.

For online play: Winboard/Xboard

For engine/engine contests and Epd analysis: Arena

For openings study and game preparation: Scid

I also like Jose, but it is not as good at database operations as Scid and the engine operations are inferior to both. However, I think it has the best *looking* GUI. So maybe it wins the beauty award.

I think I would probably like ChessAssistant Light best of all:
http://www.convekta.com/downloads.asp

Except that I already have the full-on commercial version so I don't use the light version.

[Dann Corbit]

Which free GUI do you prefer and why?

I currently prefer ChessGUI over Arena.

Wow. I better try it then.

[Dann Corbit]

I use Winboard.

I've had problems with all of the others - exception ChessGUI which I have used once.

I wrote my own "Tourney Manager" - a small program to make batch files according to setting in a config file, and run my tournaments this way, according to my own specifications.

I became sick of leaving four or five variants of Lime to test, only to look a day later and see a problem with Arena / Chessbase / etc had stopped the tournament.

Winboard itself is amazing - fast, and reliable, with masses of options.

That said, I used to use Arena for a long time. 1.1 is pretty good, the later versions not so good.

Richard

Why is Arena 1.1 better than next versions?

The later versions have oddball bugs (for instance, thematic tournaments fail under some setups -- I forget if it is EPD or PGN setup -- but the original works).