pgn games and autogame

[adams161]

hi,

I posted this on the winboard forum but i wanted to post it here as well, not just to get more info but to get the word out about autogame for those of you who use icc and might value its logging to pgn of observed games.

I am the author of the winboard engine pulsar but this post is actualy about a blitzin plugin called autogame http://www.adam16mr.org/autogame13-beta.html

Autogame will now log any games you observe on icc to pgn after they finish if you catch the result. It has one limitiation though. Icc doesnt provide the eco code. I was wondering if there were pgn utilities that can make a pgn file good as far as eco codes go. Let say i mark eco as "*" and the utility would change it if appropriate to C33.

Also does anyone know of any code that i can use that might assign an eco, the program is written in c++. With position search you wont need an eco to find games of an opening in the databaseof game you observed but its nice to have.

thanks
Mike

[jdart]

I have an ECO coding program .. it is not 100% accurate but good enough for me. It uses hashing to match positions to ECO. If you like I can send to you.

Chessbase can do this too. But it's not free.

--Jon

[adams161]

i am definitly interested. but my interest is not just for me. Autogame is a program that is released and i need a way for people who use it to get eco codes. Eathier if i could incorporate the source into teh autogame program ( if its c++ ) or have a download link to it ( i'm happy to give credit as well as link to an external site if you want the traffice to come back to you ) I am looking at other means to get the eco but in the end teh final solution might be more than one possiblity useable. i'm considering having an option to make autogame type eco on each game it observes, which would create spam output for the user though, on half move 11 or when first observing if allready past that. But that option would be just an option so another method is needed as well.

email adam16mr at chessclub dot com

Mike

[jdart]

See http://www.arasanchess.org/arasan_source.zip for the source code to my ECO recognizer (file eco.cpp). I have a little wrapper around this that makes it a command-line utility but the guts of it are in eco.cpp and its associated files.

There is a data file (ecodata.h) that is generated from the "eco" file in the book directory by the program called "makeeco" (source for this is included). So if you edit "eco" and re-generate ecodata.h, you can add new positions to the eco recognizer (this isn't all that flexible because they have to be compiled in, but obviously you could also read in/construct the ECO table at runtime).

I'm probably ok authorizing use of this code in another program but I might want details on that program's license etc.

--Jon

[adams161]

hi,

autogame has no explicit liscence. I simply compile it, put it on my web site, and people download it for free. Autogame is not neccesarily a new program. the first version came out in 2004 and was posted at www.adam16mr.org/projects.html I stopped work on it for awhile and did release the code of autogame version 7 in maybe 2006. Again no explicit liscence. Thats been my pattern. When i'm working on something I often like to hold onto the code. If i put it on the shelf for while, i have twice done code releases to give others a chance to work on it. I did a code release of my pulsar atomic engine also back in 2006. Part of me would like to release more code and part of me feels guilty that it needs to be cleaned up more ( god forbid an employer looks at it and says this guy cant write code! but i've been more open to releasing code to specific people who have an interest in the program and express a need for the code. For example www.wildchess.org ( a great web site that databases wild games played on fics ) runs my pulsar engine on their web site to enable an ask pulsar feature that gives an evaluate at a given position in an atomic game. I released the code to them and helped them get it working on their site.

I'd have to see if i would be able to use the eco code in the program or maybe i'd just want it as a stand alone, perhaps linking to your site if you have a binary, and of course i'm willing to conform to conditions that you state for use of the program/code, wether this means credit is given, it continues to remain a free download, etc, but for now i am largely staying away from liscences since i'm told you have some protection even with no liscence.

Mike

[adams161]

I have fully open sourced the autogame plugin for blitzin at http://www.adam16mr.org/autogame13-beta.html

It can do many things such as log all chat but of interest to this forum is its pgn logging of observed games on icc. It will automaticly log any games you observe to pgn after they complete ( you need not catch the beginning of the game). Currently missing is eco support ( but other programs can supply an eco to the pgn file and postion search is another way around this). Also missing at this time is suport for accurately logging games that involve a set board like fischer random.

I do not believe there is a program that will automaticly log to pgn any games you observe on icc. Most people on icc log their own games or manyally do savepgn of games they watch ( which is limited to 50 games every 12 hours do to icc server limits on bandwith). Autogame does not have a 50 game limit in 12 hours. It takes no bandwith as it only peeks at the information that blitizn uses to create the move list and track the game.

I was asked to supply this funtion to autogame by a 14 year old helper on icc. He wanted to do follow *o on icc and create a log file of the top one minute games being played so he can study them. I think he wants to become a great one minute player

Anyway its all open source. Also of interest and this will work in conjuunction with autogame is my observer1 plugin. It will automate the following of your gnotify list. http://www.adam16mr.org/projects.html

with observer1 you can autoamate the watching of games by notifying groups like gm or im or specific player and automaticly follow at one time x number of games. This allows you to constantly watch say 2 or 3 high rated games. It will also allow filtering such as no unrated , no standard, watch only a certain time control or watch games that are at least say 3 minutes and not faster. With autogame you will have the benefit of a log of all the games you are automaticly following with observer1.

observer1 source is also released at http://www.adam16mr.org/projects.html


Mike

[Kirill Kryukov]

Hi Mike. PGN Extract is an open source program that can add ECO codes into a PGN database. We use it at CCRL to perform opening classification of our game databases.

Best,
Kirill