Trial of new ICS

[hgm]

I am on the air again with the server, and plan stay so until tomorrow morning (= 2:00 EST). This time I also provided a bot (Fairy-Max) on a computer that does not switch itself off after the keyboard has not been used for 30 min. So I hope it will run all knight.

I also fixed the bug in WinBoard that rejected ICS castling moves in Knightmate, so this variant can now also played against the Fairy-Max bot without the danger of crashing it. You would have to download the corrected version if you don't want to crash yourself, though!

To play Knightmate, use

match <opponent> 5 3 u knightmate 1

To play Gothic Chess, use

match <opponent> 5 3 u gothic 1

The Fairy-Max bot does run on a 1GHz CPU with slow memory, so don't expect too much! It is provided mainly for killing time if there is no Human opponent. Of course, if you are not the only person on the server, you are encouraged to 'observe' games, especially knightmate and gothic games, to test if that works too. Don't challenge 'admin', as that is me, and I will not be behind the keyboard most of the time.

[hgm]

OK, tonight I will leave the server running for another trial. It is still at:

http://80.100.28.169

I will leave on Fairy-Max, this time it should not be logged out because of the idle timeout. Apart from variant normal, you can now play:

match <opponent> 5 3 u knightmate
match <opponent> 5 3 u gothic 1
match <opponent> 5 3 u capablanca capablanca
match <opponent> 5 3 u capablanca bird
match <opponent> 5 3 u capablanca carrera
match <opponent> 5 3 u capablanca embassy

The latter 4 are new, and are different setups of Capablanca Chess. (You will need the WinBoard that is adapted to the ICS protocol with variable board size, which can be obtained from http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/ICSclient.zip , in order to play these variants.)

[Will Singleton]

Can't figure out how to logon. Do I modify the winboard.ini file with the url? Doesn't work for me.

[hgm]

winboard -ics -icshost 80.100.28.169 -icshelper timeseal

should do it. If you want to log in with an engine

winboard -ics -icshost 80.100.28.169 -icshelper timeseal -zp -fcp <engine.exe> -fd <engine_directory> -autoKibitz

Most of these options are mot saved in the winboard.ini. So you could put them there, and it would work, but only as long as you kept -saveSettingsOnExit off. The first time it saved, you would lose them. So it is better to have a batch file or a shortcut to call WinBoard with these options on the command line (or, if the command line gets too long, use an indirection file: winboard @special.ini)

Everything is exactly the same as on FICS, except that you have to use my IP number in stead of freechess.org in the ICS host field. You could also type the IP number in the startu dialog, or add it in the /icsNames option in the winboard.ini (which is saved), so you can select it in the startup dialog:

/icsNames={chessclub.com /icsport=5000 /icshelper=timestamp
freechess.org /icsport=5000 /icshelper=timeseal
80.100.28.169 /icsport=5000 /icshelper=timeseal
global.chessparlor.com /icsport=6000 /icshelper=timeseal
chessanytime.com /icsport=5000
chess.net /icsport=5000
zics.org /icsport=5000
jogo.cex.org.br /icsport=5000
ajedrez.cec.uchile.cl /icsport=5000
fly.cc.fer.hr /icsport=7890
freechess.nl /icsport=5000 /icshelper=timeseal
jeu.echecs.com /icsport=5000
chess.unix-ag.uni-kl.de /icsport=5000 /icshelper=timeseal
chess.mds.mdh.se /icsport=5000
}

I guess I should have done this myself in the winboard.ini file I distribute with the ICSclient download, but it just occurred to me now.

[Will Singleton]

Ok, I found that I had to copy timeseal over to the new winboard folder, that was the problem. I tried a couple of normal games, seems to work well.

[hgm]

OK, thanks for testing. Any kind of testing is helpful. I have discovered that time forfeits do not result in an automatic loss. I am not sure if this is something I have to configure as admin, or if it is a bug in the server. I can hardly imagine it is a bug I introduced, I only hacked the move generator...

Timeseal and timestamp were indeed missing from the download of WinBoard 4.3.14 executable package, for the simple reason that I did notknow that they were needed. I will correct that in the release of 4.3.15. (Teh ICSclient download that contains the WinBoard 4.3.15 executable supporting the extended ICS protocol already includes them.)In fact we are working on releasing a bundled executable package, the "WinBoard Gold Pack", which encompasses a completely pre-installed tree with all important support programs (e.g. Polyglot, PSWBTM a WB and an UCI engine). This will certainly also include timeseal.exe and timestamp.exe.

[krazyken]

you'll want to add -autoflag to the setup of your client I believe. See "help flag" for more info.

[hgm]

OK, thanks. I was not aware that on an ICS you had to claim yourself, and that WinBoard does this for you. Indeed the "auto flag" box was not ticked in the options menu, of the WinBoard running the Fairy-Max bot.

Well, fortunately nothing to debug in the server, then!

[TonyJH]

H.G.,
I experimented with your ICS today. I noticed that players should type "set tell 1" to be able to accept challenges/tells from other unregistered guests.

I can use this command to successfully play capablanca games between TJchess and FairyMax:
match FairyMax 5 3 u capablanca capablanca

However, TJchess will not accept challenges from other players if they use the command:
match TJchess 5 3 u capablanca capablanca

The other player gets this error message:
"TJchess tells you: This computer can't play [normal], only capablanca"

I am using this command line:
winboard.exe -ics -icshost 80.100.28.169 -icshelper timeseal -zp -fcp TJchess10x8.exe -boardSize middling -zippyVariants "capablanca"

I also tried some other values for the zippyVariants parameter such as "normal,capablanca" and others.

TJchess10x8 reports that it supports capablanca in the protover 2 info. Could I have something set up wrong, or could this be a bug in WinBoard_F? I think I'm using the latest WinBoard_F (from ICSclient.zip).

[hgm]

It must be a WinBoard matter, because it is WinBoard that decides if the challenge is accepted or not. The ICS just delivers the challenge.

As it seems to work for Fairy-Max, though, using exactly the same WinBoard version, it must have something to do with the settings. I am using the option -zippyVariants="normal,gothic,knightmate,capablanca" in the WinBoard command line, while Fairy-Max has amongst its features feature variants="normal,knightmate,capablanca,gothic,...".

From what you say, it seems that the challenge is delivered to TJchess as 'normal', in stead of 'capablanca', after which it justly complains. Can you send me the winboard.debug for a case where this occurs? It seems you are doing all the correct things, exactly as I do with Fairy-Max, so that it fails to work is very mysterious.