On-line engine blitz tourney September

[Ras]

Yeah, I guess I got it working! Bjoern's command line has "openseal" as timeseal, so I googled that, found a C source file under http://uz.sns.it/~m2/openseal.c , compiled it, fixed some compiler warnings and used that. Together with user name and password in .icsrc, the login works even with server name instead of the IP, and I can see users!

[Joost Buijs]

Try the timeseal from the HGM Capablanca repo, that one should work.

That doesn't work, probably because it's the decoder - I need the matching other side, i.e. the encoder.

As far as I know the encoder and the decoder are the same, there are also re-engineered decoders that seem to be working.

https://github.com/fbergo/zseal
http://uz.sns.it/~m2/openseal.c

I haven't tried, but it seems one of these two is working, and I think it is zseal.

[Joost Buijs]

Yeah, I guess I got it working! Bjoern's command line has "openseal" as timeseal, so I googled that, found a C source file under http://uz.sns.it/~m2/openseal.c , compiled it, fixed some compiler warnings and used that. Together with user name and password in .icsrc, the login works even with server name instead of the IP, and I can see users!

Our messages crossed.

[Ras]

https://github.com/fbergo/zseal
http://uz.sns.it/~m2/openseal.c
I haven't tried, but it seems one of these two is working, and I think it is zseal.

I've also tested with zseal now, and it works, so both of them look fine.
Thanks all for your help!

[Joost Buijs]

https://github.com/fbergo/zseal
http://uz.sns.it/~m2/openseal.c
I haven't tried, but it seems one of these two is working, and I think it is zseal.

I've also tested with zseal now, and it works, so both of them look fine.
Thanks all for your help!

You're welcome!

It is a bit strange that timeseal from the FICS website doesn't work, I wonder what the difference is.

[hgm]

Using xboard on Linux to connect to a Chess Server
+ avoid broken Pipe Error

Took me quite some time to figure it out, but this is how I got it working

Just replace "Feligres"/"Feligres-0094.o" etc. with your engine.

1. Install Polyglot

2. Set-up Ini-Files

2a) in the file ~/.xboardrc

in the section:
-firstChessProgramNames {fairymax
"Fruit 2.1" -fcp fruit -fUCI
"Feligres" -fcp /home/Engines/Feligres-0094.o -fUCI
"Crafty" -fcp crafty
"GNU Chess" -fcp gnuchess
}

add << "Feligres" -fcp /home/Engines/Feligres-0094.o -fUCI >>

2b) create inifile: ~/.polyglot/Feligres.ini

[PolyGlot]
EngineCommand=/home/Engines/Feligres-0094.o
EngineDir=/home/Engines


3. Connect to Server

xboard -zp -ics -icshost nightmare-chess.nl -fe Feligres -autoKibitz -fUCI -icshelper "/home/Engines/openseal.o" -keepAlive 1

Hope this helps...

Rather than hacking the settings files, you could just use the Load 1st Engine menu dialog to browse to your engine binary, select it, tick the UCI checkbox and click OK. That would do all the above for you.

Some othe points: XBoard communicates with the ICS through an 'ICS helper'; it launches that as a separate process, connected through pipes. I think the default ICS helper is telnet, but to compensate for lag you would need timeseal, and specify that to XBoard with the -icshelper command-line argument. XBoard will take care of calling timeseal with the proper arguments to connect to the ICS, as specified by the -icshost and -icsport commands.

AFAIK it should not be a problem to pass the domain name to timeseal. Under Windows it certainly isn't. There are a number of defective Linux timeseals around, though.

If you get complaints during login about non-alphabetic characters, this almost certainly means that timeseal is encrypting, but the ICS is not decrypting. This can be because the ICS was not made aware by timeseal that the messages are encrypted. Or they are encrypted erroneously. It used to be that decryption was done in the ICS by a separate process (so that the algorithm could be kept secret while the ICS code was GPL'ed), and this decryption program could sometimes crash, after which the ICS treated all input without decryption. With the latest version this shoud not be possible anymore, as I wrote my own decryptor, and integrated it in the ICS code.

[chrisw]

It was a fun tournament, at the end there was an issue with an adjourned game between Nemorino and rpiRofchade, but nothing serious.

Belfish was (again) a little bit too strong and ended at the first place with 8.5 points.
Nemorino ended second with 7 points.
Five engines ended on a shared thirth place with 5.5 points.

NightmareX had a problem with the endgame table-bases, they were loaded, but in several endgames the engine suddenly played weird moves and it didn't see the table-bases at all. Nothing had changed since the August tournament, sometimes strange things happen.

Code: Select all

:Tourney Players: Round 9 of 9 
:
:     Name              Rating Score Perfrm Upset  Results 
:     ----------------- ------ ----- ------ ------ ------- 
:  1 +BelFish           [2973]  8.5  [3180] [   0] +14w +08w +10b +03w =02b +13w +04b +09w +12b 
:  2 +Nemorino          [2838]  7.0  [2991] [ 186] +21w +07w =06b +16b =01w =04b +13b =03w +05w 
:  3 +rofChade          [2970]  5.5  [2849] [   0] +15b +09w =05w -01b -13w +16b +08w =02b =07w 
:  4 +Schooner          [2921]  5.5  [2861] [   0] =19b =12w +11b +05w =10b =02w -01w =07b +09b 
:  5 +rpiRofChade       [2834]  5.5  [2828] [ 119] +17w +11w =03b -04b +16w =12b =07w +13w -02b 
:  6 +NightmareX        [2833]  5.5  [2773] [  38] +18w =16b =02w =07w =08b +10w -09b =12b +14w 
:  7 -Marvin            [2733]  5.5  [2786] [ 398] +25w -02b +17w =06b =12w +11w =05b =04w =03b 
:  8 +IgelRB            [2814]  5.0  [2729] [  27] +22w -01b +20w -12b =06w +15b -03b +19w =13b
:  9 +Goldbar           [2762]  5.0  [2736] [  71] +23w -03b +21w -13b +15w +14b +06w -01b -04w 
: 10 +Amoeba            [2739]  5.0  [2757] [ 285] +24b +13w -01w +19b =04w -06b =12w =14w =11b 
: 11 -WaDuuttie         [2638]  5.0  [2549] [  50] +26w -05b -04w +21b +20w -07b =19b +16w =10w 
: 12 +ArasanX           [2905]  4.5  [2723] [   8] -16w =04b +22b +08w =07b =05w =10b =06w -01w 
: 13 -WaspX             [2850]  4.5  [2760] [ 120] +20w -10b +15w +09w +03b -01b -02w -05b =08w 
: 14 +Arminius          [2621]  4.5  [2552] [  59] -01b -19w +18b +17w +22b -09w +20w =10b -06b 
: 15 +atomNightmare     [2566]  4.5  [2485] [   0] -03w +23b -13b +18w -09b -08w =22w +25b +20w 
: 16 +CoronaVirusChess  [2476]  4.5  [2611] [ 658] +12b =06w +19b -02w -05b -03w +17b -11b +26w
: 17 +Nemeton           [2329]  4.5  [2361] [  99] -05b +26w -07b -14b +25w +18b -16w +23w =19b 
: 18 +Barbarossa        [2270]  4.5  [2276] [   0] -06b =22w -14w -15b +23b -17w +25w +26b +24b 
: 19 +atomGoldbar       [2527]  4.0  [2513] [ 346] =04w +14b -16w -10w =21b +24b =11w -08b =17w 
: 20 +rpiArminius       [2348]  4.0  [2435] [   0] -13b +24w -08b +23w -11b +21w -14b +22w -15b 
: 21 -RookieMonster     [2336]  4.0  [2295] [  95] -02b +25w -09b -11w =19w -20b +26b +24w =23b 
: 22 +mhouppin          [2189]  4.0  [2323] [ 228] -08b =18b -12w +24b -14w +26w =15b -20b +25w 
: 23 +feligres          [2158]  3.5  [2177] [  89] -09b -15w +26b -20b -18w +25b +24w -17b =21w 
: 24 +Isa               [2151]  2.0  [2022] [   0] -10w -20b +25b -22w +26b -19w -23b -21b -18w
: 25 -Skiull            [2007]  1.0  [1951] [   0] -07b -21b -24w +26w -17b -23w -18b -15w -22b 
: 26 -Skipper           [1630]  0.0  [1883] [   0] -11b -17b -23w -25b -24w -22b -21w -18w -16b 
:
:     Average Rating    2554.5 

Of course, giving "helpful" suggestions to do more work to people who already do useful stuff for free can end up as a terrible pain.

But!

What would be really cool, would be a PGN download of all the games. Currently (AFAIK) to get game listings, one has to ask them to be emailed one-by-one which would involve typing 26x25 command lines in Winboard interface and then processing 26x25 emails, where the games aren't actually in PGN format and need re-coding to get them into a PGN viewer.

Pretty please, can we have a PGN dump too?

[Bjoern]

Rather than hacking the settings files, you could just use the Load 1st Engine menu dialog to browse to your engine binary, select it, tick the UCI checkbox and click OK. That would do all the above for you.

Sorry, did not work for me, so I had to do the ugly part by hand