GothicChess, FRC, ChessGUI and the laziness of the community

[Alexander Schmidt]

Hi all,

for those who didn`t recognize yet: ChessGUI by Matthias Gemuh becomes better and better. I know, you are all satisfied with Fritz/Chessmaster/Winboard and Arena, but you should definately take a look on ChessGUI though it has very much functions and therefor still a little bit buggy and of course it is not as sexy as the others. But if there are more people are going to help with testing and bughunting ChessGUI will become a very nice GUI.

Why ChessGUI?

First all kind of engines are working without adapter: UCI, WB, ShredderFRC, ArenaFRC, 10x8, Gothic, Capablanca, Caparandom and so on. If you are interested in Chess960 or other variants, ChessGUI is a must. But also for normal chess it is good for testing and running tournaments. Great are the debugging options, all kind of communication is shown, just click through the different debug windows. And finally ChessGUI seems to be very stable, I never had engines hanging in the memory.

So give it a try

Alex

PS: Here is a little Gothic tournament (4+2, 128MB) for all who are interested:

Code: Select all

   1 Joker80 1.1.14w                     11.0     53.5000  - 01 11 11 11 11 11
   2 TSCP Gothic                          8.5     38.7500  10 - =0 01 11 11 11
   3 Smirf 1.7.4                          7.5     31.7500  00 =1 - 10 10 11 11
   4 fairy-Max 4.8 (t)                    6.0     25.0000  00 10 01 - 01 10 11
   5 ArcBishop80 1.00                     5.0     17.5000  00 00 01 10 - 01 11
   6 BigLion80 2.23x                      4.0     11.0000  00 00 00 01 10 - 11
   7 Chancellor 1.00d                     0.0      0.0000  00 00 00 00 00 00 -

[Matthias Gemuh]

... you are all satisfied with Fritz/Chessmaster/Winboard and Arena, ...

That is true. Nonetheless, I will soon continue with the development of ChessGUI .

Matthias.

[Spock]

Hi there,

Are you saying that ArenaFRC Winboard engines can play ShredderFRC UCI engines in engine matches under this GUI ?

[Alexander Schmidt]

Are you saying that ArenaFRC Winboard engines can play ShredderFRC UCI engines in engine matches under this GUI ?

Yes, all FRC engines are running in ChessGUI

Alex

[Spock]

Are you saying that ArenaFRC Winboard engines can play ShredderFRC UCI engines in engine matches under this GUI ?

Yes, all FRC engines are running in ChessGUI

Alex

If you want to run an FRC engine match between 2 engines, can the GUI choose random openings with switched sides ?

Or, can it use a pgn with say 50 opening positions and play 50 games with switched sides ? The problem there (I think) is that the ArenaFRC syntax and ShredderFRC syntax are different

[Philippe]

Do you plan to have ChessGui play at chess servers like Fics ?

[Matthias Gemuh]

Yes, all FRC engines are running in ChessGUI

I think JonnyFRC doesn't run in ChessGUI because of strange FRC castling. I may one day investigate this special case again.
Can't say whether LoopFRC runs.

Matthias.

[Matthias Gemuh]

Do you plan to have ChessGui play at chess servers like Fics ?

ChessGUI will only go online if a bunch of features work flawlessly offline.
Only Alex gives feedback, so development is stagnant. I lack the time to develop and test on same computer.

Matthias.

[Matthias Gemuh]

If you want to run an FRC engine match between 2 engines, can the GUI choose random openings with switched sides ?

Or, can it use a pgn with say 50 opening positions and play 50 games with switched sides ? The problem there (I think) is that the ArenaFRC syntax and ShredderFRC syntax are different

All this is implemented, but untested.

Matthias.

[Spock]

If you want to run an FRC engine match between 2 engines, can the GUI choose random openings with switched sides ?

Or, can it use a pgn with say 50 opening positions and play 50 games with switched sides ? The problem there (I think) is that the ArenaFRC syntax and ShredderFRC syntax are different

All this is implemented, but untested.

Matthias.

Thanks - well I will try to find the time to try it !!
The CCRL FRC list is currently limited to ShredderFRC UCI engines only, due to the compatibility issues with ShredderFRC and ArenaFRC. If there is a single environment where the two engines types can play each other, then the list can be extended dramatically