matching 2 or more engines

[flok]

Hi,

I'd like to automatically match multiple chess engines (e.g. multiple versions of DBP) that understand either UCI or xboard and output a pgn file.
The natural choice would be something like xboard or arena but:
- it should run on linux
- it should run on command-line only as the system on which it will be done has no gui running

Anyone know of such a program? I googled of course but maybe I overlooked it but I did not find any.
Also did a quick hack to match two uci engines via pipes and a small program but then I realised that the matcher must find out by itself if it is checkmate as the engines won't tell you that.

regards

[mar]

cutechess-cli is what you're looking for

[jshriver]

xboard -fcp ./engine1 -fd /engine1/path -scp ./engine2 -sd /engine2/path -sgf games.pgn -mg 1000 -size small


2 engines, 1000 games, save to pgn.

[flok]

Joshua: unfortunately xboard requires a graphical environment.

Martin: thanks, will try!

[Sven]

Joshua: unfortunately xboard requires a graphical environment.

Have you tried the "-nogui" option?

Sven

[abulmo]

Joshua: unfortunately xboard requires a graphical environment.

Have you tried the "-nogui" option?

Code: Select all

$xboard -v
xboard version 4.7.1
$xboard -noGUI
Error: Can't open display: 

So the option -noGUI does not help much. It just prevents the moves to be displayed during a game, the clock to be updated, ... but xboard still needs a graphical environment to display its GUI.

[AlvaroBegue]

If you really want to use xboard for some reason, you can try to run a null X server, which looks like any other X server to a client, but which does nothing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xvfb

[Robert Pope]

cutechess-cli is what you're looking for

Is there anyone that regularly uses cutechess-cli in windows (sorry about the hijack). I was starting to look into it as a replacement for PSWBTM, but it keeps throwing errors (something like "option games has too many parameters").

I haven't been able to find useful documentation, beyond the man page for the command line options.

[Ferdy]

cutechess-cli is what you're looking for

Is there anyone that regularly uses cutechess-cli in windows (sorry about the hijack). I was starting to look into it as a replacement for PSWBTM, but it keeps throwing errors (something like "option games has too many parameters").

I haven't been able to find useful documentation, beyond the man page for the command line options.

Post your sample command line.

[Robert Pope]

cutechess-cli is what you're looking for

Is there anyone that regularly uses cutechess-cli in windows (sorry about the hijack). I was starting to look into it as a replacement for PSWBTM, but it keeps throwing errors (something like "option games has too many parameters").

I haven't been able to find useful documentation, beyond the man page for the command line options.

Post your sample command line.

C:\Games\chess\cutechess-cli>cutechess-cli -engine conf=8ball -engine conf=Beaches -engine conf=Damas -engine conf=Elf -engine conf=J.S.BAM -each tc=50/60 -repeat -openings file="C:\\games\\chess\\pswbtm\\pick21.pgn" -tournament gauntlet -debug -repeat -pgnout games.pgn -games 10
Warning: Invalid engine option: "ûrepeat"
Warning: Invalid or missing time control

C:\Games\chess\cutechess-cli>
C:\Games\chess\cutechess-cli>cutechess-cli -engine conf=8ball -engine conf=Beaches -engine conf=Damas -each tc=50/60 -games 8 -repeat -openings file="C:\\games\\chess\\pswbtm\\pick21.pgn" -tournament gauntlet -debug -repeat -concurrency 1 -pgnout games.pgn
Warning: Too many arguments for option "-games"

This was supposed to be an 8 or 10 game gauntlet tourney with a set of fixed openings, each opening played as white and black.