For H.G.Muller about Winboard and variants with Stockfish.

[George Tsavdaris]

Hi after a long time, but i have to ask some questions about Winboard and how to run Stockfish with variants in Winboard.

I'm talking about this Stockfish:
https://github.com/niklasf/Stockfish/releases

And about this Winboard:
http://hgm.nubati.net/WinBoard-AA.zip


So my question is how to set Stockfish for playing Atomic Chess, 3 Checks Chess, Crazyhouse etc....

I'm trying the following lines:

"UCI2WB -var 3check stockfish.exe D:\WinBoard\Stockfish" -fd "." -variant 3check -firstOptions "UCI_Variant=threecheck"

"UCI2WB -var 3check stockfish.exe" -fd "D:\WinBoard\Stockfish" -variant 3check -firstOptions "UCI_Variant=threecheck"

And they work.
•But are they completely equivalent?
•Also can i replace for example the threecheck with 3check ?
In order to have everywhere 3check in the 3 places.

If not, what are all the variants names with their corresponding correct one's to put in the "UCI_Variant=" place?
For example for atomic i should put in all 3 places the work atomic or something elase in the "UCI_Variant="?
I'm aware of atomic, 3check, crazyhouse(or Crazyhouse? Does capital initial letter matters?), amazon, but which are all the others?


And what about this -firstFeatures {variants="crazyhouse"} option you propose in one post i saw?
When i put it in the end of a line as extra parameter, Winboard refuses to load the engine complaining about the {} brackets.


•Also are the following 2 commands equivalent?
-variant atomic
/variant="atomic"


And what about this Stockfish UCI engine that plays Atomic Chess?
https://github.com/ATOMIC-LICHESS/ATOMKRAFT

No matter what parameters i put, it refuses to work.

[styx]

you don't have to mess around with the parameters. just add the variant engine (only if you need the newest version because the SF that comes within the zip file is already variant compatible) and click the UCCI/USCI/Arena960 checkbox

that's it! to play a variant, load the engine and then go to "file" --> "new variant" and choose the desired variant.

[hgm]

Since the postings that recommended the method you are trying here, UCI2WB has been adapted to cooperate with Stockfish much more smoothly:

In the WinBoard-AA package, you can just install Stockfish as a normal UCI engine by ticking the UCI checkbox (or use the already installed Stockfish). Stockfish will then start up as an ordinary Chess engine, but you can then select the variant you want to play from WinBoard's 'New Variant' dialog.

If you want Stockfish to already start up in your favorite variant, you can either set WinBoard to that variant after starting it without engine, and then install Stockfish while ticking 'Force current variant this engine'. Or use the Edit Engine List menu item to apped /variant=... to the Stockfish line after having installed it. (This would be necessary for engine-defined variants like Horde, which are unknown to WinBoard, so that you cannot switch the latter to it before installing the engine.)

Note that just minutes ago I uploaded an updated version of the WinBoard-AA package (to the same link), which contains a bugfixed UCI2WB. (In the previous one I had inadvertantly broken display of the node counts, which were always shown as 1.) The package now also contains CrazyWa.

[George Tsavdaris]

you don't have to mess around with the parameters. just add the variant engine and click the UCCI/USCI/Arena960 checkbox

How can i add an engine form scratch from inside the Winboard program without writing any parameters?

[hgm]

Open the Load Engine dialog in the Engine menu, use the browse button behind the .exe text entry to point out the engine's .exe file, tick 'UCI' (or not, if you are installing a WB engine), and click 'OK'.

[George Tsavdaris]

Open the Load Engine dialog in the Engine menu, use the browse button behind the .exe text entry to point out the engine's .exe file, tick 'UCI' (or not, if you are installing a WB engine), and click 'OK'.

Yes thanks i got the whole thing i think.
But what about this older Stockfish UCI engine that plays Atomic Chess?
https://github.com/ATOMIC-LICHESS/ATOMKRAFT
https://github.com/ATOMIC-LICHESS/ATOMK ... RAFT64.exe

When i load it, it correctly analyses the position etc, but when i go to change variant the Atomic variant can't be selected.

[George Tsavdaris]

Oh and for last, how do i make Stockfish(the default in Winboard e.g) to use all cores of the CPU? As it seems it uses only 25% CPU resources so only 1 of the 4 i have.


EDIT: Forget it i found it in the general options.

[hgm]

Doesn't the new one play Atomic too? Both Stockfish and UCI2WB were changed to comply with a newly adopted standard for UCI variant engines, the UCI_Variant option. Stockfishes from before that might still use a UCI_Atomic checkbox option. UCI would not understand that this specifies a variant, so indeed you would have to force it to say to the GUI it plays Atomic by means of the -var option. (An alternative would be to use the WinBoard work-around option /firstFeatures={variants="atomic"} . That would make WinBoard believe UCI2WB said feature variants="atomic"no matterwhat UCI2WB really said, while the -var atomic option on UCI2WB would really make UCI2WB say that.)

That means the line you gave is nearly correct, except that it would need

-firstOptions "UCI_Atomic=1"

To your other question: yes, the commands are equivalent. Quotes are optional on text options, if the text does not contain spaces. The first line is XBoard style, the second WinBoard style, but since the option parsing was brought into the common code, both understand both notations.

[George Tsavdaris]

That means the line you gave is nearly correct, except that it would need

-firstOptions "UCI_Atomic=1"

Well i use the folllowing(ATOMKRAFT64.exe is inside "D:\WinBoard of course):

"UCI2WB -var atomic ATOMKRAFT64.exe" -fd "D:\WinBoard" -variant atomic -firstOptions "UCI_Atomic=1"

But it says variant atomic not supported by Atomkraft! While it is being supported of course. Perhaps a failure of the engine and there is not way to run it in Winboard.


Thanks for all the answers.

[hgm]

This sounds like there still is a problem with the UCI2WB -var option. You can avoid to be dependent on this option by using the line

"UCI2WB ATOMKRAFT64.exe" -fd "D:\WinBoard\" -variant atomic -firstOptions "UCI_Atomic=1" -firstFeatures {variants="atomic"}

This forces WinBoard to think the engine said it played Atomic. Can you post here what the engine prints in response to the 'uci' command, when you run it from the command line?