NADYA2.0 and XBoard GUI recommendation

[BlueStar]

NADYA2.0 plays full end-to-end chess now. At least for patient humans at this point... Is there a solid and SIMPLE, XBoard GUI that can easily be configured to use only one chess engine and present an interface for human interaction to a human chess player that is a basic computer user. I ask because I'm hoping to configure a package I can send to family members who love to play chess for the holidays, but not necessarily "computer savvy".

The rest of this post is just NADYA2.0 status update on my engine written almost exclusively in "Prolog". Skip below if not interested.

I expect NADYA2.0 will be "put on the shelf" in November. During research/implementation of NADYA2.0, I learned so much, I started the "on paper" structure design for NADYA3.0.

NADYA2.0 supports all standard chess rules (castling, en passant, 50 move rule, repetition, etc). It uses bit-boards, negamax, and zobrist keys with a basic TT. Currently working on move sorting and alpha / beta, and a NADYA2.0 evaluator (it currently uses the NADYA1.0 evaluator). It is still in its infancy, but I believe it will consistently beat me (and other weak human players like myself) in a few weeks. My last game took 61 moves before I mated.

Plans left for NADYA2.0 before it is shelved to start V3.0 are: Opening book, and human chess features--(i.e. cheating features like take back, switch sides, etc--My family members will need these features if I don't want them to hate me )

[BlueStar]

P.S. My engine is currently windows only.

[hgm]

I don't know what exactly you expect this 'human chess player' to do. Is it just for playing against the engine? Or should he also be able to do interactive analysis, load PGN games etc.

WinBoard can be easily configured to start with a given chess engine by providing a shortcut, because it can be completely controlled through command-line options (which you would then all put in the shortcut, or in a settings file to which the shortcut refers). Through the master settings file you pack with it you can control the default start options. E.g. you could make it start with all auxiliary windows closed, so that the user would only see the chess board, clocks and the menu bar, and no distractions. He could start playing with white immediately, and to make the computer move first he would have to select Machine White in the Mode menu. You could set it for a reasonable TC by default, like 40 moves/10 min, or perhaps specify a time-odds factor for the engine in th einitial settings.

I have often made packages like that, dedicated to a single engine and chess variant, so non-computer-savvy persons could use them. Biggest pitfal is usually that you assume they will have a state-of-the-art computer, so that the default (modestly chosen) hash setting you configured is in fact 10 times the memory they have...