Micro-Max for cutechess-cli

[Roland Chastain]

Hello everybody!

Some CECP engines (Micro-Max for example) omit to append the 'q' symbol to promotion moves. So it is impossible for now to use these engines with cutechess-cli. (See this discussion.)

For the fun, I wrote an adapter which allows to use these engines with cutechess-cli. It works more or less like Wb2UCI or InBetween. It transmits the user's messages to the engine, and vice versa. It has an internal chessboard where it plays all moves. So it is able to recognize when the engine does a promotion, and in that case it appends a 'q' to the move. That's all.

The adapter is an enhanced version of the program that I named Substitute.

That's why, for now, the executable is named substitute. I have not yet found a name for that tool.

To use the adapter with another engine, you have to edit substitute.ini, or to run substitute with the engine name as parameter.

The adapter uses my chess library (included in the package).

I tested it only on Linux, but it should compile and work on Windows. A script for Windows compilation is included (build.cmd).

Here is a ZIP file with source code and Linux binaries: micromax2cutechess.zip

Please tell me 1° what you think about my program; 2° if it works for you; 3° if you manage to compile it on Windows... And 4° help me to find a name for it!

Regards.

Roland

P.-S. And 5° help me to write a simple documentation. All that is hard to explain when English is not your language.

[Roland Chastain]

Made two different executables, substitute and substitute-debug. Only substitute-debug generates *.log files. ZIP updated, same link.

By the way, the value of the following parameters (in substitute.ini) can probably be reduced.

Code: Select all

[time]
afterRead=50
afterWrite=50

Maybe even are they not necessary at all, I don't know.

I forgot to say that you need Free Pascal to compile the adapter.

This project is a step toward a remake of Wb2UCI, open source and multiplatform.

[Roland Chastain]

Come back to this project after a break. Fixed little things and created a git repository.

The program seems to work well. I could run a tournament including Micro-Max 1.6 without error: the promotion suffix is added when needed.

I tested the program only under Linux, but it should be multiplatform. To build it, you need the Free Pascal Compiler. ASAP I will test under Windows and provide binaries.

[Dann Corbit]

Concernant : "Qui trop embrasse mal étreint."
Malheureusement, j'accepte presque tout, souvent à mon détriment. Excellent travail au passage, merci.

[Roland Chastain]

Malheureusement, j'accepte presque tout, souvent à mon détriment. Excellent travail au passage, merci.

Content que vous aimiez aussi ce proverbe. Merci pour le compliment concernant le programme.