[D.3.1] General overview
From Chessmaster 8000
onwards, there is support for the
Winboard
protocol. This means that you can import Winboard engines
(Crafty,Gnuchess,Yace etc) into Chessmaster. to play against. Either
against yourself or you can pit it against Chessmaster itself.
Chessmaster's support of
the Winboard protocol is pretty good
,except there
is one oddity. If the "thinking lines" window is open, Chessmaster's
GUI will send
the "." command (which normally is sent only during analyse mode) so
that it can get a regular update on the
progress of the search. Some engines choke on this.Here's a
detailed analysis of
The Winboard protocol implementation in Chessmaster 8000.
More importantly (for many
users) the Chess engine (or chess
playing part) that
powers Chessmaster 8000 , 9000 and 10,000 - namely The King by Johan De
Koning
is now a Winboard engine, which means that it can be exported outside
Chessmaster to be used in
any interface that
supports the Winboard protocol.
There is a complication
though, if you treat TheKing.exe as a
normal Winboard engine, you will find that when used in for example
Winboard, The King will start moving instantly regardless of the time
control. This is because there is a copy protection scheme.To avoid
this, you need to send a number called the "OPK number" with the
parameters. This OPK number is time keyed. This can only be obtained
from the CD, and if you reset the computer, the OPK number changes.See
later sections for more
[28-02-03]
There is a
patch
posted that dis-enables the OPK check for Chessmaster 8000, 9000 and
10,000
[D.3.4] How do I get
Chessmaster [The King] to play in
Winboard
, Arena etc?
As mentioned in the
general overview it is possible to export
The King to be used in other interfaces that support the Winboard
protocol. It is however a fairly complicated and tedious process with
many
drawbacks .
WARNING: This section and the next is by far the most
complicated parts in the whole FAQ, and if you are not familiar with
Winboard engines, you have little hope of getting it to work. There are
also many possible refinements, but my instructions are among the
simplest that allow it to work.
As preparation you should
be familiar with how to setup
additional Winboard engines in
Winboard through the "Winboard.ini method".
Okay.Here are the steps
needed. The main idea is to find the OPK
number after which you can send the OPK number parameter in the
interface of your choice.
About
the Patch that disables the OPK check
There is a
patch (direct link 62K) posted
that
dis-enables the OPK check for for Chessmasters to date
(8000,9000,10000) so you can avoid the
steps below if you apply the patch.Two Things to take note.
1. The patch should
not be applied on Theking.exe which
you use in Chessmaster since
this causes problems in the Chessmaster GUI, so the best method would
be to apply the patch on a
copy of Theking.exe that you wish to use outside Chessmaster GUI.
2.The maker of the patch
main purpose in removing the OPK check is so that it can be used
together with
Odd Malin's wbtouci adaptor
in Fritz , and as such it may
not work properly elsewhere. For
example, users have reported problems when the patched The King is used
in Winboard
in analysis mode. As such the method outlined below to manually find
the OPK number is preferred
|
There are a few methods to
obtain the OPK number,including using
inbetween but this is not
usually
necessary since
in most interfaces you can send the OPK number directly. Here's one way
that does not use inbetween.
a)Obtaining the OPK number
- In your Chessmaster
directory, look for the file
"TheKing.exe" and rename it to say "TheKing.old"
- Copy the winboard
version of crafty (or other WinBoard
engine, which writes decent logfiles, I assume you use Crafty) to the
Chessmaster 8000/9000/10000 folder and rename it to "TheKing.exe". The
crafty.rc file is not necessary.
- Start
Chessmaster8000/9000/10000 and start a game against a
Chessmaster personality that you wish to use in Winboard .
- Exit Chessmaster, and
take a look at the log file (usually
log.001 or log.oox) created by Crafty in the chessmaster folder.
- Look for a line that
says .... opk=xxxxxx (where x is a
number) Copy the OPK number and any parameters needed if you are not
using a default personality,
- Reverse steps 1-2, to
return Chessmaster back to normal.
Basically you replaced
theKing.exe with crafty.exe and when
chessmaster is run the commands needed (including the OPK number) to be
sent to Chessmaster will be sent to Crafty instead.From there you can
extract the information needed from Crafty's log file
b) Other Chessmaster's
parameters
In general all you need is
the OPK number and it will work fine
with every other parameters set to default. However you might want to
set hash table size, or use a custom personality. In such cases, you
need to send additional parameters to Winboard,Arena or whatever
interface you are using.
Some parameters and what they mean (taken from Odd Gunnar Malin's excellent work)
Xboard - Tells the engine to set itself in Xboard mode.
cm_parm - parameter1=value parameter2=value ...
Some possible parameters with theirs default value.
default ; set the engine to default.
opp=100 ; Opponents pawn
opn=100 ; Opponents knight
opb=100 ; Opponents bishop
opr=100 ; Opponents rook
opq=100 ; Opponents queen
opk=0 ; Opponents king
myp=100 ; Kings pawn
myn=100 ; Kings knight
myb=100 ; Kings bishop
myr=100 ; Kings rook
myq=100 ; Kings queen
myk=0 ; Kings king
cc=100 ; Control of centre
mob=100 ; Mobility
ks=100 ; King safety
pp=100 ; Passed pawn
pw=100 ; Pawn weakness
cfd=0 ; Contempt for draw
sop=100 ; Strength of ply
avd=0 ; Attacker/defender
rnd=0 ; Randomness
sel=6 ; Selective search (Note for Chessmaster 9000 the default is now 9)
md=999 ; Max search depth
tts=1048576 ; Hash size
ttu=1 ; Hash unit
ana=0 ; Unknown (CM don’t use this)
Comment:
Max search depth (md)
- CM set this to 99 but it don't seem to any changes to the strength
Material/Position
- This value is sent by adjusting the material (opX and myX) and the
positional values (cc, mob, ks, pp and pw).
Hash settings (tts and ttu)
- When hash=0 tts=4096, ttu=0
- When hash=512Kb tts=524288, ttu=1
- When hash=1Mb tts=1048576, ttu=2
- When hash=2Mb tts=2097152, ttu=3
- When hash=4Mb tts=4194304, ttu=4
- When hash=8Mb tts=8388608, ttu=5
- When hash=16Mb tts=16777216, ttu=6
- When hash=32Mb tts=33554432, ttu=7
- When hash=64Mb tts=67108864, ttu=8
Additional parameters for
Chessmaster 9000..Instead of
cc,mob,ks,pp,pw, you get :
mycc=100 ; My Control of centre
mymob=100 ; My Mobility
myks=100 ; My King safety
mypp=100 ; My Passed pawn
mypw=100 ; My Pawn weakness
opcc=100 ; Opponent's Control of centre
opmob=100 ; Opponent's Mobility
opks=100 ; Opponent's King safety
oppp=100 ; Opponent's Passed pawn
oppw=100 ; Opponet's Pawn weakness
c) Setting up The King in
Winboard compatible interfaces.
There are several
Winboard compatible
interfaces and in theory The
King should work in all of them. I
don't have the space and time to show all of them so I will just
demonstrate with 3 popular interfaces - Winboard,Arena and SCID and Old
Chessbase interfaces, you should be able to figure out the rest once
you get the hang of this.
d) Setting up the King in
Winboard
Here's the line in my
Winboard.ini for playing in Winboard
"TheKing" /fd="d:\chessmaster 8000" /firstInitString="xboard\npost
\nnew\ncm_parm tts=67108864 ttu=8\ncm_parm opk=260544
/firstProtocolVersion=1
For example, in the above
line, I'm using Chessmaster with 64Mb
hash,default settings. If you want to use personalities you can add
parameters like opp=97 opn=107 which will change the values Chessmaster
placed on the opponent's pawn and Knight compared to default.
Here's the so-called
Chessmaster 8877 setting which is claimed
by some to be stronger than the default in longer time controls.
"TheKing"
/fd="d:\chessmaster 8000"
/firstInitString="xboard\npost \nnew\ncm_parm tts=67108864
ttu=8\ncm_parm opk=260544 opp=103 opn=121 opb=127 opr=121 opq=123
myp=103 myn=121 myb=127 myr=121 myq=123 cc=112 mob=123 ks=160 pp=117
pw=133 cfd=0 sop=100 avd=-2 rnd=0 sel=12 md=99\n /firstProtocolVersion=1
The /firstprotocolversion=1
tells Winboard to revert to Winboard
protocol 1, as Chessmaster does not have Protocol 2 support.
Once you manage to get The
King working in Winboard, you can in
theory import it into Chessbase,ChessPartner,Shredder or [basically any
software that supports Winboard engines] etc like any normal Winboard
engine!
Using inbetween
Advanced users might want
to use Odd Malin's inbetween
utility.
Inbetween is basically a utility that sits between an engine and
interface and transfers messages from one to another. The idea is that
instead of connecting The King directly to the interface (eg
Arena,SCID,Winboard) you go through inbetween.exe which can send
anything you desire to the engine or interface. In the case of using
The King, instead of letting the interface send the OPK number,
inbetween will do it.
Inbetween is a very
powerful tool.One example of a advanced use
is it allows you to "cure" engine compatibility problems if you know
what is causing the engine to fail in a given interface. Here's a basic
guide to using it.
- From the point of view
of the interface, the engine used will
be inbetween.exe, so set it up as a normal Winboard engine as usual in
your favourite interface
- Inbetween in turns
"talks" to the real engine. This is
specified by changing theinbetween.ini
file. You should change
the line CommandLine :=
c:\xxx.exeto where-ever the real
engine
is.
- Next you might like to
change the line (in inbetween.ini
again) under [Client2Server]
if you want to send any commands
to
the engine. In the case of The King, you normally send the OPK number
and other parimeters.
This explains the use
of The King in Arena with inbetween.
- The next line that is
usually left alone is the line under [Server2Client].It
is used for sending commands to the interface. This is seldom used,
although it can be used to translate Chessmaster's display of depth.
For
example, from 3001 to 3
There are many more things
you can do with inbetween such as
setting up personalities, but this you have to figure out yourself.