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Winboard and Chess Engines FAQ

Table of Contents

Detailed contents

[A] Introduction

    • [A.1] What is this Faq about?
    • [A.2] What is Winboard and where else can I download it if Tim Mann's Site is down?
    • [A.3] What is the difference between Winboard and Xboard? What are the various modifications of Winboard available? Does using a different version of Winboard cause engine incompatibilities?
    • [A.4] What are Winboard engines? How many Winboard engines are there?
    • [A.5] Where can I download the latest versions of Winboard engines?
    • [A.6] How strong are Winboard engines compared to commercial ones? Which is the strongest program?
    • [A.7] The programs are too strong for me, where can I find a weaker one?
    • [A.8] What are Jim Ablett complied versions of Chess Engines?
    • [A.9] Can I run Winboard engines in Chessmaster® Fritz etc? Can Chessmaster® or Fritz etc run in Winboard?
    • [A.10] What about Ferret, Insomniac , Hossa etc? Are they Winboard compatible? Where can I get them?
    • [A.11] What are “clones”? Where can I get them?
    • [A.12] What is this “Winboard Edition I/II” ? Where can i get Gandalf, Capture, Patzer and Lambchop?
    • [A.13] Where can I get Winboard engines that play Suicide Chess, Fischer Random, or other variants?
    • [A.14] I'm a programmer, how do I get my chess program to be Winboard, Chessbase, or UCI compatible? Where can I find examples of free source chess programs?

[B] Setting Up

    • [B.1] How do I Install Winboard? Should I uninstall the older version when upgrading?
    • [B.2] How do I install more Winboard Engines?
    • [B.3] How do I setup Crafty, Fritz, etc. to run on FICS, ICC, USCL, etc.? What about Yahoochess?
    • [B.4] How do I connect 2 copies of Winboard over a LAN or the internet without connecting over a internet server? Can I use it to play chess with a friend over the net?
    • [B.5] Help! Winboard program still refuses to run.
    • [B.6] Where can I get more help?
    • [B.7] I give up. Is there a easier way to do this?

[C] Opening books, Endgame Tablebases and Hashtables

    • [C.1] What is an opening book?
    • [C.2] What is book learning?
    • [C.3] How do I turn the opening book on?
    • [C.4] Is there a way to set uniform opening books for all chess engines through a GUI book?
    • [C.5] Where can I download more opening books?
    • [C.6] What are endgame tablebases [egtbs]? What is the difference between Nalimov, and Edwards tablebases?
    • [C.7] How many tablebases do I need? Can I download only some of them?
    • [C.8] How do I turn the endgame tablebases on?
    • [C.9] Where can I get (buy, generate, download) more endgame tablebases?
    • [C.10] Okay. I followed the instructions but why is the endgame tablebases still not working?
    • [C.11] There's a bug in the program, Why do engines refuse to promote pawns?
    • [C.12] What are transposition/hash tables?
    • [C.13] How much memory should I allocate in transposition table?

[D] Some Engine Specific Instructions (in alphabetical order)

    • [D.1] Bringer
      • [D.1.1] General overview
      • [D.1.2] When I run Bringer in Winboard the Bringer Graphical Interface starts as well. How can I remove it?
      • [D.1.3] How can I change the language in Bringer from German to English?
      • [D.1.4] How do I change the transposition table memory allocation for Bringer?
      • [D.1.5] What is the best memory allocation for Bringer?
    • [D.3] Chessmaster 8000/9000/10,000 [The King]
      • [D.3.1] General overview
      • [D.3.2] How do I use Winboard engines in Chessmaster?
      • [D.3.3] What are the main differences between Chessmaster 8000 and 9000 in terms of Winboard support?
      • [D.3.4] How do I get Chessmaster [The King] to play in Winboard, Arena etc?
      • [D.3.5] How do I get Chessmaster [The King] to play in Fritz, Junior, etc. or other Chessbase GUIs.
      • [D.3.6] How do I get Chessmaster [The King] to play online at ICC or FICS? What about Yahoo servers?
      • [D.3.7] Why is Chessmaster [The King ], when exported outside Chessmaster not using a opening book? How do I provide an opening book with Bookthinker?
      • [D.3.8] How do I match Chessmaster 8000 versus 9000?
      • [D.3.9] How do I use Chessmaster personalities outside Chessmaster? Where can I find more Chessmaster personalities?
    • [D.4] Crafty
      • [D.4.1] General overview
      • [D.4.2] Do I need a crafty.rc file? Where can I get one?
      • [D.4.3] THE UAB site has only the source code of the latest Crafty, where do I get the complied versions for Windows?
      • [D.4.4] How do I compile a opening book? What is book.bin and books.bin?
      • [D.4.5] What is bookc.bin? How do I use it?
      • [D.4.6] Why does Crafty play the same opening over and over again against other Chess engines?
      • [D.4.7] How do I weaken Crafty?
      • [D.4.8] When I run the annotate command, no diagrams are displayed during the analysis.
    • [D.5] Francesa
      • [D.5.1] General overview
      • [D.5.2] What is Mad?
      • [D.5.3] How can I adjust the size of the hash table?
      • [D.5.4] Francesa stops moving after the first game?
    • [D.7] Knightcap
      • [D.7.1] General overview
      • [D.7.2] Setting up Knightcap
    • [D.8] Little Goliath
      • [D.8.1] General overview
      • [D 8.2] What is the difference between the Winboard version of Little Goliath 3.0 and the one available at Chessbase in the “Young Talents” CD?
      • [D.8.3] Little Goliath resigns immediately when it has lost the prior game and using the /mg command. What should I do?
      • [D.8.4] Little Goliath does not use its opening book?
    • [D.9] SOS
      • [D.9.1] General overview
      • [D.9.2] Help! SOS 10/99 or SOS 11/99 refuse to work!
      • [D 9.3] Help! SOS refuses to run when I upgraded to Winboard 4.2.1 and above!
      • [D 9.4] Help! SOS [the Winboard version] refuses to run in Chessbase/CM8000

[E] Winboard Engines in Other Graphical Interfaces

    • [E.1] How do I get a Winboard engine to work in Chessbase environment [Fritz, Junior, Nimzo etc]?
    • [E.2] What is the difference between using a native version and using the Winboard adapter?
    • [E.3] Which engines work with Chessbase?
    • [E.4] How do I get a Winboard engine to work in Chessmaster8000®?
    • [E.5] Which engines work with Chessmaster?
    • [E.6] How do I get a Winboard engine to work in Chess Genius, Chess Academy, Chess Partner, Chess Vision, etc.?
    • [E.7] How do I get a UCI engine to work in Winboard? How do I get a Winboard engine to work in a UCI graphical interface?
    • [E.8] How do I get Chessmaster [The King] to work in Winboard or Arena? How do I get Chessmaster to run on Chess servers?
    • [E.9] How do I get Chessmaster [The King] to work in Chessbase GUI, Chess Partner 5, or Chess Assistant 6?
    • [E.10] What is Universal Chess interface [UCI]? How is it different from Winboard?
    • [E.11] What are the graphical user interfaces that support UCI?
    • [E.12] What are the Chess engines that support UCI?

[F] Miscellaneous Software and Running Computer Chess Tournaments

    • [F.1] How can I run a match automatically between 2 programs in Winboard?
    • [F.2] How can I run a Nunn match [match from a fixed position] automatically in Winboard?
    • [F.3] How can I run a tournament automatically in Winboard?
    • [F.4] How do I calculate Elos or generate cross tables? How do I tell if the results are significant?
    • [F.5] How do I present/display Chess games on the web?
    • [F.6] How do I set up Winboard engines to handle tournaments with 2 time controls in Winboard? Eg 40 moves in 120 minutes followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the moves?
    • [F.7] How do I display the number of nodes per second calculated by the Chess engine? How about displaying other information?
    • [F.8] Winboard 4.2.X automatically saves all my Crafty games with the name Crafty-18.6, how do I change that?
    • [F.9] How do I run test suites automatically in Winboard?
    • [F.10] When “show thinking” is turned on during the game, the lines get cut off. How can I display the whole line?
    • [F.11] What is PGN, FEN, EPD, CBH, CBF, etc. and how do I handle them in Winboard?

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