ScidVsPC/Mac

[JuLieN]

Steven, is there a way to make all the engines of a tournament use the same book? I'm about to launch a big (>100 engines) tournament to produce a rating list of the engines available for OSX, but some engines have a book and others have none, hence creating an unbalanced situation before the tournament even starts.

[hgm]

XBoard can do that...

[stevenaaus]

Steven, is there a way to make all the engines of a tournament use the same book? I'm about to launch a big (>100 engines) tournament to produce a rating list of the engines available for OSX, but some engines have a book and others have none, hence creating an unbalanced situation before the tournament even starts.

No. I really should add it for next release... And I don't have much else lined up, so maybe it'll get done

(At the moment, perhaps use the "Copy engine" feature to make no-book aliases for your existing engines.)

[JuLieN]

Steven, is there a way to make all the engines of a tournament use the same book? I'm about to launch a big (>100 engines) tournament to produce a rating list of the engines available for OSX, but some engines have a book and others have none, hence creating an unbalanced situation before the tournament even starts.

No. I really should add it for next release... And I don't have much else lined up, so maybe it'll get done

(At the moment, perhaps use the "Copy engine" feature to make no-book aliases for your existing engines.)

Thanks Steven Actually, now that I tried different things I saw a number of problems with the tournaments in ScidVsMac:

1- the engine choosing system in the tournament windows is not handy at all: if I have more than 20 engines, I can't even start the tournament because the "go" button is scrolled out of the screen (and I run in 2560x1440...). Idea: why not use a list like Arena's ?

2- So I chose to break my tournament into smaller ones whose list would fit into my screen, but after a while the tournament will freeze for no reason (I thought an engine was crashing, but now I think it comes from ScidVsMac because the engine won't even lose on time). So, stability problem, here.

3- When a game has ended it takes often a lot of time (sometimes more than 30s) to start the next game...

So, those points plus a common book for tournaments (with, btw, all white engines starting with the same position during a round, and then their opponent getting the same position against them the round after if we set 2 games against each-others), would be nice

ScidVsPC/Mac is a great achievement, but it's still a bit young I see

[stevenaaus]

I'm about to launch a big (>100 engines)

A hundred! What time control are you thinking ?
Anyway, I'll try to look at it this weekend - but it may be complicated.

[JuLieN]

I'm about to launch a big (>100 engines)

A hundred! What time control are you thinking ?
Anyway, I'll try to look at it this weekend - but it may be complicated.

In the beginning I thought about 5mn blitzes... so 10min/game... with 2 games between two engines (one with black, one with white) with a computed duration of ((100x99) / 2) * 2 * 10 = 69 days....

Maybe a bit too long, especially if one can't stop and restart a tournament (another suggestion of improvement btw ). So breaking the tournament into 7 smaller tournaments of 15 engines and then promoting the 5 best engines of each tournament is a better idea (the first 7 smaller tournaments will "only" take 70 hours). I just want to produce a crude estimation of the strength of those engines for the moment.

[stevenaaus]

Thanks Setven Actually, now that I tried different things I saw a number of problems with the tournaments in ScidVsMac:

1- the engine choosing system in the tournament windows is not handy at all: if I have more than 20 engines, I can't even start the tournament because the "go" button is scrolled out of the screen (and I run in 2560x1440...). Idea: why not use a list like Arena's ?

2- So I chose to break my tournament into smaller ones whose list would fit into my screen, but after a while the tournament will freeze for no reason (I thought an engine was crashing, but now I think it comes from ScidVsMac because the engine won't even lose on time). So, stability problem, here.

Are you using xboard engines ?
SVN has update code for this scenario. Just check out svn, then use "make scid" to make a new gui, and copy "scid" over /Applications/Scidvspc/...../scid
Also - the "engine timeout" feature is quite handy for making sure the thing always finishes.

3- When a game has ended it takes often a lot of time (sometimes more than 30s) to start the next game...

Hmmm - never seen this before. OSX *does* have a not-great version of tcl/tk though. Can you pinpoint this problem ?

(with, btw, all white engines starting with the same position during a round, and then their opponent getting the same position against them the round after if we set 2 games against each-others), would be nice

Isn't this possible with "All games from current position".

But yes, the torunament feature isn't as solid as some other guis.

[hgm]

I just want to produce a crude estimation of the strength of those engines for the moment.

You could use Swiss + BayesElo to do that (e.g. 20 rounds). That way you waste less time on games between widely differing players.

[JuLieN]

Thanks Setven Actually, now that I tried different things I saw a number of problems with the tournaments in ScidVsMac:

1- the engine choosing system in the tournament windows is not handy at all: if I have more than 20 engines, I can't even start the tournament because the "go" button is scrolled out of the screen (and I run in 2560x1440...). Idea: why not use a list like Arena's ?

2- So I chose to break my tournament into smaller ones whose list would fit into my screen, but after a while the tournament will freeze for no reason (I thought an engine was crashing, but now I think it comes from ScidVsMac because the engine won't even lose on time). So, stability problem, here.

Are you using xboard engines ?
SVN has update code for this scenario. Just check out svn, then use "make scid" to make a new gui, and copy "scid" over /Applications/Scidvspc/...../scid

Yes, I have a mix of xboard and uci engines in those tournaments. I'll try what you suggest later today.

Also - the "engine timeout" feature is quite handy for making sure the thing always finishes.

Yes but it won't really solve the problem, because some games just freeze in the middle of the action, for no reason. It seems to happen randomly and with different engines. I first thought that some engines were unstable, but they can't all be... Especially engines like Amundsen or Arasan (and Arasan is not one of my builds).

3- When a game has ended it takes often a lot of time (sometimes more than 30s) to start the next game...

Hmmm - never seen this before. OSX *does* have a not-great version of tcl/tk though. Can you pinpoint this problem ?

Well, typically, an engine has checkmated the other one (the move is not played on the board but you can see it in the played move under the board (for instance Qe1#), and nothing happens during 30s, then the next game starts.

(with, btw, all white engines starting with the same position during a round, and then their opponent getting the same position against them the round after if we set 2 games against each-others), would be nice

Isn't this possible with "All games from current position".

That would work with 2 games between each pair of engines, but:
1- not if you want to make long matches between a pair of engine
2- it would be a bit boring to the observer Here's my big "1.e4 c5" tournament!

ScidVsMac is very promising, but the tournament feature is still young.

Oh, a few other requests, that I don't think are implemented yet:
1- tournament files, so one could stop a tournament and continue it again later by loading it
2- the ability to add/remove some engines during a tournament (that one will be tricky!)
3- later, when you have time, why not add a broadcasting service compatible with TSCV? (complex too...)

[JuLieN]

I just want to produce a crude estimation of the strength of those engines for the moment.

You could use Swiss + BayesElo to do that (e.g. 20 rounds). That way you waste less time on games between widely differing players.

Thanks H.G., I'll take a look at that. But ScidVsMac has no swiss system, sadly. Maybe Xboard has?