Linux testing pool

[crybotmark]

Hi all, I was wondering, since I returned to computer chess, if you guys could help me finding a set of engines for linux in the range 1950-2450 elo in order to test my engine Napoleon. In the past I had acces to another machine running windows, while my main working pc was running linux, but now I can only work on linux and running a virtual machine is not an option here...
If any of you had a similar issue in the past, or rather has an engine that meets the requirements above, would really help me a lot.

[Werner Taelemans]

Napoleon is one of my favourite sparring partners for Galjoen.

[ZirconiumX]

Hi all, I was wondering, since I returned to computer chess, if you guys could help me finding a set of engines for linux in the range 1950-2450 elo in order to test my engine Napoleon. In the past I had acces to another machine running windows, while my main working pc was running linux, but now I can only work on linux and running a virtual machine is not an option here...
If any of you had a similar issue in the past, or rather has an engine that meets the requirements above, would really help me a lot.

I've been in that very situation, and have some suggestions.

- Fairy-Max is CCRL 1946, which is close enough, and
- I've heard good things about Cinnamon for testing, it's CCRL 2030.
- Dorpsgek (full disclosure: I wrote it) is CCRL 2158 for the previous version (latest is currently untested). It's written on Linux and handles just about everything I throw at it at incredibly small TCs. Should be a good sparring partner.
- Sungorus is CCRL 2307 and pretty reliable in my testing.
- Diablo is CCRL 2387. I haven't tried it personally, but I have heard good things.

Try those.

[crybotmark]

Thank you! That's very helpful.

[hgm]

KingSlayer should also work under Linux. It is about 200 Elo stronger than Fairy-Max. Source code is at http://hgm.nubati.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cg ... ;a=summary . (It still calls itself 'Simple', but that name turned out to be already taken.)

[Evert]

Jazz (and SjaakII, for that matter) should be in that ballpark.
An alternative is to play a stronger engine at time-odds. This has the advantage of spending more wall (and CPU) time on your own engine.

[jorose]

I have been using SjaakII 1.3.1 to test my engine as I (incorrectly) assumed that to be the one tested on CCRL (which seems to be 1.3.0). My engine is slowly improving and I was wondering if you knew exactly how much stronger SjaakII 1.4.1 is?

Thanks again for publishing such a great engine!

[jdart]

You could always run Stockfish in reduced strength mode (UCI_Elo option). Several other engines support that too.

--Jon

[Evert]

I actually don't know exactly how much stronger Sjaak II 1.4.1 is. While I do tune things and try to make it stronger, most of the changes between versions go into the ability to play new variants. If anything, those reduce the strength.
Even then, adding something that increases strength may not have the same affect in all variants. I try to test a couple of different ones, and make sure that a change is overall good or neutral, while not disadvantaging any of the variants I tested...

I suspect it is not much stronger or weaker than 1.3.0 for regular (FIDE) chess.

[crybotmark]

Just to let you guys know, both Diablo 0.5.1 and Cinnamon 2.0 give illegal pv moves when playing at not so small time controls with cutechess, although it seems that the actual moves they play are fine.