On-line engine blitz tourney January

Discussion of chess software programming and technical issues.

Moderator: Ras

Joost Buijs
Posts: 1670
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:47 am
Location: Almere, The Netherlands

On-line engine blitz tourney January

Post by Joost Buijs »

The monthly online engine blitz tournament for January will take place on:

Saturday, January 17, 2:00 PM EST (Boston time) 20:00 CET (Amsterdam time)

To connect, use the following command:

winboard -zp -ics -icshost nightmare-chess.nl -icshelper timeseal -fcp ENGINE.exe -fd ENGINEFOLDER -autoKibitz -keepAlive 30
(For UCI engines, add -fUCI)

If you don’t have an account, please submit a request to admin@nightmare-chess.nl.

Our tournament manager will be Eendje (Lisebeth @ ICC).

The format will be 9 rounds, Swiss system, 5/1 time control.

Lisebeth prefers to start the tournament on the hour, so please log in 15 minutes early. Late entries are not supported.
User avatar
jshriver
Posts: 1371
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:41 pm
Location: Morgantown, WV, USA

Re: On-line engine blitz tourney January

Post by jshriver »

I'm planning to participate with my engine Erebus. It's very bad and anticipating a beating. Just feels good after all this time to have something running. Foundation is set, now the fun part of tinkering with a HCE and eventually NNUE eval. Right now the eval is pretty much PST based. Still working on a good transposition table and other basic features.

Edit: I've not tested yet, but has anyone used icsdrone on the nightmare-chess.nl server? For other people who may be new you might need to add -icsport 5000 or /icsport 5000 (for windows).
Modern Times
Posts: 3799
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2012 11:02 pm

Re: On-line engine blitz tourney January

Post by Modern Times »

jshriver wrote: Wed Jan 14, 2026 10:22 pm
Edit: I've not tested yet, but has anyone used icsdrone on the nightmare-chess.nl server? For other people who may be new you might need to add -icsport 5000 or /icsport 5000 (for windows).
With Winboard, no I have never used that so it can't be required.
Joost Buijs
Posts: 1670
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:47 am
Location: Almere, The Netherlands

Re: On-line engine blitz tourney January

Post by Joost Buijs »

jshriver wrote: Wed Jan 14, 2026 10:22 pm Edit: I've not tested yet, but has anyone used icsdrone on the nightmare-chess.nl server? For other people who may be new you might need to add -icsport 5000 or /icsport 5000 (for windows).
I used to have the atom engines running under ICSdroneng, it works fine, it's an old version though (I compiled it 5 or 6 years ago).
User avatar
Andres Valverde
Posts: 594
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 11:07 pm
Location: Almeria. SPAIN
Full name: Andres Valverde Toresano

Re: On-line engine blitz tourney January

Post by Andres Valverde »

Is the server up ? I couldnt connect yesterday nor today
Saludos, Andres
Joost Buijs
Posts: 1670
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:47 am
Location: Almere, The Netherlands

Re: On-line engine blitz tourney January

Post by Joost Buijs »

Andres Valverde wrote: Sat Jan 17, 2026 10:08 am Is the server up ? I couldnt connect yesterday nor today
Yes, the server is up.

I see Arasan and some other engines logged on, I tried a remote connection to the server, that works too.
Maybe port 5000 is blocked somehow, but that must be a problem on your end.

Yesterday the server was offline for a while, I had to update it to the latest Linux-Mint version.
User avatar
Andres Valverde
Posts: 594
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 11:07 pm
Location: Almeria. SPAIN
Full name: Andres Valverde Toresano

Re: On-line engine blitz tourney January

Post by Andres Valverde »

Andres Valverde wrote: Sat Jan 17, 2026 10:08 am Is the server up ? I couldnt connect yesterday nor today
nvm Problem solved
Saludos, Andres
op12no2
Posts: 558
Joined: Tue Feb 04, 2014 12:25 pm
Location: Gower, Wales
Full name: Colin Jenkins

Re: On-line engine blitz tourney January

Post by op12no2 »

can somebody remind me of the command to join it's been a few years. tell mamer 1?

and as i recall everybody used their own book, is that right? if so i need to find one...
Joost Buijs
Posts: 1670
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:47 am
Location: Almere, The Netherlands

Re: On-line engine blitz tourney January

Post by Joost Buijs »

Unfortunately, the server crashed after four rounds; it’s the second crash in 7 years. Sometimes this happens without a clear identifiable cause. It could be anything—an update to Linux Mint 22.3, a hardware issue, or even a bitflip caused by a cosmic ray. Tomorrow, I will try to figure out what went wrong.

These are the results of the last 5 rounds after the crash:

Code: Select all

:Tourney Players: Round 5 of 5 
:
:     Name              Rating Score Perfrm Upset  Results 
:     ----------------- ------ ----- ------ ------ ------- 
:  1 +PlentyChessRB     [2822]  4.5  [3018] [ 157] +19w +12w +08b +03w =07b 
:  2 -LczTinker         [2957]  3.5  [2840] [   0] +17b =06w =03w =09b +10w 
:  3 +ArasanX           [2889]  3.5  [2838] [  34] +18w +10w =02b -01b +11w 
:  4 +NightmareX        [2859]  3.5  [2745] [   0] =14b =05w +11b =10w +12w 
:  5 -Goldbar           [2802]  3.5  [2736] [ 113] +20w =04b =07w =12b +15w 
:  6 +Viper             [2660]  3.5  [2777] [ 338] +21w =02b =09b =07w +19b 
:  7 +BelFish           [2972]  3.0  [2777] [   0] +13w =09w =05b =06b =01w 
:  8 +WaspX             [2837]  3.0  [2584] [   0] +15w =11b -01w +18w =13b
:  9 -Lunar             [2728]  3.0  [2725] [ 236] +16w =07b =06w =02w =14b 
: 10 -Cheng             [2656]  2.5  [2611] [ 101] +22w -03b +20w =04b -02b 
: 11 +atomGoldbar       [2559]  2.5  [2488] [ 139] +23b =08w -04w +21b -03b 
: 12 +Lozza             [2528]  2.5  [2482] [ 137] +25w -01b +16b =05w -04b 
: 13 +EveAnn            [2475]  2.5  [2543] [ 181] -07b =14w =15b +20w =08w 
: 14 -Isa               [2382]  2.5  [2524] [ 457] =04w =13b -17w +22b =09w 
: 15 +Caligula          [2267]  2.5  [2454] [ 306] -08b +23w =13w +17b -05b 
: 16 -jackychess        [2255]  2.5  [2321] [  82] -09b +19b -12w +23w =18b
: 17 -WaDuuttie         [2469]  2.0  [2293] [   0] -02w -21b +14b -15w +22w 
: 18 +Dirty             [2400]  2.0  [2368] [   0] -03b +22w =21w -08b =16w 
: 19 -Knightx           [2265]  2.0  [2156] [   0] -01b -16w +23b +24b -06w 
: 20 +CTdccc            [2257]  2.0  [2325] [   0] -05b +24w -10b -13b +21w 
: 21 +atomFloyd         [2167]  1.5  [2309] [ 418] -06b +17w =18b -11w -20b 
: 22 -Barbarossa        [2093]  1.0  [2076] [   0] -10b -18b +24w -14w -17b 
: 23 +MicroMaxXb        [1688]  1.0  [1936] [   0] -11w -15b -19w -16b +24w 
: 24 +_BYE_             [   0]  0.0  [1675] [   0] -20b -22b -19w -23b
: 25 +admin             [forf]  0.0  [2128] [   0] -12b
I hope to see you all next time (hopefully without server crash).
User avatar
Ras
Posts: 2729
Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2016 8:19 pm
Full name: Rasmus Althoff

Re: On-line engine blitz tourney January

Post by Ras »

I have a weird issue under Linux Mint 22.2 - something I didn't have earlier. When I start Xboard from the start menu with

Code: Select all

xboard -zp -ics -icshost nightmare-chess.nl -icshelper /opt/chess/timeseal/openseal -fUCI -fcp /opt/chess/engines/CT800_V1.46 -fd /opt/chess/engines/ -autoKibitz -keepAlive 1
then it fails. There's a dialogue box that says "Got end of file from keyboard", and clicking "OK" ends Xboard.

However, when I use the same command as above from the terminal, it works, though I have to use the terminal for the chat interface. It's just that the Xboard ICS chat function doesn't seem to work.

Any ideas anyone? What does "end of file from keyboard" mean in this context?
Rasmus Althoff
https://www.ct800.net