How do I get Stockfish to be able to use the Hiarcs opening book?
Thanks!
UCI Opening Book Question
Moderators: Watchman, Mark Uniacke, mrudolf
Re: UCI Opening Book Question
I think it is not possiblehyperspaced wrote:How do I get Stockfish to be able to use the Hiarcs opening book?
Thanks!
"Stockfish is compatible with PolyGlot (.bin) opening books. To use a book with Stockfish, place the file in the same location as the engine runtime. Then, use the UCI options (specifically, the OwnBook option) to specify the file name of the book."
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Slartibartfast
- Member
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- Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2012 12:47 pm
Well, I think that might be just a missing feature in HCE (?)
When running engine tournaments using a Chessbase GUI it is possible to select any book which then will be used by all participating engines (this is possible even for engines that have no "book option" at all).
So, my guess is that Chessbase GUIs do act as kinda opening book servers and route the information from the opening book to the engines.
Maybe Mark can shed some light on this?
Best,
Jan
When running engine tournaments using a Chessbase GUI it is possible to select any book which then will be used by all participating engines (this is possible even for engines that have no "book option" at all).
So, my guess is that Chessbase GUIs do act as kinda opening book servers and route the information from the opening book to the engines.
Maybe Mark can shed some light on this?
Best,
Jan
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Mark Uniacke
- Hiarcs Author
- Posts: 1459
- Joined: Sun Jul 29, 2007 1:32 pm
- Location: United Kingdom
- Contact:
Some GUIs do force their GUI books on the engines, that is good for the engines that don't have books or whose books are suspect, however it is not so good for engines who have strong books and book learning of their own as the GUI does not let the engine consider any moves until the GUI book is finished moving which completely nullifies the point of all the development of such good engine books. A fact I think has lead to engine authors not bothering about opening books so much anymore, back in the days of chess programs no one would think of releasing a chess product without an opening book.
My concern with just forcing the GUI book on the engine is that the user thinks the enine is playing for itself when it is not. I used to get this all the time when HIARCS did not have its own GUI, users would wonder why "it" played a poor book move or did not learn properly when the reality was it was never asked.
However, I do see with so many engines not supporting books at all or not well, that such a feature is useful for those engines. Of course it has not been a priority for us in the first releases of HCE to fix other engine shortfalls, however moving forward I know we do have such a feature on our todo list so it should happen at some point in 2014 although at present it has not been assign to a release.
My concern with just forcing the GUI book on the engine is that the user thinks the enine is playing for itself when it is not. I used to get this all the time when HIARCS did not have its own GUI, users would wonder why "it" played a poor book move or did not learn properly when the reality was it was never asked.
However, I do see with so many engines not supporting books at all or not well, that such a feature is useful for those engines. Of course it has not been a priority for us in the first releases of HCE to fix other engine shortfalls, however moving forward I know we do have such a feature on our todo list so it should happen at some point in 2014 although at present it has not been assign to a release.