HCE 1.6 Engine v Engine

[omega-three]

When setting up 2 engines to play each other I cannot find the options to select the starting positions for the games by either opening books or database.

Mike

[omega-three]

It seems after 30 odd hours and 36 views there is still no reply to my query Therefore I will assume that my query is not fully understood, so I shall explain more clearly.

I wish to play some games between 2 engines. The steps I take as follows:-

1. Click Play followed by New Engine Match.
2. In the dialog box I select each engine and any engine options I wish to select.
3. Next I select Hash and endgame cache size etc
4. I select time for each game and number of games.

This is where I come unstuck, If I select OK both engines start to compute their moves from the starting game position and do not appear use an opening book or game database to play quickly the first few moves of the game. I guess I'm missing something because its pointless playing 100 or so games which are doomed to be duplicated.

Please can someone help.

Mike.

[omega-three]

It seems customer support is on holidays, well never mind I think I found out the answer which if correct is fundamental to the way HCE operates. To confirm my fears I loaded up an engine to play against and lo and behold it did not appear to use the local opening book which just sits there but is ignored. You must use Hiarcs own engine with its own book for which you cannot see the moves, although HCE does show the local opening book which I don't think is used.

This appears to be why engine v engine matches do not play from the local opening book, looks like you need to use engines that specifically support using UCI type opening books which also don't show their moves in the display. Although this would not work to well because an engine match should use the same opening book or opening database for fair results.

How bizarre

[Mark Uniacke]

Customer support is always done primarily through the support email as I explain in the email sent immediately after purchase. I endeavor to answer every support email received within a few hours which is largely achieved.

The engine match feature simply plays one engine against another, we do not supply books for other engines at present so engines are free to use their own books. Ownbooks are a fundamental part of the UCI interface (the parameter is manditory). However, some engine authors don't supply books that their engines can read.

We do not current support engine matches from predefinied openings. The primary focus of HCE has so far been focused on the chess player rather than the engine testing.

[omega-three]

Thank you for your reply. I am disappointed with this and I understand that you cannot release every conceivable option however all other chess GUI that I am aware of do not have these engine / opening book restrictions. The play engine match option as implemented in HCE 1.6 is not useful as it stands and neither is Play against an external engine. This philosophy is obviously by design and is of no use to me whatsoever. Therefore I will be seeking a refund.

Regards
Mike

[Mark Uniacke]

I am sorry you are disappointed. HIARCS Chess Explorer is a database, analysis and playing program similar to Chessbase 12.

Chessbase does not support engine matches and never has (for that matter it does not support playing games against the computer).

We support playing games against engines in many configurations and engine matches. All the engines we sell support opening books and our engines use them in engine matches (unless they are disabled by the user). We do not provide opening books for other engines.

HIARCS Chess Explorer was used as the primary interface to play against external engines in the World Championship in Yokohama, Japan.

The feature roll out of updates to the 1.series can be seen here:
http://www.hiarcs.com/chess-explorer.htm