chessdb-users — User mailing list - used by developers too.

Re: [Chessdb-users] sc_spell problems

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

Dr. David Kirkby wrote:

> I suggest you download the latest at least 3.6.8 (the latest is 3.6.) 
> and rebuild it.

Sorry, the latest is 3.6.9, not 3.6. as stated.

When you download it, you will find a directory html-help. In there are 
a lot of html files, which form the tutorial. They don't get installed 
anywhere (I will fix that at some time), so you might want to copy them 
someoewhere, open index.html in a browswer and bookmark it. But the 
online tutorial

http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

will usually be more up to date anyway.

-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

Re: [Chessdb-users] sc_spell problems

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

Cory Helfrich wrote:
> Hello Dr.Kirkby,
> 
> First, I would l like to express my gratitude for continuing the 
> development of ChessDB and also giving me a great deal of help with the 
> installation. I regret that I am not a programmer so I cannot 
> participate more actively in the development.
> 
> I have found a little problem with the sc_spell utility. When I run it, 
> I get the following error (note that I have never had scid installed on 
> this machine):
> 
> Begin Error
> /usr/local/bin/sc_spell: line 10: exec: tcscid: not found
> End Error
> 
> Thanks again for your help,
> Cory Helfrich
> cor...@ya... <mailto:cor...@ya...>

Hi,
I've looked at the source and realise that the script still called 
tccsid until release 3.6.8, where it was changed.

I suggest you download the latest at least 3.6.8 (the latest is 3.6.) 
and rebuild it.

You could try editing the file /usr/local/bin/sc_spell and changing line 
10 from

exec tcscid "$0" "$@"
to
exec tcchessdb "$0" "$@"

But you might run into other similar issues, so I suggest you just 
download the latest source.
-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

[Chessdb-users] sc_spell problems

[Cory H. <cor...@ya...>]

Hello Dr.Kirkby,

First, I would l like to express my gratitude for continuing the  
development of ChessDB and also giving me a great deal of help with  
the installation. I regret that I am not a programmer so I cannot  
participate more actively in the development.

I have found a little problem with the sc_spell utility. When I run  
it, I get the following error (note that I have never had scid  
installed on this machine):

Begin Error
/usr/local/bin/sc_spell: line 10: exec: tcscid: not found
End Error

Thanks again for your help,
Cory Helfrich
cor...@ya...

[Chessdb-users] Downloading from TWIC

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

I've seen various comments about it being useful if one could download 
games from TWIC. There is a feature request in the Scid site:


http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=26963&atid=389083

Someone posted a bash script the other day and I note there is a python 
one in scripts directory in the source code.

http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/tutorial/scripts/twic2chessdb.py

so I guess this is what at least a few people want

I assume TWIC has changed the web site a bit, since they python script 
does not work Seems a bit excessively long, to do a trivial thing too.

As a UNIX guy, I agree with someone the other day about the merits of 
the command line for that sort of thing - a script can be written in no 
time at all, making use of curl, wget or similar.

But anyway, I decided to have a go at adding a menu item under tools.

Tools -> Download from TWIC


My thoughts were

1) Download to the current database - makes it easier.

2) Store in the options (or perhaps other) file, the last one 
downloaded, so you don't download the same issue more than once - not 
that finding duplicates is that hard, but it is a bit pointless.

Comments, suggestions ...
-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

Re: [Chessdb-users] Proposal around 'Play' mode

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

Jeremy White wrote:
>>Scid never was designed as a chess playing opponent and it would need a
>>*lot* of work to make ChessDB a good choice for playing in.
> 
> 
> That strikes me as a pretty compelling argument.  That further suggests
> that a 'coach' mode change would be more appropriate to
> xboard/winboard.  A copy/paste from xboard into chessdb works
> quite nicely, at the least, so I can still have a kid play
> xboard and record it via chessdb if they like.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jeremy

I may have perhaps overstated the amount of work needed to set up a 
decent chess-playing environment, but there is no doubt it would need 
several changes


* clocks
* resign button
* draw button
* sensible time-controls - not just seconds/move.
* Ability to see offers of draws from the chess engine.

Only then, when there is a suitable environment to play chess, should 
coaches start watching over people. For now, the best thing a coach 
could do it tell his students not to play chess in ChessDB.

Would Pascal (or anyone else) fancy taking on a task for providing a 
suitable environment to play chess in? I just spent a few minutes 
looking at the 'competition' - I looked at Arena, ICC's blitzin (online 
only), Winboard, ICC's dasher (online and against an engine.). (I just 
happened to have these installed)


ICC's Dasher was interesting, as it uses Crafty as a chess engine, but I 
just played a game where the PGN file says's Black's ELO (crafty was 
black) is only 1100. I actually lost (on time), as I was doing soemthign 
else at teh same time, so O played poor chess and lost on time. But I 
think you can tell that crafty was playing very weakly. The PGN file 
says Black (crafty) was 1100.

Can crafty really be configured to play at 1100? This opponent 'Andrew' 
was the chess engine crafty - or at least that is what Dasher says it is 
using. Perhaps there is a weaker one, enabled, but on a quick glance, it 
looks like it is using crafty 20.14.

[Event "ICC"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2007.01.01"]
[White "You"]
[Black "Andrew"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1600"]
[BlackElo "1100"]
[TimeControl "300+0"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Bc4 Ngf6
6. Qf3 Nd5 7. Ne2 N7b6 8. Bb3 Bd7 9. Bd2 g6 10. O-O Rc8
11. c4 Nf6 12. Nxf6+ exf6 13. c5 Nd5 14. Bxd5 cxd5 15. Qxd5 b5
16. Rac1 Be7 17. c6 Bf5 18. Qxd8+ Kxd8 19. Ba5+ Ke8 20. c7 Ra8
21. c8=Q+ Bxc8 22. Rc6 Kd7 23. Rfc1 Re8 24. Nf4 Bb7 25. Rc7+ Kd6
26. Rxb7 Rac8 27. Rxc8 Rxc8 28. Kf1 Rc2 29. a3 a6 30. Bb4+ Kc6
31. Rxe7 g5 32. Nd3 Kd5 33. Rxf7 Kxd4 34. Rxh7 Kxd3 35. g3 Re2
36. Rf7 a5 37. Bxa5 Re6 38. Rg7 Re2 39. h4 g4 40. Rf7 Re6
41. h5 Kd4 42. h6 Kd3 43. h7 Re1+
0-1


-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

[Chessdb-users] subscribe

[Denis J N. <dn...@so...>]

Re: [Chessdb-users] Proposal around 'Play' mode

[Jeremy W. <jw...@co...>]

> Scid never was designed as a chess playing opponent and it would need a
> *lot* of work to make ChessDB a good choice for playing in.

That strikes me as a pretty compelling argument.  That further suggests
that a 'coach' mode change would be more appropriate to
xboard/winboard.  A copy/paste from xboard into chessdb works
quite nicely, at the least, so I can still have a kid play
xboard and record it via chessdb if they like.

Cheers,

Jeremy

[Chessdb-users] New release ChessDB-3.6.8

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

I've put a new realse on Sourceforge. For those that use the program in 
English, there will be nothing to be gained by upgrading. For those 
using another language, there might be, as some of the entries for 
different langage files were not present.

I found there was a script in the tcl/lang subdirectory

$ tclsh < checklangs.tcl

reports any missing entries. There were a lot missing from the Russian 
translation, but after adding them, ChessDB was still generating en eror 
on startup if the language was russian. I suspect a line is broken or 
something, but its almost impossible to diagnose for me. Anyway, Russian 
is now disabled again.


-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

Re: [Chessdb-users] Proposal around 'Play' mode

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

Jeremy White wrote:
>>>I think we need to resolve what is useful here.
> 
> 
> I would like to suggest a design for this feature.
> 
> Specifically, I propose that the 'Play with Coach' and
> the Analysis...Train interface be dropped in favor of a
> 'Play against Computer' menu item.

> Within Play against computer, I imagine that you would first
> pick an engine, and then, as we can, set the difficulty slider
> that engine would use.
> 
> Then, I propose that dialog have a radio button for 'have another engine coach me';
> if selected, you pick an engine.
> 
> 
> What do folks think of that approach?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jeremy

I'm not convinced, but for a different reason to what you might think.

Scid never was designed as a chess playing opponent and it would need a 
*lot* of work to make ChessDB a good choice for playing in.

Specifically.

1) There are no clocks displayed.

2) The only time control that can be configured is the seconds per move.

3) No way to offer or accept a draw.

I think Winboard and xboard are both better. There is a wide choice on 
Windows  - Areas is free, but not open-source.

I fear that ChessDB could get a bad reputation for being a poor chess 
program, rather than have a good reputation for being a good database.

I wrote a similar thing the other day, when I put some notes on how to 
play one chess engine vs another inside ChessDB.

http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/tutorial/t_adv_engine_vs_engine.php

where I wrote "The software was not designed with this in mind, and it 
is not optimised for the task, but it does work"

If someone wanted to add sufficient to ChessDB to make it a good chess 
playing program, then good luck to them. I'd certainly be willing to add 
the code if it worked well - or add in with a warning that this section 
is under development.

But it is a *long* way from being ideal for the task now.

My own view is there is probably better things to spend time on - 
something more closely related to the original aims of Scid.

In contrast, the term "Training" does not convey an impression of it 
being a chess playing program. I think its a more accurate description 
of what ChessDB currently does.

If someone wants to add a play mode, then I feel it should be a be a 
separate menu item, under tools. It would have to

1) Offer a choice of time controls. The xboard protocol specifies some, 
so those could be used and should work on any engine.

http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard/engine-intf.html#11

2) Place real-time clocks near the chessboard.

3) Button to offer or accept a draw.

and so on. It would really need a lot added to it, to make it even a 
semi-decent playing partner. It could all be done, there is no doubt. 
I've no objection to someone writing that and I'd add it in if it works. 
Better still if there is an interface to ICC and FICS.

I think what you added the other day (the annotate only after some 
threshold) was really useful. Pascal says there is a bug there so it 
would be nice to fix if a solution can be found, although it worked okay 
for me I must say.

I was a little less convinced about the worth of a 'coach' that tells 
you when a chess engine has blundered before you have even moved. It 
almost encourages someone not to think for themselves.

Comments?
-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

[Chessdb-users] Proposal around 'Play' mode

[Jeremy W. <jw...@co...>]

>>>
>> I think we need to resolve what is useful here.

I would like to suggest a design for this feature.

Specifically, I propose that the 'Play with Coach' and
the Analysis...Train interface be dropped in favor of a
'Play against Computer' menu item.

Within Play against computer, I imagine that you would first
pick an engine, and then, as we can, set the difficulty slider
that engine would use.

Then, I propose that dialog have a radio button for 'have another engine coach me';
if selected, you pick an engine.


What do folks think of that approach?

Cheers,

Jeremy

Re: [Chessdb-users] Ideas for the future

[Michal R. <mr...@kd...>]

Jeremy White,  niedziela, 31 grudnia 2006 06:46:
>>>   1.  Allow the user to set a default database;
>>>       my kids only need one, and it should start with that one.
>> On the UNIX system you can give it as a command line option. On windows
>> systems, which is what I think you mean, you could just put a shortcut
>> to the database on the desktop. Clicking the shortcut to the 'foobar'
>> atabase will opein chessdb with that databae loaded.
>Fine, throw my own 'avoid duplication' argument back at me, why don't you?
><grin>.
'Default' database can  be handled in that way. But there are more things to 
remember, so some kind of (maybe optional) session management will be nice.

ChessDB can remember:
* open databases
* current game in each database (good idea anyway, for all databases)
* currently open minor windows


-- 
Michal Rudolf

Re: [Chessdb-users] ChessDB 3.6.7 released.

[Bernhard S. <sad...@ma...>]

On 31 Dec 2006 10:29, Dr. David Kirkby <dav...@on...> wrote:
> Claus Behl wrote:
> > deb Package at:
> > 
> > http://www.bempf.de/data/chessdb_3.6.7-1_i386.deb
> > 
> > md5: 24be5fba8088762e4bacd0c7069d305a
> > 
> > Claus Behl
> 
> Thank you, that has been uploaded. I assume it does not include the 
> ratings file, since the size is quite small, but I have no check myself.
> -- 
> Dr. David Kirkby

It doesn't seem to work on Debian (unstable and testing). Is the .deb for
Ubuntu, because it seems to require a new glibc?

~$ chessdb
tkchessdb: /lib/tls/libc.so.6: version GLIBC_2.4' not found (required by
tkchessdb)

$ ls -l /lib/tls/libc.so.6 
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Dec 11 22:15 /lib/tls/libc.so.6 -> libc-2.3.6.so

Bernhard

Re: [Chessdb-users] ChessDB 3.6.7 released.

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

Claus Behl wrote:
> Dr. David Kirkby schrieb:
> 
>>Claus Behl wrote:
>>
>>>deb Package at:
>>>
>>>http://www.bempf.de/data/chessdb_3.6.7-1_i386.deb
>>>
>>>md5: 24be5fba8088762e4bacd0c7069d305a
>>>
>>>Claus Behl
>>>
>>
>>Thank you, that has been uploaded. I assume it does not include the 
>>ratings file, since the size is quite small, but I have no check myself.
> 
> ratings.ssp is included
> 
> Claus Behl

Thanks. I was a bit surpised, since the lenght seemed prtty short. 
Perhaps the compression of .deb is good. I know ratings.ssp is about 16 
MB uncompressed.

-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

Re: [Chessdb-users] ChessDB 3.6.7 released.

[Claus B. <cla...@gm...>]

Dr. David Kirkby schrieb:
> Claus Behl wrote:
>> deb Package at:
>>
>> http://www.bempf.de/data/chessdb_3.6.7-1_i386.deb
>>
>> md5: 24be5fba8088762e4bacd0c7069d305a
>>
>> Claus Behl
>>
>
> Thank you, that has been uploaded. I assume it does not include the 
> ratings file, since the size is quite small, but I have no check myself.
ratings.ssp is included

Claus Behl

Re: [Chessdb-users] ChessDB 3.6.7 released.

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

Claus Behl wrote:
> deb Package at:
> 
> http://www.bempf.de/data/chessdb_3.6.7-1_i386.deb
> 
> md5: 24be5fba8088762e4bacd0c7069d305a
> 
> Claus Behl
> 

Thank you, that has been uploaded. I assume it does not include the 
ratings file, since the size is quite small, but I have no check myself.
-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

Re: [Chessdb-users] ChessDB 3.6.7 released.

[Claus B. <cla...@gm...>]

deb Package at:

http://www.bempf.de/data/chessdb_3.6.7-1_i386.deb

md5: 24be5fba8088762e4bacd0c7069d305a

Claus Behl

Re: [Chessdb-users] Ideas for the future

[Jeremy W. <jw...@co...>]

>>   1.  Allow the user to set a default database;
>>       my kids only need one, and it should start with that one.
> 
> On the UNIX system you can give it as a command line option. On windows
> systems, which is what I think you mean, you could just put a shortcut
> to the database on the desktop. Clicking the shortcut to the 'foobar'
> atabase will opein chessdb with that databae loaded.

Fine, throw my own 'avoid duplication' argument back at me, why don't you?
<grin>.

You may be right that the association handling on the Mac or on Windows
is clear enough to work.  I'll have to play with it there; I mostly
use Linux.

>>   3.  Finish up the 'Play Coach' mode, or the train mode,
>>       or however we have it, so the kids can play against
>>       an 'easy' computer.
>>
> 
> I think we need to resolve what is useful here.

Agreed.

> 
>>   4.  Modify the Export feature so that I can export an entire
>>       database to a set of web pages, with links by player
>>       and event, and such.  That way, I can analyze games, and
>>       then publish it all to a web page in one shot.
> 
> 
> You can expert multiple games at once. I'm not sure if the bookmarks can
> be exprted.

Sorry, I wasn't quite clear. I'm more concerned with the fact that the default
'Export All' feature just produces a flat html page; I'd like one with
some high level organization on it (index by player, by event, etc).
I suppose I could post process the html to achieve that, which might be as efficient a solution.

Cheers,

Jeremy

Re: [Chessdb-users] Ideas for the future

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

Jeremy White wrote:
> Michal Rudolf wrote:
> 
>>As Scid is maintained now, maybe it is worth looking for some new ideas.
>>
>>Browsing these pages should give us some food for thought:
>>http://www.chessgames.com/perl/tour?page=1
> 
> 
> My wish list for chessdb includes the following
> (again, from my biased, chess coach perspective):
> 
>   1.  Allow the user to set a default database;
>       my kids only need one, and it should start with that one.

On the UNIX system you can give it as a command line option. On windows 
systems, which is what I think you mean, you could just put a shortcut 
to the database on the desktop. Clicking the shortcut to the 'foobar' 
atabase will opein chessdb with that databae loaded.
> 
>   2.  See if we can bundle both crafty and phalanx seamlessly into
>       the Mac and Windows downloads.

This should be possible, although if someone decides to install to 
another location (not C:\Program Files\ChessDB\ it would become more 
difficult.


>   3.  Finish up the 'Play Coach' mode, or the train mode,
>       or however we have it, so the kids can play against
>       an 'easy' computer.
> 

I think we need to resolve what is useful here.

>   4.  Modify the Export feature so that I can export an entire
>       database to a set of web pages, with links by player
>       and event, and such.  That way, I can analyze games, and
>       then publish it all to a web page in one shot.


You can expert multiple games at once. I'm not sure if the bookmarks can 
be exprted.

> I think that it's great that this project has some life; I've
> long thought SCID was a great tool that just needed a little love <grin>.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jeremy
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

Re: [Chessdb-users] [Scid-users] RFC - Blunders Only Analysis Mode

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

Neil Schemenauer wrote:

> It looks like chessdb development is picking up some steam. 


I hope so.  It's a shame if the scid code just get forgotten. I know 
there are critisisms of it (poorly documented code, tk not the best 
GUI), but there is nothing currently to touch it in functionality.

>  Have
> you considered using a distributed revision control system instead
> of CVS?  I think it would be well suited to this project.

I'm yet to see a convincing argument that is is better. Some say yes, 
others says no.

http://blog.ianbicking.org/distributed-vs-centralized-scm.html

It will require more management and a learning curve, as few know it.

At lest on Sourceforge the CVS works reasonably well.

For now
> Since there are probably a number of Windows developers, I recommend
> using "bzr".
> 
> Cheers,
> 
>   Neil
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT
> Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your
> opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash
> http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV
> _______________________________________________
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> 


-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

Re: [Chessdb-users] [Scid-users] RFC - Blunders Only Analysis Mode

[Jeremy W. <jw...@co...>]

> The "thresholdGameWasDeadAnyway" is there to stop putting ? or ?? when the game
> is practically over : for example if the score is -10 and goes to -13, this
> does not deserve any comment : this is the normal evolution of the game.

Right; you clearly have thought this through quite thoroughly.

We should unify these two functions; a single dialog box to
control the 'Blunder' variables should be doable, and then both
the analyze and 'play with coach' functions can draw on the same settings.

Sorry for the overlap; I wrote my code a while ago, and was unaware
you were working on a similar concept.


> What do you mean by "Could I con you into doing both at the same time " ?

Yes, I was asking you to do the work.  I was trying to ask in
a humorous way.  'Con' as in 'Confidence-man' - a person
who through deceit gets someone else to do what they want, usually
for the purpose or robbing them.  So the request is essentially:
"Can I trick you into doing the work?"

It's sad that a joke loses all humor when explained, and that it's also
very difficult to bring humor across language barriers.  Of course,
what's truly tragic is that my jokes are never funny anyways <grin>.

Cheers,

Jeremy

[Chessdb-users] in Italian

[Giancarlo B. <g....@ip...>]

Dr. David Kirkby: <If anyone is able to translate these 3 lines:

translate E AnnotateBlundersOnly {When game move is an obvious blunder}
translate E AnnotateBlundersOnlyScoreChange {Analysis reports blunder,
with score change from/to: }
translate E BlundersThreshold {Threshold}>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Italian:

When game move is an obvious blunder =3D Quando la mossa =E8 una svista=20
evidente

Analysis reports blunder, with score change from/to =3D
L'analisi riporta la svista, con punteggio variabile da/a

Threshold =3D Soglia
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

As far as I'll find it on this software, I'll send other variation
to translation , if my current one sounds odd.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Best regards,
 =09=09GB

---
"I'm no Pawn, I'm Donald Duck ! "
        -- Donald in MathMagic Land

http://g-bassi.wikidot.com

Re: [Chessdb-users] ChessDB 3.6.7 released.

[Michal R. <mr...@kd...>]

Dr. David Kirkby,  sobota, 30 grudnia 2006 21:33:
>I've made a second release of this today, since there was a bug in 3.6.6
>which prevented the program working properly if the language was not
>English.
Maybe it will be useful to post a detailed ChangeLog entry each time you 
announce a release. That will make checking new features easier.

Included is ebuild for Gentoo - maybe you can put it somewhere on the site.
-- 
Michal Rudolf

[Chessdb-users] ChessDB 3.6.7 released.

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

I've made a second release of this today, since there was a bug in 3.6.6 
which prevented the program working properly if the language was not 
English.

If anyone is able to translate these 3 lines:

translate E AnnotateBlundersOnly {When game move is an obvious blunder}
translate E AnnotateBlundersOnlyScoreChange {Analysis reports blunder, 
with score change from/to: }
translate E BlundersThreshold {Threshold}

into another language, please do so and post the lines. I'll then update 
the CVS. It's a bit time-consuming at the minute to make a release, as I 
need to upload different files depending on if its the source or the 
windows exe.

If anyone is able to produce RPM's or whatever else for Linux, I'll 
upload them too. Just drop them at

http://www.althorne.org/php/

and send me an email with the length and better still md5 checksum of 
the file.

Same goes for Mac. I'm not able to generate binaries for that myself.


-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

Re: [Chessdb-users] Ideas for the future

[Jeremy W. <jw...@co...>]

Michal Rudolf wrote:
> As Scid is maintained now, maybe it is worth looking for some new ideas.
> 
> Browsing these pages should give us some food for thought:
> http://www.chessgames.com/perl/tour?page=1

My wish list for chessdb includes the following
(again, from my biased, chess coach perspective):

  1.  Allow the user to set a default database;
      my kids only need one, and it should start with that one.

  2.  See if we can bundle both crafty and phalanx seamlessly into
      the Mac and Windows downloads.

  3.  Finish up the 'Play Coach' mode, or the train mode,
      or however we have it, so the kids can play against
      an 'easy' computer.

  4.  Modify the Export feature so that I can export an entire
      database to a set of web pages, with links by player
      and event, and such.  That way, I can analyze games, and
      then publish it all to a web page in one shot.

I think that it's great that this project has some life; I've
long thought SCID was a great tool that just needed a little love <grin>.

Cheers,

Jeremy

Re: [Chessdb-users] [Scid-users] Functionality to test

[Jeremy W. <jw...@co...>]

I thought I'd add my $0.02; my perspective on ChessDB is purely
as a teaching tool for kids.

> I've made these comments to Pascal before, but might as well make them
> on the mailing lists too, since he has asked here for comments.
> 
> 1) I can see the point in having a weaker player than crafty. I don't
> know how the various engines compare, but Phalanx looks to be okay for
> that purpose.

I think this is critical; none of my kids have a chance against
crafty, even at it's most eviserated mode (and it's hard to cripple
it enough to make it even vaguely close to their league).

I'd even like to see Phalanx added to the default configuration
so it's not necessary to build it (and can we do that with wcrafty too?).

However, I have to admit that I did not realize that the 'Train' button
would let you play against an engine, and I didn't realize that
Phalanx could scale down to be a weak engine (-e 100 is very nice :-/).

That mode is certainly 80% of what I was looking for; the coach mode
I see as an option on top of that.

> 
> 2) I can see the point in having the rating easily configured with a
> slider, as is Pascal's code. Although the number does not correspond to
> ELO in any obvious way - perhaps the slider should be marked 1 to 100,
> rather than 1200 to 2200 unless there is evidence to suggest those
> numbers are about right.

I agree that the slider should be 0-100, unless we can more concretely
determine the ratings (and if we can, then imho, phalanx should have
an option to play at a given rating, so that supercomputers of the future
don't invalidate any assumptions).

But I think that slider is critical as well; knowing that you have
to go into the engine configuration and add a '-e 100' isn't all
that obvious.

> 
> 3) I'm not convinced there is much point in having Crafty flag a blunder
> that Phalanx has made when playing you, *before* you have even thought
> about the move.
> 
> I never play anyone with someone else looking over my shoulder and
> saying "Hay, he (Phalanx) has just blundered. Now think carefully, find
> his blunder and exploit it". To me, that is what this 'Coach mode' is
> doing (at least in its present implementation).
> 
> That sort of thing to me is just not realistic.

I disagree, at least for kids.  At their level, their games swing
entirely on how many blunders they and their opponent make, so
tools to let them learn to make fewer blunders are all to the good.

Think of the current implementation as a game with an increasing
set of "find White's best move" sort of puzzle.
I'd also like the mode to also flag a blunder by the player, though, and give the player
a chance to figure out why they blundered, and go back and do it right.
(I think it's okay to rig a computer
session so that the kid is essentially guaranteed a win, particularly
if that kid has to study the positions and learn a little bit along
the way.  It keeps it fun for the kid, which I find is critical :-/.)

> 
> 4) I have had some stabilitiy issue with this on my Sun SPARC, but they
> are not always reproduable. Some problems Pascal could see when he used
> my Sun remotely, but the last ones I found, I can't reproduce.
> 
> 
> It's an interesting idea, but overall I'm not convinced of the worth of
> the coach mode as such.

I think if nothing else, if it could be used to push the 'Train' mode out
of the engine dialog and into a more visible place, I think that would be
a good change.  That was one of the first things I looked for in SCID,
and when I didn't find it, I turned instead to xboard.  But it's a pain to
get the game from xboard into scid for analysis later...

My agenda, by the way, is to help get ChessDB to the point where it's
a complete package that I can tell any of my kids (I have 190 kids
in my club, and 45 kids on my 'team') to download and it will be useful
right out of the box.  It's really nice that it's open source and
cross platform; that really works well for my purposes.

Cheers,

Jeremy