Most Chess960 engines don't work.

[Hagen]

I wanted to post this topic in here because I don't see this discussed on the other forums. I've been testing chess engines that "supposedly" support Chess960 and I've found them not able to support castling rules as per Fischerandom rules. The engines which are supposed to let you play this format have problems with the castling rules:

Tornado, Spike, The Baron, Bright, Chispa.

These engines don't play FRC accurately or don't play this chess variant at all. I've been testing Tornado for instance...and even the newest engine version Tornado 3.6.5 which was released today...doesn't play FRC correctly. When I play a castling move supported in FRC using the Rybka Aquarium interface...the engine dies. It does however let you play no castle chess...which is another form of shuffle chess but no castling. The current release of Stockfish does support FRC and plays it accurately...but don't use Fischer clock rules when playing the engine. I've tested Stockfish using Fischer clock rules and it doesn't play FRC using this clock correctly. When I play a castling move using Fischer clock regulations...meaning increments per move...Stockfish doesn't recognize Chess60 castling moves. When you play blitz games against Stockfish using FRC with no increments...it recognizes castling rules using FRC.

Just letting you guys know.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

I wanted to post this topic in here because I don't see this discussed on the other forums. I've been testing chess engines that "supposedly" support Chess960 and I've found them not able to support castling rules as per Fischerandom rules. The engines which are supposed to let you play this format have problems with the castling rules:

Tornado, Spike, The Baron, Bright, Chispa.

These engines don't play FRC accurately or don't play this chess variant at all. I've been testing Tornado for instance...and even the newest engine version Tornado 3.6.5 which was released today...doesn't play FRC correctly. When I play a castling move supported in FRC using the Rybka Aquarium interface...the engine dies. It does however let you play no castle chess...which is another form of shuffle chess but no castling. The current release of Stockfish does support FRC and plays it accurately...but don't use Fischer clock rules when playing the engine. I've tested Stockfish using Fischer clock rules and it doesn't play FRC using this clock correctly. When I play a castling move using Fischer clock regulations...meaning increments per move...Stockfish doesn't recognize Chess60 castling moves. When you play blitz games against Stockfish using FRC with no increments...it recognizes castling rules using FRC.

Just letting you guys know.

Have you tried in other GUIs than Aquarium?

Jeremy

[Matthias Gemuh]

Your Chess960 problem is the GUI, not the engines.
The mentioned engines play Chess960 flawlessly.

Matthias.

[Hagen]

I have the Chessbase, Arena, and Chesspartner GUI's. Unfortunately Chesspartner doesn't support FRC. I also have Winboard Gold...which stinks because when I play FRC in that GUI...I get "engine committed error" message and the engines die. This is even when I disable debug mode.

I would love to use Stockfish in the Winboard Gold GUI...but I don't know how to set it up correctly. For some reason even though I list the engines in the Winboard.ini file...when I load Stockfish...it doesn't play. Does anybody know how to get Stockfish to work in Winboard?

I also have Babachess as well...but the engine support is only for analysis...and I've tried getting this thing to let me play computer chess games locally on my PC and can't kick this mule to work. Any ideas on that? Any other GUI's that let me play FRC flawlessly I'd appreciate it greatly.

I also have Smurfchess...which also supports FRC...but I don't know if Stockfish would work in this GUI too. Anybody know the answer to this I'd appreciate as well.

[Adam Hair]

I have the Chessbase, Arena, and Chesspartner GUI's. Unfortunately Chesspartner doesn't support FRC. I also have Winboard Gold...which stinks because when I play FRC in that GUI...I get "engine committed error" message and the engines die. This is even when I disable debug mode.

I would love to use Stockfish in the Winboard Gold GUI...but I don't know how to set it up correctly. For some reason even though I list the engines in the Winboard.ini file...when I load Stockfish...it doesn't play. Does anybody know how to get Stockfish to work in Winboard?

I also have Babachess as well...but the engine support is only for analysis...and I've tried getting this thing to let me play computer chess games locally on my PC and can't kick this mule to work. Any ideas on that? Any other GUI's that let me play FRC flawlessly I'd appreciate it greatly.

I also have Smurfchess...which also supports FRC...but I don't know if Stockfish would work in this GUI too. Anybody know the answer to this I'd appreciate as well.

Matthias Gemuh, who stated that those engines play Chess960 flawlessly, is the creator of a fine GUI called ChessGUI, which supports
Chess960. Try this link: http://biglion.110mb.com

[Matthias Gemuh]

Matthias Gemuh, who stated that those engines play Chess960 flawlessly, is the creator of a fine GUI called ChessGUI, which supports
Chess960. Try this link: http://biglion.110mb.com

Yes, ChessGUI supports all Chess960 protocols.
However, I recommend ChessGUI only for offline engine-engine matches.
Human-engine match support is still very primitive.

Matthias.