Houdini and Chessbase GUI engine matches
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 12:17 pm
When running engine matches with Houdini in the Chessbase GUI, sometimes one of the following happens:
- Houdini uses nearly all its time on the first or first two moves of a game;
- Houdini plays the whole game instantly, as if it has no time left on the clock.
Both behaviours obviously are not intended.
With the meticulous help of Peter Grayson we've been able to locate the problem. It appears that, contrary to the UCI protocol specification, Chessbase GUI never sends a “ucinewgame” command when a new game begins, it just sends a “Clear Hash” instruction. For Houdini it is as if the complete match is a single game in which it occasionally switches sides
. This messes up some of the time management, especially in ponder mode.
Note that any Houdini match results obtained in the Chessbase GUI could have been affected by this issue, and that this applies to every Houdini version that has been released so far.
We will soon release a corrected Houdini 1.5a version in which the “Clear Hash” command is interpreted in the same way as “ucinewgame”. This change will only affect Chessbase GUI users running engine matches.
Robert
- Houdini uses nearly all its time on the first or first two moves of a game;
- Houdini plays the whole game instantly, as if it has no time left on the clock.
Both behaviours obviously are not intended.
With the meticulous help of Peter Grayson we've been able to locate the problem. It appears that, contrary to the UCI protocol specification, Chessbase GUI never sends a “ucinewgame” command when a new game begins, it just sends a “Clear Hash” instruction. For Houdini it is as if the complete match is a single game in which it occasionally switches sides
. This messes up some of the time management, especially in ponder mode.Note that any Houdini match results obtained in the Chessbase GUI could have been affected by this issue, and that this applies to every Houdini version that has been released so far.
We will soon release a corrected Houdini 1.5a version in which the “Clear Hash” command is interpreted in the same way as “ucinewgame”. This change will only affect Chessbase GUI users running engine matches.
Robert