by Toga121par » 16 Feb 2008 09:23
It's really difficult to use polyglot if you don't fully understand the concepts/definitions of it's use, the protocol/s used by the engine and how the books were made. Even I had my bad days using polyglot. Here are additional tips to understand it better - very specific!
Polyglot is an engine adapter (UCI to WB adapter) in order to use a UCI engine in the Winboard interface. As we all know, only WB compatible engines or engines using this "protocol" can be used in the Winboard GUI. Therefore, you don't need polyglot when you use pure WB engines like Crafty, TSCP, Scorpio) in Winboard. Just verify the protocol used by the engine at WBEC, Playwitharena, or the author/engine link, before attempting to use polyglot. For the example above, which is Naum, it is a WB and UCI engine (all at the same time). So, you can use polyglot adapter to make Naum function as a WB engine (and use a polyglot book as well) or just forget using polyglot and make it function as a "native" WB engine and use it's own engine book. Alex Naumov named his opening books NaumBook.bin. It was built with his own book-builder and only Naum engine can use it. Make sure that Naumbook.bin resides in the engine folder together with naum.cfg (or naum's configuration file used by Naum).
So here are your options:
For the polyglot.ini file above, just remove these lines if you are planning only to use the engine book or NaumBook.bin:
Book = true
BookFile = C:\Polygot\Book\NaumBook.bin
But in case you want to use a polyglot book, say performance.bin, together with NaumBook.bin, just set Book=true and BookFile=C:\Polygot\Book\performance.bin in the Polyglot option of ini file. Just as the polyglot readme stated, when you use polyglot, the polyglot book comes first, and if it goes out of book, the enginebook will takeover.
Without polyglot, Naum can still be used as your "native" WB engine, the same way Crafty is used.
I hope this one clears the issue. Thanks.