autochess

[cloquet]

Hello, I'm hoping to play Chess960 games using the Arena Chess GUI and Fruit 2.2.1. Many people, including myself, seem to be having trouble getting this going due to a proprietary implementation of the UCI extensions in Arena. It has been suggested to use Polyglot for loading Fruit (or any 960-capable UCI engine), but I can't seem to get this going. I have Polyglot in my Arena directory with a bare-bones fruit.ini file:

[PolyGlot]

EngineDir = Engines\Fruit
EngineCommand = Fruit2.2.1.exe

Book = false

[Engine]

Hash = 64

I've tried changing engine parameters within Arena to load polyglot from the command-line with the Manage Engines option, setting the command-line to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Arena\polyglot.exe" with "fruit.ini" as the command-line parameter. Nothing seems to work.
This is all new to me, and I am likely wrong in how I'm going about this business. Can someone please explain clearly how to load the Fruit engine into Area for playing chess960? Thanks.

[Prima]

Hello, I'm hoping to play Chess960 games using the Arena Chess GUI and Fruit 2.2.1. Many people, including myself, seem to be having trouble getting this going due to a proprietary implementation of the UCI extensions in Arena. It has been suggested to use Polyglot for loading Fruit (or any 960-capable UCI engine), but I can't seem to get this going. I have Polyglot in my Arena directory with a bare-bones fruit.ini file:

[PolyGlot]

EngineDir = Engines\Fruit
EngineCommand = Fruit2.2.1.exe

Book = false

[Engine]

Hash = 64

I've tried changing engine parameters within Arena to load polyglot from the command-line with the Manage Engines option, setting the command-line to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Arena\polyglot.exe" with "fruit.ini" as the command-line parameter. Nothing seems to work.
This is all new to me, and I am likely wrong in how I'm going about this business. Can someone please explain clearly how to load the Fruit engine into Area for playing chess960? Thanks.

You don't need the PolyGlot adapter to use in conjunction with a Chess960-capable engine in Arena GUI. Nor do you need PolyGlot's INI file to use in Arena GUI to play Chess960. The problem you may be encountering is most engines capable of Chess960 have their Chess960 turned off by default. So you'll need to activate Chess960 for such engines in order to play Chess960 in any GUI interface.

To play Chess960 in Arena;

1. Install a Chess960-capable engine in Arena GUI.

2. From Arena's Menu, go to Engines\ Engine 1\ Configure
*here at Configure, you need to activate Chess 960 for Fruit (and engines with Chess960=false) to True, as shown in the picture below



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Then click OK.

3. Now that Chess 960 has been activated for Fruit 2.2.1, from Arena's Menu, go to File and select New - Chess 960.

4. Now you're ready to play Chess960. I tested Chess960 against Fruit 2.2.1 and it worked. Here's picture:


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[cloquet]

Now a new problem with Fruit 2.2.1 ... I made the settings exactly as shown. Arena loads Fruit but fruit doesn't respond. I made sure the match is human vs. computer.
I'm using Arena 3.0, BTW.

[matematiko]

Now a new problem with Fruit 2.2.1 ... I made the settings exactly as shown. Arena loads Fruit but fruit doesn't respond. I made sure the match is human vs. computer.
I'm using Arena 3.0, BTW.

What about if you tell prima first : Thanks for such a nice and elaborated reply., then ask another question.

Regards,

P.S.

prima,

Thanks for such a nice and elaborated reply.

[cloquet]

Thank you Prima.

[Prima]

Now a new problem with Fruit 2.2.1 ... I made the settings exactly as shown. Arena loads Fruit but fruit doesn't respond. I made sure the match is human vs. computer.
I'm using Arena 3.0, BTW.

What about if you tell prima first : Thanks for such a nice and elaborated reply., then ask another question.

Regards,

P.S.

prima,

Thanks for such a nice and elaborated reply.

Thank you matematiko

[Prima]

Now a new problem with Fruit 2.2.1 ... I made the settings exactly as shown. Arena loads Fruit but fruit doesn't respond. I made sure the match is human vs. computer.
I'm using Arena 3.0, BTW.

Thank you Prima.

You're welcome, cloquet.

There is some conflict between Fruit's Chess960 and Arena GUI's Chess960, based on "certain" positions. I "succeeded" in playing 2 more Chess 960 games with Fruit 2.2.1 after many trials. I noticed Fruit 2.2.1 (and probably best to assume all Fruits) won't play just "any" type of Chess 960. That's right, it won't play just "any random Chess 960" games.
It appears that Fruit 2.2.1 readily plays Chess960 with Castles (Rooks) on it's usual initial positions that's similar in orthodox chess (a1 & h1). If Rooks are in other positions besides a1 & h1, Fruit does not play.

Here are the 2 additional Chess 960 games Fruit 2.2.1 responded to. Notice the initial positions of the Rooks which is similar to orthodox chess (a1 & h1):




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Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Of course this is my observation and I could be wrong apropos a1 & h1 Rook positions.


So my conclusion:

1. There's Chess960 castling (O-O-O) / (O-O) conflict between Fruit's and Arena's Chess 960 castling protocol. Or
2. The Chess960 protocol of Arena is unfavourable towards Fruit. I say this because other Chess960-capable engines like Spike and Critter
do not have the Chess960 problem Fruit has with playing "any" Chess 960 in Arena.

Since Fruit author Mr. Fabien Letouzy is no longer active in computer chess, the option of contacting him about Fruit's Chess 960 bug is out
the window. On the other hand, Fruit is one of the oldest/earliest UCI engines to implement the "standard" Chess 960 protocols. In fact, Fabien and Tord
Romstad (author of Glaurung/Stockfish) worked side-by-side to create and implement Chess960 in their UCI engines, also creating a PolyGlot-960,
and also creating the first xborad-960. So it's possible Arena GUI's Chess 960 protocol is not compatible with Fruit's Chess 960.

So you would have to contact the author of Arena GUI. Maybe he can create some sort of work-around for Fruit's Chess 960 compatibility.
Here's Arena's Home page / contact link : http://www.playwitharena.com/

The next solution is to play Shuffle Chess. Shuffle chess also randomly arranges initial chess positions similar to Chess960, but it won't label the game as "Chess 960". Fruit 2.2.1 seem to have no problems with Shuffle Chess.

To play Shuffle Chess, go to : File \ New - Shuffle Chess