Re: [FWD: Re: WinBoard/GNU Chess 5.02 bug ]

[Simon Waters]

"Michael S. Kerry" wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I originally sent this to Tim Mann, and he suggested that it would be more 
> appropriate to send to you.  Below is the relevant text from my original 
> message to Tim.

Hi Michael,

sorry for your problems with GNU Chess 5.02.

Tim is right that 5.04 is the current version, and that between
5.03 and 5.04 we made minor but important changes to the engine
interface to improve the detection of illegal moves
(Xboard/Winboard doesn't check the legality of en-passant (or
castling) moves, so Xboard would allow en-passant and the
program would fail to object that the pawn advance wasn't the
last move in a form Xboard could understand, leading to lockup
as Xboard behaved as if the illegal move had been played and the
engine behaved as if it hadn't).

I can't reproduce the problem you describe with GNU Chess 5.04. 

I also never had any reports of it with earlier versions of GNU
Chess 5.

Are you starting GNU Chess 5 with the line '-fcp "gnuchess
xboard"' ?

If you can still reproduce this problem with 5.04, or wish to
investigate it further with 5.02, suggest you enable the debug
mode of Winboard and send us a copy of the conversation so I can
check it manually.

As added incentive 5.04 also implements the "bk" command
allowing interfaces to ask what are the known book moves in a
position, which should make for easier analysis of the Sicillian
Dragon and variants.

  Simon

PS: If you enjoy using GNU Chess, check out SCID a free software
Chess database tool. I'm hoping to make GNU Chess 5.05 work as
an analysis tool for SCID and similar products, Lukas has
already submitted some key updates. 

GNU Chess 5.04 still plays 7. ... O-O at short time controls.

> =====
> I believe I have found a minor bug in version 5.02 of GNU Chess running on 
> WinBoard (version 4.2.6) under Windows 2000 Pro.  I don't know if it is a bug 
> in WinBoard or GNU Chess.  It does not appear to happen when running under 
> GNU Chess 4.0, from the same version of WinBoard, so I am guessing it is a 
> GNU Chess bug.   Anyway, I thought you'd want to know about it.
> 
> Start WinBoard running GNU Chess 5.0 from the Windows start menu.
> Select Mode->Edit Postion.
> Make the following moves as if playing a game:
> 
> 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Be3 Bg7 6.c3 Nf6 7.Nbd2
> 
> Now click on the Black clock to set it to be Black's move.
> Finally, start GNU Chess by selecting Mode->Machine Black.
> 
> After a few seconds, the following error dialog appears:
> 
> 'Illegal move "d4c6" from first machine'
> 
> When doing this with GNU Chess 4, no error occurs and Black plays normally 
> (7...0-0).
> ====
> 
> --
> ******************** | "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"
> Michael S. Kerry   |               - The Mad Hatter
> address@hidden    | "Because the notes for which they are noted are
> Baltimore, MD USA  | not noted for being musical notes." -Sam Loyd
> 
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>   ----------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Subject: Re: WinBoard/GNU Chess 5.02 bug
> Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 20:46:29 -0700
> From: Tim Mann <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden (Michael S. Kerry)
> CC: address@hidden
> 
> Thanks for the message.  I can reproduce that easily with GNU Chess 5.02+, but
> other black-to-play positions I try result in legal moves from GNU Chess.  I
> don't see anything wrong with what xboard/WinBoard is sending to GNU Chess, so
> it must be a GNU Chess bug.  I'd suggest you report it to
> address@hidden  We can hope it's already fixed in a newer version (I
> think they're up to 5.04 now), but I haven't found time to download the latest
> source code and compile it to see.
> --
> Tim Mann  address@hidden  http://www.tim-mann.org/

-- 
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