---

Copyright ©

SpiderChess 070603


SpiderChess is a WinBoard compatible chess engine, written in Delphi-Pascal.  


* INSTALLATION

1. Unzip the files in a directory. 

2. Spider doesn't work stand alone, you need to connect it to WinBoard or another WinBoard compatible interface, such as Arena.  

For Winboard you have to add a few lines to winboard.ini. 
If the name of the directory is for example c:\spider the line is (add it twice, after firstChessProgramNames and secondChessProgramNames):
SpiderChess /fd="c:\spider\SpiderChess"

If you have never done this and need more explanation, please have a look at http://horizonchess.com/FAQ/Winboard/Winboard2.html#%5BB.2%5D
The procedure is explained in detail in section B.2.


That's all, Spider will now appear in the startup menu of WinBoard. 



* HASHTABLE SIZE

Hash= .. in spiderinit.txt sets the size of the hashtable. 
Note that the number that is required is not the size of the table in megabytes but a multiplication factor. This is explained in the file.  


* SELECTIVITY

Gsel=1 in spiderinit.txt makes Spider slightly more selective. 

It only gives a small speedup and perhaps Spider plays better with gsel=0. Not tested yet ..


* BOOKS 

Spider is released without books for now, but I will probably add books in the near future. 

You can create your own books if you like, as follows:

(1) 
Make two files, white.doc - for when the engine plays the white pieces - and black.doc (engine black), with opening variations in standard algebraic notation (SAN). 
For example e2e4c7c5g1f3d7d6d2d4c5d4f3d4 

Make sure that you hit the enter key after every variation (but not in the middle of it, every variation should be on one and only one line).  
Use '\' (backslash) if you want to add commentary. Anything that follows after '\' till the end of the line will be ignored by the engine. 

Example (for black):

e2e4c7c5g1f3d7d6d2d4c5d4 
e2e4c7c5g1f3h7h6\probably sucks but let's try it!
e2e4c7c5g1f3e7e6d2d4c5d4
e2e4c7c5b1c3g7g6g2g3f8g7
e2e4c7c5b1c3d7d6\need to add more here
e2e4c7c5b1c3g7g6g1f3f8g7 
e2e4d7d6d2d4a7a6\?!
e2e4d7d6d2d4g8f6b1c3g7g6
d2d4d7d5c2c4e7e6b1c3g8f6 
d2d4d7d5c2c4d5c4
d2d4f7f5c2c4e7e6
and so on ...

Limitations:
- A maximum of 15 moves (30 ply) and the maximum number of variations is 8000. 
- Transpositions are recognized unless the same position is reached along paths of different lengths. 
- Spider doesn't recognize minor promotions when it plays from its book. it always promotes to queen in this case.  

And a few other things:
- The scanner of makebook (the program that you use in step 2) expects 4 characters for every move, not more, not less. So if there is a promotion in the book don't add 'Q' to the move and, for the same reason, don't add 'ep' to an en passant capture. 
- Short castling is e1g1 for white, e8g8 for black. Long is e1c1 and e8c8. 


(2) 
Save the files - as plain text, without formatting codes - in the  directory of Spider and run the program makebook.exe that is also in that directory. It will convert the documents to binary files with extension .bk that Spider can read.





* KNOWN ISSUES: 

Nothing very serious, the screen will not explode in your face and you will have no problems if you let Spider play automated games against other engines. But ..

- There is no analyze mode 
If you want to run a testsuite you can use for example EPD2WB, a free tool by Bruce Moreland, available at www.brucemo@seanet.com. It works fine with Spider.   

- You can't take back moves (or switch colors)
But in WinBoard 'retract move' - or the delete key - works. It takes back the last move of the engine and the last move of the opponent. 
I don't know any other interface that has this option. 

- The engine doesn't read the move counter when you feed it a position (FEN). In most cases it also doesn't access the book. 

- It sometimes sees (and claims) a draw based on the 50 moves rule one ply too late. I only recently discovered this and I don't think that it ever caused real problems, but it's still a bug :) 

- Time controle: Spider doesn't understand the format '0:30' 
Use only whole minutes and seconds.

- Spider doesn't use endgame tablebases.


I will probably not fix these issues anymore. The code has become rather messy, just looking at it already gives me a headache ..  
But I started writing a new engine, from scrap. 
It will be clean, efficient, superfast and 500 elo points stronger of course.
Don't hold your breath though. :) 



Have fun!

© COPYRIGHT 2001 - 2012 All Rights Reserved wbec-ridderkerk.nl