NAME
PolyGlot - Winboard protocol to UCI protocol adapter
- book engine for Polyglot books
- - a collection of utilities for creating opening books
+ - a collection of utilities for creating and analyzing open-
+ ing books
- a utility for analyzing epd files
- a perft counter
polyglot merge-book -in1 inputfile1 -in2 inputfile2 [-out outputfile]
+ polyglot info-book [-bin inputfile] [-exact]
+
+ polyglot dump-book [-bin inputfile] -color color [-out outputfile]
+
polyglot [configfile] epd-test [-epd inputfile] [-min-depth depth]
[-max-depth depth] [-max-time time] [-depth-delta delta]
PolyGlot can compile a pgn file into a binary PolyGlot book and fur-
thermore it can merge two such binary books into a third one.
+ PolyGlot can also extract some useful information from PolyGlot books.
+ The utility "dump-book" dumps the "lines" in a book for a given color.
+ By definition a line is a sequence of moves (from the starting posi-
+ tion) in which the given color makes only book moves and the other
+ color makes arbitrary moves (i.e. not necessarily book moves).
+
+ Since a PolyGlot book is built up from positions and not lines there
+ may be (and there usually are) many positions in the book that are not
+ on a "line" as defined in the previous paragraph. It is convenient to
+ call such positions "isolated" positions. The utility "info-book"
+ counts such isolated positions.
+
+ Some of the isolated positions are provably unreachable and they could
+ in principle be deleted from the book. For example if a book contains
+ only the move "e4" in the starting position but also the position after
+ "d4 d5" then this last position is provably unreachable since it
+ requires white to make a non-book move when a book move is available.
+ Such situations arise frequently from the priority rules in merging
+ books.
+
+ Unfortunately not all isolated positions are provably unreachable and
+ it is difficult to identify the latter. If invoked with "-exact" the
+ utility info-book will attempt to count the isolated positions which
+ require a player to make a non-book move when a book move is available.
+ Due to the possibility of transpositions this is not a fool proof
+ method.
+
Epd test mode
In epd test mode, PolyGlot will search positions in an epd file and
When invoked as
+ polyglot dump-book
+
+ PolyGlot supports the following options
+
+ -bin (default: book.bin)
+ Input file in PolyGlot book format.
+
+ -color
+ The color for whom to generate the lines.
+
+ -out (default: book_<color>.txt)
+ The name of the output file.
+
+ When invoked as
+
+ polyglot info-book
+
+ PolyGlot supports the following options
+
+ -bin (default: book.bin)
+ Input file in PolyGlot book format.
+
+ -exact
+ Attempt to count the provably unreachable positions among the iso-
+ lated ones. Note that this takes a very long time.
+
+ When invoked as
+
polyglot epd-test
(possibly with a config file as first argument) PolyGlot supports the
Unconditionally stop the seach after this amount of time.
-depth-delta (default: 3)
- Stop the search if the best move has been constant for this many
- depths, on condition that the mininal depth and minimal time have
- been reached.
+ Stop the search if the solution as been found and the best move has
+ been constant for this many depths, on condition that the mininal
+ depth and minimal time have been reached.
-min-depth (default: 8)
Minimal search depth when the search is stopped using
option = value
...
- Lines starting with "#" are ignored.
+ The characters "#" and ";" serve as comment characters.
NOTE: There can be spaces in option names or values. Do not use
quotes. Boolean values are written as "true" or "false".
Show search information during engine pondering. Turning this off
might be better for interactive use in some interfaces.
+ ScoreWhite (default: true)
+ Report score from white's point of view in xboard mode.
+
KibitzMove (default: false)
Whether to kibitz when playing a move.
effect only if "KibitzPV" is selected, move kibitzes are always
sent regardless of the delay.
+ KibitzInterval (default: 0)
+ This is another form of throttling. PolyGlot will usually wait this
+ many seconds before doing the next kibitz.
+
UCI (default: false)
If true PolyGlot will not understand xboard commands.
RepeatPV (default: true)
When true, PolyGlot repeats the last pv string (which also contains
score,depth and time usage) it got from the engine. Some engines
- however do not send a new pv string just before sending the move
- and the now old pv string might confuse debugtools that parse the
- winboard debug files.
+ however do not send a new pv string just before sending the move.
+ In that case the output of PolyGlot would be inconsistent. When
+ RepeatPV is false PolyGlot does not repeat the last pv string. Due
+ to the way kibitzing is implemented, KibitzMove is disabled in that
+ case.
[Engine] section
polyglot make-book -pgn games.pgn -bin book.bin -max-ply 30
- Merge books "in1.bin" and "in2.bin" into a book "out.bin".
+ Merge books "w1.bin" and "w2.bin" into a book "w.bin".
polyglot merge-book -in1 w1.bin -in2 w2.bin -out w.bin
- Here is a minimal config file
+ Inspect lines for white in "w.bin"
+
+ polyglot dump-book -bin w.bin -color white -out w_white.txt
+
+ Test epd file "test.epd" with a (maximum) search time of 7 minutes per
+ position
+
+ polyglot epd-test -epd test.epd -max-time 420
+
+ The command line for using the UCI engine "fruit" in a GUI which uses
+ the xboard protocol.
+
+ polyglot -ec fruit
+
+ The equivalent config file:
[PolyGlot]
EngineCommand = fruit
- 2009-01-13 POLYGLOT(6)
+ 2009-08-03 POLYGLOT(6)