🚀 go-pugleaf

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John wrote:
> I have noticed that the GNU Chess command line version supports the
> "rating <computer> <opponent>" option.  I that in this manner I can
> dumb the computer down to a skill level where I can beat it.  Why do I
> supply the opponent rating?

The ratings are for filling in the game headers when playing on the
Internet chess server. It is customary to fill in ratings, and more
important with computers where the same "name" might play several
hundred points different depending on options.

In older versions it will change how it uses it's opening book slightly
when playing weaker opponents, but it definitely wasn't an attempt to
play weaker chess.

> My question is, how can I set this rating when running GNU chess from
> Xboard?  Apparently I can't set the rating command through the command
> line, and I don't suppose there's a way to set it from Xboard.

Xboard can send commands to GNU Chess at start up via the Xdefaults or
equivalent file. See the man page for xboard.

To weaken GNU Chess you probably want to disable hashing, or use a very
small hash table (which can be done as a command line option in 5.07),
you could try feeding a maximum search depth "depth 1" (or 2 or 3) via
xboard, which should make it play pretty quickly, but I haven't tried that.

Options for weaker play are high up the list for future releases, as
well as some extra configuration options, but there are more urgent
things to fix in 5.07 alas. 5.08 will be a bug fix release :(

 Simon
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