7.8: Chess Engine vs Chess Engine Tournaments

There are a number of computer chess competitons, where two computers play each other. Ideally the engines need both to communite with each other, without human intervention. ChessDB will allow two chess engines to play each other. The software was not designed with this in mind, and it is not optimised for the task, but it does work. It will allow you to evaluate two engines fairly quickly. For example, I have set up Crafty and Toga II to play each other. The procedure is as follows.

  1. Start a new game in either a database or the clipbase
  2. Select Tools -> Analysis Engine and pick the engine you want to play white

    Chose analysis engine for white

  3. Select Training

    Training mode

  4. Select an engine thinking time. The default is 4s, but you will probably want to extend it beyond that.

    Set thinking time

  5. Click OK which will then cause that engine to make a move. (It might say Thinking before making its first move, especially if no opening-book is configured
  6. After the first engine has moved, it will say Your move...... You can then select the second engine. You must not select the second engine until after the first has moved, otherwise they might both try to move at the same time, which will have undefined results.
  7. Configure the second chess engine. To be fair, both engines should be given the same thinking time, although of course you can give one more than the other if you so desire.
  8. Set the second engine into training mode too. The only information displayed by the chess engines is the score - the predicted line is not shown, since this is a training mode, for which such infomation is undesired.

    NOTE At any one time, one engine will say Thinking and the other Your move, as below

    Crafty vs Toga
  9. After the game has finished, save the game, adding what information you see fit, such as the names of the engines, hardware used etc

If anyone is interested, here is the PGN file. Time per move was 15 seconds, if I recall correctly. 

[Event "Sun UltraSPARC Chess Championship "]
[Site "Althorne, Essex"]
[Date "2006.12.27"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Crafty 19.8"]
[Black "Toga II 1.2.1a"]
[Result "0-1"]
[EventDate "2006.12.27"]
[Hardware "4 x 450 MHz Sun Ultra 80"]

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.Nc3 Nxc3 4.dxc3 Nc6 5.Nf3 d5 6.Bb5 a6 7.Bxc6+ bxc6
8.O-O g6 9.Nd4 c5 10.Nb3 Bg7 11.Nxc5 Bxe5 12.f4 Bg7 13.Be3 O-O
14.Bd4 Qd6 15.Bxg7 Qxc5+ 16.Bd4 Qd6 17.b4 Bf5 18.Qd2 Rfe8
19.Rfe1 Qc6 20.Bc5 a5 21.Rxe7 Rxe7 22.Bxe7 axb4 23.cxb4 Bxc2
24.Bc5 Be4 25.a3 Qd7 26.Bd4 Ra6 27.Be5 Qb5 28.Qe3 Rc6 29.Bc3 Qa4
30.Qd4 f6 31.Re1 Qc2 32.Bd2 Rc4 33.Qe3 Qb2 34.Re2 Rc2 35.f5 gxf5
36.Rf2 Qa1+ 37.Rf1 Qe5 38.a4 Ra2 39.a5 d4 40.Qf2 d3 41.h3 c6
42.h4 h5 43.Re1 f4 44.Qxf4 Qxf4 45.Bxf4 Rxg2+ 46.Kf1 Bd5 47.Be3 Rb2
48.Rd1 Bb3 49.Rd2 Bc4 50.Ke1 Rb1+ 51.Rd1 Rxb4 52.Bd4 Bb5 53.Bxf6 Kf7
54.Bd8 c5 55.Bg5 c4 56.Bd2 Rb2 57.Ra1 Ba6 58.Ra4 Rc2 59.Ra3 Ke6
60.Rc3 Rb2 61.Kd1 Kd5 62.Ke1 Ra2 63.Rc1 Kd4 64.Kd1 Ra3 65.Bb4 Rb3
66.Bf8 c3 67.Bg7+ Kc4 68.Bh6 Bc8 69.Bd2 Kb4 70.Ke1 cxd2+ 71.Kxd2 Ba6
72.Ke3 Rb2 73.Ra1 Re2+ 74.Kd4 d2 75.Rb1+ Ka4 76.Ra1+ Kb3!! 77.Rd1 Bc4!!
78.Kc5 Kc2 79.Rxd2+ Rxd2!! 80.Kxc4 Rh2 81.Kd4 Rxh4+ 82.Ke3 Ra4
83.Kf3 Rxa5 84.Kg3 Kd3 85.Kf4 h4 86.Kf3 h3 87.Kg3 Ke2 88.Kg4 h2
89.Kg3 h1=Q 90.Kg4 Qf3+ 91.Kh4 Rh5# 0-1

If you would like to contribute to the tutorial or see anything that should be updated, corrected or improved, please contact David Kirkby. But please note David only speaks English.


Valid HTML 4.01 Valid CSS!
Website administered by Dr. David Kirkby
This page was last modified: September 16, 2007. 10:41:41 am GMT