Checking alternatives against chess engine

[henkvj]

Hi Richard,

Sometimes I see a defensive move in a problem that seems to save the position. But I know there must be a refutation, since the problems are computer generated. Wouldn't it be great if we could be able to check these moves online against a chess engine (say Crafty)?

Regards,
Henk

[richard]

Hi Henk,

Online engine integration is a longer term plan at the moment.  I'm working on a shorter term task right now that should be able to help with this.  I currently don't keep the computer evaluation for the non-best lines around in a convenient format so right now I'm modifying the generator to keep that information around then I will be presenting the information to the user. The plan is to add a move list display which can display the main computer line (i.e. the "best" move), the alternative moves and their suggested lines and evaluations and eventually the common mistake moves users make and their computer evaluation and lines (although the mistake evaluation will take a bit longer as I don't currently have enough spare computing resources to do the bad move evaluations [in the cases where they are not in the 4 'best' moves which they sometimes are].

It is worth noting that  not all "mistakes" you play will have completely clear refutations. Sometimes you'll find a move that might say, win 2 pawns which is currently not enough to be considered a "good move" if there was another move that was winning say a Rook. Currently any move that is better than +2.75 pawns will be at the least given a "good move , but look for another", no matter how good the best move is, this prevents the situation where you find a move that wins a knight but get marked wrong because there was another move than won a rook. The next version of the generator is a bit more generous in this regard and the "good move" threshold has been dropped down a bit lower so the 2 pawn example would be allowed as an alternative.

Regards,
Richard.

[drahacikfm]

Sometimes I see a defensive move in a problem that seems to save the position. But I know there must be a refutation, since the problems are computer generated. Wouldn't it be great if we could be able to check these moves online against a chess engine (say Crafty)?

henkvj, note that if you have a silver or gold membership, you can easily cut and paste the PGN or FEN notation into your own chess engine in a few seconds, and then try your defensive move.  You don't have to set up the position piece by piece, which takes a long time.

[henkvj]

Even for premium members I think it would be nice not having to download positions and import them in your engine.

[argentum]

Even for premium members I think it would be nice not having to download positions and import them in your engine.

I think the problem is that where the site can get all that CPU power to support thousands of people evaluating the problem at website (ie. using CPU power of the site) rather than evaluating in home (using the CPU of your own PC)

[richard]

Hi argentum,

That is correct at the moment I don't have the spare CPU cycles to run allow users to use server to analyse problems.  I'm hoping to be able to provide that in the future but right now it is not feasible.

I'm hoping that by providing the computer analysis users will have less need to do their own engine analysis (although this is likely to be a premium only feature for now).

Regards,
Richard.