Subversion Repositories Games.Chess Giants

command synopsis

!command....................... passes command to a shell.

adaptive NPS a b c d........... enables adaptive hash mode.

alarm on|off................... turns audible alarm on/off.

analyze........................ analyze a game in progress.

annotate....................... annotate game

autotune....................... SMP search tuning (help autotune for details)

batch on|off................... on disables async I/O for batch file usage

bench.......................... runs performance benchmark.

black.......................... sets black to move.

book........................... controls book

cache=n........................ sets tablebase cache size.

clock.......................... displays/adjusts chess clock times.

display........................ displays chess board.

display [n].................... sets display options

draw accept|decline............ decline always declines.

draw offer|nooffer............. nooffer never offers a draw.

draw dynamic <0|1>............. enables/disables dynamic draw scores.

echo........................... echos output to display.

edit........................... edit board position.

egtb........................... enables endgame database probes.

egtbd.......................... set min remaining depth to allow probes.

epdhelp........................ info about EPD facility.

end............................ terminates program.

evaluation..................... adjust evaluation terms.

exit........................... restores STDIN to keyboard.

force move..................... forces specific move.

hash n......................... sets transposition table size.

                                 (n bytes, nK bytes or nM bytes).

hashp n........................ sets pawn hash table size.

history........................ display game moves.

import filename................ imports learning data (.lrn files).

info........................... displays program settings.

input filename................. sets STDIN to filename, reverts back on exit.

kibitz n....................... sets kibitz mode n on ICS.

learn n|clear.................. enables/disables learning (100 = default).

                                 clear clears all learned information

level moves time inc........... sets ICS time controls.

linelength n................... sets line length to n.  A really large value

                                will produce 1 line PVs, making parsing easier

list........................... update/display GM/IM/computer lists.

lmp base scale................. LMP pruning move counts

lmr min max bias moves scale... LMR reduction matrix generator

load file title................ load a position from problem file, starting

                                with line containing title, ending on exit.

log on|off..................... turn logging on/off.

mode normal|tournament......... toggles tournament mode.

move........................... initiates search (same as go).

name........................... sets opponent's name.

new............................ initialize and start new game.

null m n....................... null move R = M + depth / n.

noise n........................ no status until n nodes searched.

operator seconds............... sets operator time per move.

output long|short.............. sets move display format to long or SAN

perf........................... times the move generator/make_move.

perft.......................... tests the move generator/make_move.

personality save|load fn....... saves/loads a personality file.

pgn option value............... set PGN header information.

phash n........................ sets path hash table size.

ponder on|off.................. toggle pondering off/on.

ponder move.................... ponder "move" as predicted move.

rating a b..................... sets Crafty rating to a, opponent to b

                                (affects draw score/contempt)

read [filename]................ read moves in (from [filename] if given.)

reada [filename]............... read moves in (from [filename]]) and append.

                                 (appends to current game history.)

reset n........................ reset game to move n.

resign......................... ends current game recording Crafty as winner.

resign m n..................... set resign threshold to m pawns.

                                 n = # of moves before resigning.

savegame [filename]............ saves game in PGN format (to filename).

savepos [filename]............. saves position in FEN string (to filename).

score.......................... print evaluation of position.

screen [filename] margin....... screen a file of EPD positions by searching them

                                and culling positions with score outside the

                                window {-margin, margin} (use st=n to set time)

sd n........................... sets absolute search depth.

search move.................... search specified move only.

selective min max.............. set null move depths.

setboard FEN................... sets board position to FEN position.

settc.......................... set time controls.

show book...................... toggle book statistics.

skill n........................ set skill level to n

smp............................ sets SMP parameters (help smp for details)

sn n........................... sets absolute search node limit.

speech on|off.................. enables (disables) audio output.

st n........................... sets absolute search time.

swindle on|off................. enables/disables swindle mode.

tags........................... list PGN header tags.

test file [N].................. test a suite of problems.

time........................... time controls.

timebook....................... out of book time adjustment

trace n........................ display search tree below depth n.

usage percentage............... adjusts Crafty's time usage up or down.

whisper n...................... sets ICS whisper mode n.

white.......................... sets white to move.

wild n......................... sets ICS wild position (7 for now).

xboard......................... sets xboard compatibility mode.

Type "help command" to see more detailed help information, if it is

available.  Note that help is not available for all possible commands.

<end>

<analyze>

The analyze command puts Crafty into a mode where it will search forever

in the current position.  When a move is entered, crafty will make that

move, switch sides, and again compute, printing analysis as it searches.

You can back up a move by entering "back" or you can back up several

moves by entering "back n".  Note that n is the number of moves, counting

each player's move as one (ie n plies, not n full moves).

<end>

<annotate>

annotate[h|t] filename side moves margin time [n]

Filename is the input file with game moves, while the output will be

written to filename.can.  The input file is PGN-compatible with one

addition, the ability to request that alternative moves also be

analyzed at any point.  To do this at the point where you have

alternative moves, simply include them in braces {move1, move2},

and Crafty will then search them also.

Side can be b/w/bw to indicate whether to annotate only the white

side (w), the black side (b) or both (bw).  Side can also be the

players name, where Crafty will then use the players name and the

PGN tags to discover which you want the annotation done for.

Moves indicates which moves to annotate.  A single value says start

at the indicated move and go through the entire game.  A range (20-30)

annotates the given range only.

Margin is the difference between the search value for the move played

in the game, and the best move crafty found, before a comment is

generated (pawn=1.0).

Time is the time limit per move in seconds.

If the optional "n" is appended, this produces N best moves/scores/PV's,

rather than just the very best move.  It won't display any move that

is worse than the actual game move played, but you can use -N to force

Crafty to produce N PV's regardless of how bad they get.

Using 'annotateh' produces an HTML file with bitmapped board displays

where analysis was displayed.

Using "annotatet" will cause the output to be written in a LaTex (.tex)

format.

<end>

<autotune>

The autotune command can be used to configure various SMP search parameters 

for your specific hardware and target time limit.  Note that before you run

this command, you MUST set the max number of threads you want to use (most

likely the number of physical processor cores on your machine.)  Crafty 

actually runs a parallel search over a small set of positions repeatedly, and

to properly tune things, it needs to use the max configuration you will ever

want to use.  If you forget, autotune will refuse to run.  The command is:

autotune <time> <accuracy>

The <time> argument tunes the parallel search stuff for this time limit.  The

only real place where this might be useful is for very fast vs very slow time

limits, since a fast search probably needs to be a bit more aggressive if it

is going to have any hope of using multiple threads.  Once you get to a time

limit of 30 - 60 seconds, going further wont help at all and can GREATLY

increase the run-time of the automatic tuning code.

<accuracy> is simply a number that tells Crafty how many times to run a test

for a specific tuning option.  It will run this many tests and then use the

average of the run times for the timing value.  Four (4) provides pretty

good accuracy, anything less than four often runs afoul of SMP non-determinism

and it can make wrong decisions.  8-16 are better but these will take some time

to run so be prepared.  Crafty will give you an estimate of the expected run-

time once it calibrates the benchmark to the time limit you specified.

Once AutoTune() finishes, it will append the necessary commands to the .craftyrc

file to set the optimal values for each option.  If you run this multiple times,

you will accumulate cruft at the bottom of the .craftyrc file.  Since the last

commands override the earlier ones, it will work, but if you do run it more than

once you might consider an edit to clean it up.

This can burn some time so it is an ideal command to run overnight where you can

crank up accuracy and get pretty optimal settings.

Note:  This is more effective for larger numbers of threads/cores.  On a machine

with 8 or fewer cores, the default values are probably as good as anything.  But

as the number of cores climbs, autotune can find better settings depending on 

the hardware.

<end>

<book>

You can use the following commands to customize how the program uses

the opening book(book.bin and books.bin).  Typically, book.bin contains

a large opening database made from GM games.  Books.bin is a short,

customized book that contains selected lines that are well-suited to

Crafty's style of play.  The flags can further refine how this small

book file is used to encourage/avoid specific lines.

binfile create filename [maxply] [mp] [wpc]

This command creates a new book by first removing the old binary file.

it then will parse filename and add the moves to the binary book

filename given as binfile.

maxply is the max length of book moves stored from any single PGN

game in the input file.

mp means a particular move must appear in at least that many games

to be stored in the book file.

wpc is the relative winning percentage.  50 means exclude any book move

that doesn't have at least 50% as many wins as losses.

book mask accept chars

Sets the accept mask to the flag characters in chars (see flags below.)

Any flags set in this mask will include either (a) moves with the flag

set, or (b) moves with no flags set.

book mask reject chars

Sets the reject mask to the flag characters in chars (see flags below.)

Any flags set in this mask will reject any moves with the flag set (in

the opening book.)

book off turns the book completely off.

book random 0|1 disables/enables randomness.  Book random 0 takes the set

of book moves and searches them for about 1/10th of the normal search time

and lets the search choose which move to play.  Any move not in the book

file will not be considered or played.

bookw weight v

Sets weight for book ordering.  (Weights are freq (frequency), eval

(evaluation) and learn (learned scores).

book width n

Specifies how many moves from the sorted set of book moves are to be

considered.  1 produces the best move from the set, but provides little

randomness.  99 includes all moves in the book move set.

Flags are one (or more) members of the following set of characters:  {?? ?

= ! !! 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F} Normally, ?? means never play, ?

means rarely play, = means drawish opening, ! means good move, !! means

always play, and 0-F are user flags that a user can add to any move in the

book, and by setting the right mask (above) can force the program to either

always play the move or never play the move.  The special character * means

all flags and is probably dangerous to use.  Flags are added to a move by

entering the move and a / or \ followed by the flags.  / means add the flags

to the move preserving other flags already there while \ means replace any

flags with those following the \.

The format of the book text (raw data) is as follows:

[title information] (required)

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. ... (a sequence of moves)

[title information for next line] (required)

1. e4 e6 ...

end (optional)

<end>

<clock>

clock crafty-time [opponent-time]

clock is primarily intended to be used in a computer chess tournament 

where the games are played on a real chess board using a real chess

clock, rather than through some automatic interface that manages the

time automatically.

crafty-time is the amount of time left on Crafty's clock, expressed in

minutes, or in hh:mm format.  Crafty will convert this to its internal

representation correctly.

opponent-time is the amount of time left on the opponent's clock, 

expressed in the same way.  This is option and is not required as

Crafty does not use this information during the game although it

does keep up with it.

After entering this command, you should probably type "clock" to be

sure things look correct.

Note that the "operator" command sets a time per move overhead for the

operator, and that this affects the actual time used as expected.  IE in

the above clock setting, assuming the operator has allowed 10 seconds per

move, crafty will "hide" 35 * 10 seconds and not use it for searching, which

gives the operator time to actually make the moves and press the real clock

button.  It is CRITICAL that the clock command be used from time to time to

keep Crafty's internal clock in sync with the real clock.  If you use the

operator command, the clock value should match the real chess clock exactly,

if you choose to not use the operator time and fudge the chess clock time

yourself, that will work as well, but it is more prone to errors.

<end>

<display>

display moveinfo  -> display move time/results/etc.

display pv        -> display principal variation.

display fail      -> display fail high / low moves.

display stats     -> display search statistics.

display moves     -> display root moves as they are searched.

display info      -> display general information messages.

display ply1      -> display ply-1 move list/sorting info.

display movelist  -> display move list after each iteration.

For the above options, they can be preceded by a "no" to disable them, or

omit the "no" to enable them.  "display all" will show all current display

settings

<end>

<draw>

draw offer|nooffer determines whether Crafty will automatically offer

draws when it believes that result is appropriate.

draw accept|decline determines whether Crafty will automatically accept

draw offers when they are made, or if it will automatically decline them

no matter what the current score is.

draw dynamic 1|0 enables(disables) dynamic draw score computation based on

the rating difference between Crafty and the opponent (usually obtained by

the "rating" command from xboard.  If set to 0, this is disabled and the

default draw score (aka contempt factor) is set to zero (0).

<end>

<lists>

list name +name -name ...

The lists are as follows:

AK  Auto-Kibitz list.  If crafty plays any opponent named in this list

while playing on a chess server, it will kibitz the usual analysis as

the game is played.  Not advised for human opponents as they do not

like the "noise".

B  Blocker list.  If you notice a player repeatedly trying to block the

position to get easy draws, put his name in this list.  Players in this

list get special "anti-human" scoring turned up louder than usual to 

combat this strategy.

C  Computer list.  This is not needed on ICC as xboard/winboard both

tell crafty it is playing a computer opponent.  However, if your GUI

does not do this, you can put the name of the computer opponents you

frequently play in this list and if the GUI sends the "name" command

properly, crafty will figure out that it is playing a computer.

GM/IM lists are obvious.  This identifies players that are strong 

enough that Crafty should resign or offer draws sooner than normal,

rather than hoping for a blunder in lost or drawn positions.

SP  Special Player list.  Names in this list can be used to specify 

a unique opening book (to replace books.bin, not book.bin) for this

particular opponent, as well as specifying a personality file to use

rather than the default crafty.cpf.  The format of this particular

list is:

list SP +name [book=filename] [personality=filename]

<end>

<lmp>

lmp base scale

This commands tunes the LMP move count thresholds.  The array it produces

is indexed by depth, and defines the number of moves at that remaining

depth that must be searched before late move pruning can kick in.

The basic formula looks like this:

moves = base + depth ^ scale

Bigger valuse for base and scale make LMP more conservative, smaller values

make it more aggressive and risky.

<lmr>

lmr min max dscale mscale scale

This command tunes the LMR reduction matrix.  The values are used to

set the reduction matrix, which is indexed by depth remaining and moves

searched so far at this ply.  This is an array of 32 rows, 64 columns, 

where the rows correspond to remaining depth and the columns correspond

to total moves searched so far at this ply.

The basic calculation looks like this:

  r[depth][moves] = (log(depth) * dscale + log(moves) * mscale) / scale

Increasing dscale makes the reduction amount favor depth more, increasing

mscale makes the reduction amount favor moves searched more.  The "scale"

value is used to limit the speed at which the reductions grow.

Note that NO reduction can be less than min nor greater than max, from

the lmr command.  When you use this command, it will display a compressed

version of the 32x64 array like this:

                 LMR reductions[depth][moves]

  ----------------------moves searched-----------------

 |       2  6 10 14 18 22 26 30 34 38 42 46 50 54 58 62

 |  3:   1  1  1  1  1  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  2

 |  5:   1  1  2  2  2  2  2  2  3  3  3  3  3  3  3  3

 d  7:   1  1  2  2  2  3  3  3  3  3  3  3  3  3  4  4

 e  9:   1  1  2  2  3  3  3  3  3  3  4  4  4  4  4  4

 p 11:   1  2  2  3  3  3  3  3  4  4  4  4  4  4  4  4

 t 13:   1  2  2  3  3  3  4  4  4  4  4  4  4  4  4  5

 h 15:   1  2  2  3  3  3  4  4  4  4  4  4  5  5  5  5

   17:   1  2  3  3  3  4  4  4  4  4  4  5  5  5  5  5

 l 19:   1  2  3  3  3  4  4  4  4  4  5  5  5  5  5  5

 e 21:   1  2  3  3  4  4  4  4  4  5  5  5  5  5  5  5

 f 23:   1  2  3  3  4  4  4  4  5  5  5  5  5  5  5  5

 t 25:   1  2  3  3  4  4  4  5  5  5  5  5  5  5  5  6

 | 27:   1  2  3  3  4  4  4  5  5  5  5  5  5  6  6  6

 | 29:   1  2  3  4  4  4  4  5  5  5  5  5  5  6  6  6

 | 31:   1  2  3  4  4  4  5  5  5  5  5  5  6  6  6  6

Notice that the depth (# of rows) only displays every other row to make

the display fit on a normal screen.  The moves searched show every fourth

value since there are 2x as many columns as rows.  However, even though

you don't see the missing rows/columns, the values are there.

<end>

<mode>

This command influences how the book is used.

mode normal is the default.

mode tournament tells crafty to behave differently while in book.

Specifically, when it is pondering, it generates all of the opponent

moves and looks them up in the opening book.  If it finds a book

reply, it eliminates that opponent move from the list.  It then does

a 1/10th normal time search for the opponent, but ONLY considers those

moves it did not have a book reply for.  It then takes the result of

that search and ponders that move, so that hopefully if the opponent

plays a move not in our book, we will already be thinking.

The more useful place, however, is where we play a book move that takes

the opponent out of book, and he spends a significant amount of time

thinking and plays a pretty obvious move.  Since we ponder the best move

of his that we don't have a book move for, we have a good chance of 

pondering the right move and saving time on our clock.

<end>

<mode>

null <min> <divisor>

This command allows you to customize the null-move search parameters.  The

formula Crafty uses is as follows:

  R = <min> + depth / <divisor>

The default values are 3 and 10.  When remaining depth is < 10, the R value

is 3.  If remaining depth is > 10 and < 19, R=4, and so forth.  Smaller

divisor values make R ramp up quicker and the null-move pruning will become

more aggressive.  Overall depth will increase pretty quickly, but this can

also hide certain types of tactics as well, so going too far turns out to

be dangerous.

<end>

<personality>

personality load|save filename <or> personality n v

perspath path-to-personality-directory

Crafty "personality" files (.cpf files) contain information that 

affects three components of Crafty.

You can use the "selective" command to adjust the null-move R (min

and max) values.  The default values are 2 and 3, and reducing them

will reduce Crafty's playing strength to some fairly significant

degree.

You can use the "extension" command to adjust the search extension

values.  Reducing these will "dumb down" the search and make crafty

tactically (but not positionally) weaker.  They can be set all the

way down to 0.00 if you choose.

You can use the evaluation command to adjust some global evaluation

weights (ie turn down total pawn scoring, or king safety, etc.) or

you can use this command to adjust individual scoring values, from

the value of pieces, to specific scoring terms for each piece such 

as the value of a doubled pawn or whatever.

Once you find settings you like, you can use "personality save 

filename" to save all of the above settings in one file.  Later you

can use "personality load filename" to restore those settings prior

to playing a game.

One final note is that you can save to the specific file "crafty.cpf"

and your settings will become the _default_ each time you start

Crafty, until you either remove the file, load another personality,

or save a new default personality.

You can have as many different personality files as you want, and to

keep them from getting jumbled up, you can put them in a separate

directory and add the "perspath" to your .craftyrc/crafty.rc file to

point Crafty to the directory where the personality files belong.

personality item# value [value ... value]

The personality command allows you to change specific evaluation

or search numbers when you want.  The first thing you should do is

type "personality list" to show all the possible values.  The format

looks like this when displayed:

White(1): personality list

==================================================

=         search options                         =

==================================================

  1  check extension                             1

  2  null-move reduction                         3

  3  null-move adaptive divisor                 10

  4  LMR min distance to frontier                1

  5  LMR min reduction                           1

  6  LMR max reduction                           7

  7  LMR formula depth bias                   2.00

  8  LMR formula moves searched bias          1.00

  9  LMR scale factor                         2.65

==================================================

=         search options (continued)             =

==================================================

 11  prune depth                                 6

 12  prune margin [remain_depth]          

==================================================

=         raw piece values                       =

==================================================

 21  pawn value                               -100 (mg)     100 (eg)

 22  knight value                             -325 (mg)     325 (eg)

 23  bishop value                             -325 (mg)     325 (eg)

 24  rook value                               -500 (mg)     500 (eg)

 25  queen value                             -1050 (mg)    1050 (eg)

==================================================

=         miscellaneous scoring values           =

==================================================

 31  wtm bonus                                   5 (mg)       8 (eg)

 32  draw score                                  1

 ... etc

The first number is the personality term ID #.  To change the

value of a pawn from the default 100 to 50, you would type

the following command:

pers 21 50 50

And now pawns are worth 1/2 of what they were prior to the

command.  Note that unless you specifically save the setting

with the "personality save" command, once you exit Crafty

the pawn value will return to 100 the next time you start it

up.  You can, of course, put such commands in the .craftyrc/

crafty.rc file, but it is simpler to use the personality

command instead (type "help personality" for more information).

Note that some evaluation terms have a list of numbers as they

are indexed by something.  When you change one of these terms,

you must give _exactly_ the correct number of values, or the

command will produce an error without changing anything. 

Some of the values are 8 X 8 matrices of values, where the

values correspond to the chess board as viewed with square

a1 on the bottom left.  You must type the values in in order

as they appear on the screen.  Crafty will shift things as

needed.  IE for a piece/square table for knights, the first

value displayed is for a8, so the first value you enter must

also be for a8.  Many of these matrices have black/white 

counter-parts.  You enter the white values, Crafty will

mirror those to reflect the _same_ values but from the black

side of the board.  This will be done automatically.

Non 8 X 8 matrices are just dumped in order from element zero

to N.  You enter those the same way.  IE the way it prints them

out is the way you enter them, reading from top-to-bottom, and

left-to-right.

If you come up with an interesting personality, feel free to make

it available to everyone, and if it is particularly attractive, it

can become part of the "distributed" crafty personalities once this

has been released.

<end>

<settc>

settc moves crafty-time opponent-time

settc is primarily intended to be used in a computer chess tournament 

where the games are played on a real chess board using a real chess

clock, rather than through some automatic interface that manages the

time automatically.

moves is the number of moves left to the next time control from Crafty's

perspective.  IE if the time control is 60 moves in 120 minutes (a normal

time control for the WCCC) and crafty has actually made 25 moves in the

current game, then the correct "moves" value would be 35, as there are

exactly 35 moves to be made before the next time control is reached.

crafty-time is the amount of time left on Crafty's clock, expressed in

minutes, or in hh:mm format.  Crafty will convert this to its internal

representation correctly.

opponent-time is the amount of time left on the opponent's clock, 

expressed in the same way.

After entering this command, you should probably type "clock" to be

sure things look correct.

Note that the "operator" command sets a time per move overhead for the

operator, and that this affects the actual time used as expected.  IE in

the above clock setting, assuming the operator has allowed 10 seconds per

move, crafty will "hide" 35 * 10 seconds and not use it for searching, which

gives the operator time to actually make the moves and press the real clock

button.  It is CRITICAL that the clock command be used from time to time to

keep Crafty's internal clock in sync with the real clock.  If you use the

operator command, the settc value should match the real chess clock exactly,

if you choose to not use the operator time and fudge the chess clock time

yourself, that will work as well, but it is more prone to errors.

<end>

<smp>

smp commands are used to control the SMP search.  

smpaffinity <n> <p> is used to enable or disable processor affinity.  "-1"

disables affinity and lets threads run on any available core.  If you use an

integer <n> then thread zero will bind itself to cpu <n> and each additional

thread will bind to the next higher cpu number.  This is useful if you try to

run two copies of crafty on the same machine, now you can cause one to bind

to the first <n> cores, and the second to the last <n> cores.  For the first

instance of Crafty, you would use smpaffinity=0, and for the second

smpaffinity=8, assuming you are running 8 threads per copy on a 16 cpu machine.

If you get this wrong, you can have more than one thread on the same cpu which

will significantly impact performance.              

The second parameter is used to help Crafty identify physical vs logical cores.

On a typical 20 core intel machine, processors 0 - 19 are on physical cores,

then 20-39 map back to those same physical cores, but different logical

(hyperthreaded) processors.  "1" is the correct value for this system.  For an

IBM Power 8 machine with dual 10-core chips, processors 0 through 7 are on

physical core 0, then 8 through 15 are on physical core 1, etc.  A value of "8"

will map threads to physical cores correctly as each thread is spaced on the

current processor core + 8, which is correct.

smpmt <n> sets the total number of allowable threads for the search.  The

default is one (1) as Crafty does not assume it should use all available

resources.  For optimal performance this should be set to the number of

physical cores your machine has, which does NOT include hyperthreaded cores.

smpgroup <n> sets the maximum number of threads at any single split point to

<n>, with the exception of split points fairly close to the root  where ALL

threads are allowed to split together ignoring this limit.  Note that this is

ignored in the first 1/2 of the tree (the nodes closer to the root).  There

it is actually good to split and get all active threads involved.

smpmin <n> avoids splitting when remaining depth < n.  This is used to balance

splitting overhead cost against the speed gain the parallel search produces.

The default is currently 5 (which could change with future generations of

Intel hardware) but values between 4 and 8 will work.  Larger values allow

somewhat fewer splits, which reduces overhead, but it also increases the

percentage of the time where a thread is waiting on work.

smpnuma <n> enables (a) or disables (0) NUMA mode.  This defaults to zero, 

which is best for most users.  If you have a multiple-socket machine, or one

that is NUMA even though it only has one socket, you should enable this.  This

will cause Crafty to split the hash tables across all NUMA nodes to prevent

the formation of "hot spots" that would cause unnecessary conflicts.

smproot <n> enables (1) or disables (0) splitting the tree at the root.  This

defaults to 1 which produces the best performance by a signficiant margin. 

But it can be disabled if you are playing with code changes.

smpnice <1/0> enables or disables the "nice facility".  With smpnice=1, at the

end of a search (non-pondering) the extra threads will terminate rather than sit

in a busy spin loop burning cpu cycles.  smpnice=0 is slightly more efficient

but will result in 100% of the machine being used whether the search is running

or waiting on input.

smpnodes <n> sets the number of NUMA nodes on your hardware.  This is used to

try to split with threads on the same node when practical, to improve memory

access time.

smpgsd sets the minimum depth required to allow a gratuitous split.  A

gratuitous split is a split done when no threads are idle, and is a sort of

preemptive attempt to have work ready for processors as they become idle.  If

this value is set too small, overhead will climb, if it is set too large, then

gratuitous splits will be rare and thread wait time will climb.

smpgsl sets the maximum number of gratuitous splits allowed per thread.  There

is little point in having many split points that are not really being used, it

adds to overhead without any real benefit.  If you are running on 32 cores, 

then setting this beyond 4 will really be massive overkill since any of the 32

threads will be able to spontaneously split up to N times each, for a total of

32 * N gratuitous splits.  That's probably excessive.

<end>

<test>

test filename [N] [unsolved_file]

Test is used to run a suite of test positions in a batch run.  filename is

the name of the file in crafty test format.  [N] is an optional parameter

that is used to shorten the test time.  If crafty likes the solution move

for [N] consecutive iterations, it will stop searching that position and

consider it correct.  This makes a Win At Chess 60 second run take just a few

minutes, for example.  

The "crafty format" requires three lines per position.  The first line must

be a "title" line and is used to identify each position.  The second line is

a "setboard" command to set the position.  The third line is a line that

begins with "solution", and then is followed by one or more solution moves.

If a position is correct only if a particular move or moves is *not* played,

enter the move followed by a "?", as in Nf3?, which means that this position

will be counted as correct only if Nf3 is not played.

Note that this command may refer to a normal EPD test file as well and 

Crafty will run that test in the same way, but Crafty will notice it is an

EPD test file rather than a "crafty" test file and handle it appropriately.

A new option to this command is of the form "test filename <margin>" where

<margin> is greater than 10 (which means it will not be an early exit counter.)

In this case, Crafty takes that value as a score margin.  It will read in the

FEN/EPD records silently, do a search, and if the absolute value of the final

score is less than <margin>, the FEN/EPD is written to a new file,

"filename.screened".  I use this to create an opening position file for

cluster testing where I can create a set of positions using the -DPOSITIONS

compile option, and then test the resulting "openings.epd" file that creates

to cull those that are too unbalanced so that the same side wins no matter

what the skill level.

The [unsolved_file] parameter is optional.  If specified, any position that is

not solved is written to this file so that you can extract "hard" positions and

use just those for testing later to save time.  At one second per move on a

slow machine, the WAC test positions (300) will produce maybe 15 unsolved

positions.  On good hardware, it might miss five or less.  At 5 seconds per 

move, it will usually miss maybe 2-3.  At 60 seconds per move, it will 

generally only miss #230 which appears to have no solution after much computer

analysis (the supposed winning move also draws).

<end>

<time>

Time controls whether the program uses CPU time or wall-clock time for

timing.  For tournament play, it is safer to use wall-clock timing, for

testing it may be more consistent to use CPU timing if the machine is

used for other things concurrently with the tests being run.  (Note that

this is not recommended when using a multiprocessor machine, CPU time in

a parallel search increases at N times the normal time rate where N is the

number of processors being used).

Time is also used to set the basic search timing controls.  The general

form of the command is as follows:

time nmoves/ntime/[nmoves/ntime]/[increment]

nmoves/ntime represents a traditional first time control when nmoves is

an integer representing the number of moves and ntime is the total time

allowed for these moves.  The [optional] nmoves/ntime is a traditional

secondary time control.  Increment is a feature related to ICS play and

emulates the Fischer clock where increment is added to the time left

after each move is made.

As an alternative, nmoves can be "sd" which represents a sudden death

time control of the remainder of the game played in ntime.  The optional

secondary time control can be a sudden-death time control, as in the

following example:

time 60/30/sd/30

This sets 60 moves in 30 minutes, then game in 30 additional minutes.

An increment can be added if desired.

<end>

<timebook>

This command is used to adjust the time crafty uses for the first few

moves out of book.  The first few non-book moves are often critical,

but the usual search time limit will be somewhat short since Crafty

wants to average the time left over the moves remaining until the

next time control.  This command allows the user to influence how the

time is allocated on the first few moves out of book.

timebook <factor> <moves>

factor is a number expressed as a percentage, and specifies how much

extra time (in terms of the normal target time) to use.  For example,

a value of 100 says use 100% extra time, which essentially doubles

the target time limit.  A value of 50 says use 50% extra time, or

1.5X the normal target time.  This applies to the first move out of

book.

moves indicates the number of moves this extra time will be used.  The

extra time is uniformly "decayed" over those moves.  For example a value

of 10 says use the "factor" extra time on the first non-book move, then

9/10 of that extra time on the next move, 8/10 on the next move, until

after 10 moves out of book, where this is turned off.

timebook 100 10 therefore says use 200% of the normal time target for

the first move out of book, 190% for the next move out of book, until

it drops back to 100% where it will stick for the remainder of the

game after the first ten non-book move searches have been completed.

<end>

<tournament>

playing in a manually-operated tournament

1.  Starting Crafty.  This is the easiest part of the whole process.

All that's needed is to simply type the command "crafty".

2.  display.  This command displays the chess board using the standard

chess server style#1 board display.

This is most often used to confirm that the board has been set to the

proper position in the event that you can't continue an old game and

have to set up the position from scratch (explained later).  Note that

white is always at the bottom, regardless of whether Crafty is playing

black or white.

3.  read.  This command is used to read in a list of moves and make them

on the game board prior to using crafty to play that game.  There are 

two ways this can be used:  (a) read.  This will prompt you for a

white move, a black move, over and over until you type "exit" to terminate

read mode.  The side to move will be set according to the number of moves

entered, so that the next move will be for the correct side.  (b) read file.

This command reads, but the input comes from "file" rather than from the

keyboard.  Note that superfluous text is ignored, as is line numbers, times,

etc.  This will read in a PGN game and cull everything but the moves.

4.  setboard.  This command is used to set up a specific board position

when it's impossible to restart a game using the "crafty c" command, and

too many moves have been made, making the read command an unattractive

alternative.  This command parses a FEN-like position description (a

Forsythe-like notation) and sets the current board to that position.

The notation uses a string of alpha characters to represent the chess

position.  In this notation, uppercase K Q R B N P represents a white

piece, lowercase k q r b n p represents a black piece.  for empty

squares, you can use numbers 1-8 to indicate consecutive empty squares.

A "/" must terminate each rank after defining at most 8 square on that

rank, and the ranks are entered in descending order 8..1.  In this 

notation, then, the first square you enter is a8, then b8, .., h8, 

followed by a "/", then back to a7 and repeating.  After all 8 ranks

are entered, you need to indicate whether or not one side can castle

kingside or queenside by inserting at least one space character, followed

by a K (white can castle kingside) Q (white can castle queenside) k (black

can castle kingside) or Q (black can castle queenside).  After this, add

one more space, followed by the square of a pawn that just moved two ranks

and is subject to an en passant capture.  Note that if there is no

en passant capture possible, you do not enter this field.

For the above board position (display command), here's the setboard

command to set that position up:

setboard r2q1knr/pp2bppp/4b3/1BPp4/6PP/2N1P3/PP3P2/2RQK1NR/ K

Note that after entering the last piece on a rank, a number for the

remaining empty squares is *not* needed, so this could be shortened

to:

setboard r2q1knr/pp2bppp/4b/1BPp/6PP/2N1P/PP3P/2RQK1NR/ K

One unfortunate effect of this command is that you have just lost the

ability to detect repetitions of prior positions in the game, which can

be a critical issue.  It is _always_ better to use the read command to

re-enter the moves if the hardware crashes.  If you accidentally type

^C and terminate Crafty, you can type "crafty c" and it will continue

the last game, although you will need to set the time control information,

and anything else that is not in the .craftyrc file.

5.  reset <n>.  This command is used to back the game up if a different

move is to be tried, or if an incorrect move was entered by mistake.  It

depends on the current side to move, and the command "reset 13" will back

the game up to move 13, where the current side on move is still on move,

and Crafty will be positioned to read in move 13 for that side.  Note

that this affects the game, but not the clock or time or level, so that if

you back up more than a move or two, you also need to adjust the clock.

If you want to first change the side to move, use the "white" or "black"

command to set the side to move, then use the reset command to back up

to the move for that side.

6.  time.  This command is used to set the time control.  There are

several ways to use it, depending on the type of time control desired.

(a) time sd/n sets the game to sudden-death in n minutes. such as

game/10, game/30.  time sd/30 would set game in 30 time control.

(b) time moves/time smoves/stime sets the game to "moves" in "time"

minutes, then "smoves" in "stime" minutes.  A common setting is

time 40/120/20/60 for 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in one hour.

(c) time moves/time/sd/sdtime sets a standard first time control,

followed by a sudden death time control.  For example time 60/60/sd/30

is 60 moves in 60 minutes followed by game in 30 minutes.  (d) for any

of these, an optional 5th parameter can be added, which is the famous

"Fischer clock" increment that is added to each players time remaining

after he makes a move.  The increment is given in seconds rather than

minutes.  Note that the default should be right unless the tournament

modifies the T/C after the tournament starts for some reason.

7.  settc.  This command is used to correct time-control info after a

restart.  it will prompt you for how much time is left on both Crafty's

and the opponent's clock, and for how many more moves until crafty makes

the next time control.  Again, usually not needed, but there for serious

circumstances.  After restarting, type "clock" to display this info and

if it's wrong in any way, this settc command is the quickest way to fix

it up.

8.  clock.  This command is used to adjust the internal clock time as it

drifts away from the real chess clock as a game progresses.  The format

is simply "clock mins" to adjust Crafty's clock.  Or "clock cmins omins"

to adjust both Crafty's time and Crafty's internal time that the opponent

has left.  Since the current version doesn't really need the opponent's

clock time, it can be ignored with no side-effects.

Common problems and how to solve them:

1.  Is crafty searching or pondering?  I was not watching the screen,

and the window size is small enough that all I see is analysis scrolling 

up the screen.  This is easy.  Look at the bottom line on the screen, and

you will see a line that keeps changing, showing the depth, time used so

far, how many moves have been searched and the PV.  Look at the third

column what shows something like 12/30, which says that at the current

depth crafty has already searched 12 of the 30 legal moves at the root.

You will notice that there is an extra character after the 30, either a

"*" or "?".  If an "*" is showing, Crafty is thinking about its move.  If

a "?" is showing, crafty is pondering and thinks it is the opponent's move.

If it shows a "?" but you know it is Crafty's move, you simply missed it.

Scroll back up using whatever scroll mechanism your text window uses, to

find the move Crafty made.  Hopefully this won't happen often, but on the

occasional "emergency" men's room break, anything can happen.  Just remember

that "?" means I am pondering and it is my opponent's move, "*" means I

am searching and it is my move.

2.  I entered the wrong move, how do I fix this?  You are playing in a

game and at move 37, you enter Rfe1 rather than Rae1.  To correct this,

you have to do a couple of things.  First, Crafty is now searching, and

if you try to reset the position, it won't accept this command.  To stop

the search, type ? (followed by a <RETURN> of course) to tell Crafty to

"move now".  Once it displays the move it would play in response to the

incorrect move, it will start its "ponder search" but now the reset

command will work.  Simply type "r 37" to back up to move 37, then type

Rae1 and Crafty will continue as though nothing happened.  Pay attention

to the clock time after it moves and adjust if necessary (if you lost any

time while correcting an incorrect move.)

Note:  You can also use the "remove" command, which will unmake the last

move by each side.  Crafty has to be pondering or waiting on input for

this to work, just like the reset command, so if *you* typed the wrong

move, type "?" to make it move, then "remove" which backs up one move

for each side, followed by the opponent's move.  If the opponent makes

the wrong move on the board, and you enter it, do this same thing.  Note,

if the opponent screws up, you should notice whether or not crafty had

predicted the right move.  If it had, you should probably call the TD

over, back the game up one move with the remove command, then use the

"ponder xxx" command to tell crafty to ponder "xxx" (the move it was

pondering before the wrong move was made by the opponent) and then it

should be allowed to "sit" until the same amount of time elapses before

you enter the correct move.  The idea is that if the opponent screws up,

it should not wipe out any searching crafty did while waiting.

3.  The machine dies (power failure maybe).  How do I recover?  First, you

can stop the clock for such failures, so do that *first*.  Then, reboot the

machine and start crafty by typing "crafty c".  Next, type the "history"

command and carefully check the last move it displays against the score

sheet you are maintaining by hand.  If they are the same, you are ready to

enter a move and continue.  If there are moves missing, use the "reada"

command to re-enter these moves and append them to the moves already 

present.

If the continue option won't work due to a corrupted history file, you have

two choices.  The best choice is to restart crafty without the "c" option,

and then use the "read" command and enter the moves by hand so that if you

screw up later, the "reset" command will work correctly to let you back up.

If you are 100 moves into a game, this might not be practical.  In this

case, use the "setboard" command to enter the position.  Be careful to

check the position after entry using the display command, and be careful

to not enter the wrong move since you can't use the "reset" command to

back up after using the setboard command.

After either of the above problems, you need to set the proper time

control (if this is in your .craftyrc this is not needed) and then you

need to adjust the clock to show the proper amount of time remaining.

The command to display the clock is "clock".  To adjust the clock

use the command form "clock c-time o-time" where c-time is Crafty's

time remaining, and o-time is the opponent's time remaining.  These

can be entered as simply the number of minutes left, or in the hh:mm

format if preferred.  "clock 60 50" sets Crafty's clock to 60 minutes

left, opponent's clock to 50 minutes left.  "clock 1:15 45" sets 

Crafty's clock to 75 minutes remaining, opponent's clock to 45.

Crafty pays attention to how much time the opponent has used,

so be sure and get them both correct.   You should subtract 5 minutes

from the actual time left on the clock to give yourself a cushion.  Of

course, you should *never* enter "0" time left, or even worse, a negative

number, because Crafty will go south for the Winter if you do.  :)

Note that there is a "settc" command that simplifies getting the time

control right after a restart...  It's explained above.

<end>