path: root/tournament.howto

[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 enpassant capture.  Note that if there is no
enpassant 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.

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 remaing.  These
can be etered 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.
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