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Computer
Playing
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Chess Wizard:
A powerful chess playing and
learning software
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| How to let the
computer make move? |
- Press
down Computer
White or Computer Black button at
the right side of the toolbar, then the
computer will make move for White or
Black.
- Before
the computer makes out a move, it will be
in thinking with the Stop / Move Now button (looks
like a red light) lightened.
- More
time will be taken by the computer if you
increase the level.
- You
can click Stop / Move
Now to let the computer
move immediately if you have no patience
to wait for thinking.
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- When
starting a new game, the computer will
choose white or black according to Computer's Role choice in Preferences dialog.
- The
board will be rotated automatically for
you when the computer chooses white.
- If
you do not like to rotate the board
automatically, you can remove Auto Rotate check box
in Preferences dialog.
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- You
can press down Show Analysis button to
show the computer's thinking details,
including Depth, Score and Principal Variation.
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- If
the right several buttons are disabled (in
gray), which means the engine is not
loaded, you can click Load Engine in Computer menu, then
choose STOCKFISH.EXE in Chess Wizard
folder to load the default engine.
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| How to change the
level of computer? |
- Press
Level button in
the toolbar, then you can choose the
recommended levels (from Peabrain to Overwhelming), or
choose Time
Control or Limited Depth mode.
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- Time Control mode is
usually used to practise a real official
game, where Chess Wizard will time for
both human and computer. The human side
can continue to move after time over,
which is different from the official game.
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- Overwhelming is
equivalent to a limited depth with 24
plies, while Peabrain is only
equivalent to 2 plies. If Peabrain is still
too difficult to you, you can choose Limited Depth with just
1 ply.
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| What does 'Score'
stand for in Show Analysis window? |
- The
score is generally estimated by the
material balance from the computer's
point of view in centipawns, which means
a positive value for the computer's
advantage and a negative value for
disadvantage. For example, +100 means the
computer makes a pawn's advantage than
human.
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- A
value near 10000 means a checkmate
detected. For example, +9998 means the
computer is to win in 2 moves, while -9998
means human can win in 2 moves.
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| What is 'Ponder'? |
- When
playing with computer, you can check Ponder in Computer menu, then
the computer will think in your turn,
which can save the computer's time and
slightly strengthen the level.
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- If
you always like to turn on ponder, you
can check Ponder Next box in Preferences dialog.
Then the Ponder menu will
automatically checked once starting a new
game.
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- Here
is the ponder approach for the computer:
- Once
the computer makes a move, it will guess
a move for you and think the response to
the guessed move in your turn. If you
really makes the guessed move, called 'Ponder
Hit', the computer then saves time.
Otherwise, the computer must think again,
just like no ponder happens.
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- The
guessed move is displayed in brackets in Show Analysis window and
in the status bar.
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- Ponder is
unavailable when both Computer White and Computer Black are
pressed down.
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| How to analyze a position in
a game? |
- Press
down Show
Analysis button without
either Computer
White or Computer Black pressed
down, then the computer will think for
the current position and pop up thinking
details.
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- You
can also press Analyse in New
Window button to open a
new Chess Wizard window, and get the
thinking details for positions in
different variations.
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| How to obtain other
engines? |
- Chess
Wizard uses Stockfish as its default
engine. More engines can be found here.
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- You
must click Load Engine in Computer menu to
load a downloaded engine. Chess Wizard
will automatically load that engine when
started next time. (But slave engine will
not be loaded automatically.)
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| How to let two
different engines play against each other? |
- You
can click Load Slave button in Engine Settings dialog to
load another engine, called 'Slave Engine'.
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- These
two engines will play against each other
when both Computer
White and Computer Black pressed
down. White or black depends on whether Slave White box is
checked in Engine
Settings dialog.
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| How to design an
engine? |
- Designing
a chess engine with strong AI looks like
an arduous task. If you are interested in
it, you can find resources from Chess Programming
Wiki.
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| How to debug an
engine in Chess Wizard? |
- If Log File box is
checked in Engine
Settings dialog, the
communication between Chess Wizard and
engine will be written in log file in
HTML format.
- You
can click View button to
open the log file in your browser, and
refresh the browser to get the latest
logs.
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- In
the HTML log file, requests (commands
that Chess Wizard sends to the engine)
are displayed in red and responses (information
that Chess Wizard receives from the
engine) are in blue. When a slave engine
loaded, requests to the
slave are displayed in magenta and responses from the
slave are in teal.
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- You
can find Send button in Engine Settings dialog to
send UCI requests to the engine directly,
and responses are listed below.
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