Only in ComputerChessLand. Ruffian2.1.0 v TheKing3.50

[AnthonyTheSage]

I've recently been playing alot of Kasparov ChessMate which uses the Ruffian engine. A friend told me it plays more humanlike than ChessMaster which is complete BS. Anyways it gave me the idea to match Ruffian and the King. The King3.50 seems to be quite a bit stronger. This one game in particular turned out to be really good. It's hard to believe that TheKing3.50 survived with its King so exposed. The King not only survives but becomes key to escorting the pawns to victory, amazing. This game also illustrates the weakness of many of the older engines such as Ruffian when it comes to pushing pawns. TheKing3.50 gained 50 elo over TheKing3.33 just because it learned how to push pawns.
[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2011.1.14"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Ruffian2.1.0"]
[Black "TheKing3.50"]
[WhiteElo "2730"]
[BlackElo "2770"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 b6 3. Nc3 Bb7 4. Nf3 e6 5. e3 Bb4 6. Bd2
O-O 7. Bd3 c5 8. O-O d6 9. dxc5 dxc5 10. Be2 Nc6 11. Qc2
Ba5 12. Rfd1 Qe7 13. a3 Rad8 14. Bd3 h6 15. Ne4 Nxe4
16. Bxe4 Bxd2 17. Rxd2 f5 18. Bd3 g6 19. Rad1 e5 20. Be2 e4
21. Ne1 Rxd2 22. Rxd2 f4 23. Qc3 fxe3 24. Qxe3 Qf7 25. Nc2
Ne5 26. b4 Ba6 27. b5 Bc8 28. Qg3 Be6 29. Ne3 Kh7 30. Rd6
Qf6 31. Nd5 Qf5 32. Ne7 Qf6 33. Nc6 Nf7 34. Rd1 Qb2 35. Qe3
Qc2 36. Rc1 Qb2 37. h3 Kg7 38. a4 Nd6 39. Rd1 Bxc4 40. Bxc4
Nxc4 41. Rd7+ Kg8 42. Ne7+ Kg7 43. Nf5+ Kf6 44. Qxh6 Ke6
45. Re7+ Kd5 46. Qxg6 Qc1+ 47. Kh2 Qf4+ 48. Ng3 Nd2
49. Qh5+ Kc4 50. Qe2+ Kb3 51. Kg1 c4 52. Nxe4 Nxe4 53. Rxe4
Qc1+ 54. Kh2 Rc8 55. a5 bxa5 56. Re7 c3 57. Qe6+ Rc4
58. Rf7 a4 59. b6 axb6 60. Qxb6+ Rb4 61. Qe6+ Kb2 62. Qd6
Rb3 63. Rf8 a3 64. Ra8 c2 65. Rb8 Rxb8 66. Qxb8+ Ka1 67. g4
Qb2 68. Qg3 0-1

[ernest]

By the way, do you know the way to play The King 3.50 in the Fritz GUI ?

[AnthonyTheSage]

1. Search for and download InBetween.

2. Put InBetween.exe, and InBetween.ini in the folder that you installed chessmaster.

3. In the chessmaster folder rename TheKing3.50.exe, to TheKing.exe. Rename InBetween.exe to TheKing3.50.exe.
What you want here is the Chessmaster interface to have to go through InBetween to get to the engine.

4. Open the InBetween.ini and copy and paste this>

[InBetween]
Debug := 3
CommandLine := TheKing.exe
Priority := low

5. Start up chessmaster, play a game you against chessmaster. A screen will pop up. Write down the opk number.

6. Download WB2UCI and put it in any folder. But for ease you can even put it in the same folder as the inbetween and the king.

7. There should be an WB2UCI eng file that comes with the wb2uci. Open it and copy and paste this>

[ENGINE]
Name=The King 3.50
Author=Johan de Koning
Filename=Wb2Uci.exe

[OPTIONS]
Program=C:\Program Files\ChessMaster 9000\TheKing.exe
InitString=cm_parm default\cm_parm opk=700382 opp=100 opn=100 opb=100 opr=100 opq=100 myp=100 myn=100 myb=100 myr=100 myq=100 mycc=100 mymob=100 myks=100 mypp=100 mypw=100 opcc=100 opmob=100 opks=100 oppp=100 oppw=100 cfd=0 sop=100 avd=0 rnd=0 sel=14 md=99
HashCommand=cm_parm tts=67108864
InitTime=4
Ponder=false
Logfile=false
Edit=edit
UseSAN=false
logfile=false
ownbook=false
Priority=normal
AddHintMove=false
Protocol=1
LevelExtend=Progressive
computer=true
Analyze=true
UseUndo=true
Visible=Ponder,Hash

8. The only thing you change in the WB2uci eng file is the OPk number that you wrote down earlier, and you may also want to change the path to the engine mine is Program=C:\Program Files\ChessMaster 9000\TheKing.exe because I use theking3.50.exe in the chessmaster 9000 interface. But you will probably want to have something like Program=C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Chessmaster Grandmaster\TheKing.exe assuming your using ChessMaster grandmaster edition. I don't know if thats exact but you get the idea.

9. Then add new uci engine in fritz, Point it to the WB2Uci.exe and TheKing should be able to play in fritz.

9. You will have to get a new opk number every time you restart your computer, but once you set it up properly its really easy to do. I know its sounds overly complex and my instructions are probably not the easiest to follow. If you punch in on yahoo, how to use chessmaster in fritz or chessmaster inbetween you will probably get better instructions. The setup is the hard part. Once its set up its really easy to use.

10. There is also a patch for the older versions of chessmaster TheKing3.23.exe and TheKing3.33.exe, that allows them to play without the opk number. But I have never had good luck with it. Not only does the analysis not work it doesn't seem to play at full strength. I prefer the method above. Trust me its not as hard as it looks, just make sure all the paths to the engine are precise, and everything is named properly. Cheers.

[Uly]

10. There is also a patch for the older versions of chessmaster TheKing3.23.exe and TheKing3.33.exe, that allows them to play without the opk number. But I have never had good luck with it. Not only does the analysis not work it doesn't seem to play at full strength.

Oh, this is new, I haven't had problems with the patch for analysis, but how much does it weaken The King? (e.g. on a direct match between the patched one and the opk number method).

[AnthonyTheSage]

I haven't run chessmaster tournaments in a long time. Just single matches. But back in the day it always seemed the unpatched versions that had the opk number performed better. Also I never trusted it unless I could get the analysis to work. How did you manage to get the analysis to work? This is from the programmer of the patch.>

[Type ............................. Patch]
[Prog name ..................... The King]
[Version ................... All versions]
[Protection .................. OPK number]
[URL ............. no, no, no, crazy kids]
[OS .............................. WinAll]
[Date ........................ 22-June-04]

INFO: VB6 Runtime DLL download links:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/ ... BRun60.exe
(REQUIRED, because it is made in VB)

This patch disables the OPK-Check in all versions of The King chess engines
(Chessmaster engine), so that it can work under other chess GUI's without the
OPK number. Once applied, the analysis mode doens't work in Winboard.
Don't use the patched file in Chessmaster GUI, this can cause problems.

Patch for The King chess engine all versions:
Chessmaster 8000 / The King 3.12a (Internal name: The King 3.12.Sep15)
Chessmaster 8000 / The King 3.12c (Internal name: The King 3.12c 2001Jan29)
Chessmaster 8000 / The King 3.12d (Internal name: The King 3.12d 2001Mar30)
Chessmaster 9000 / The King 3.23 (Internal name: The King 3.23 2002May30)
Chessmaster 10th / The King 3.33 (Internal name: The King 3.33 2004May14)

[ernest]

Patch for The King chess engine all versions:

Thanks!
But it does look complicated without the patch...
On the other hand, I have never seen the patch for Chessmaster 11th / The King 3.50
Is it the same as for Chessmaster 10th / The King 3.33 ?

[Uly]

How did you manage to get the analysis to work?

Installed the patched engine as UCI with the UCI2WB adapter. Hit the infinite analysis button of my interface. Everything seems to work fine, though the engine doesn't report what move is currently being analyzed (and so, one doesn't get any information of iterations ending). No idea if TheKing 3.23 is being weakened by it.

Is that the only patch that exists? I don't remember that the patch I used worked for all those versions, though, it was years ago.

[AnthonyTheSage]

Is it the same as for Chessmaster 10th / The King 3.33 ?

I could be wrong but I have never seen a patch for TheKing3.50. The old patch only works for TheKing3.12, TheKing3.23 and TheKing3.33.