UCI and Pondering

[Alain]

Hi,

I am trying to implement pondering in CEBoard when hosting UCI engines and I don't understand which dialog must take place :

let's say that I send to the engine

Code: Select all

position startpos moves e2e4
go movetime 1000

The engine answers after some time:

Code: Select all

bestmove g8f6 ponder b1c3

I understand that it does not start pondering immediately, even if I set the "Ponder" option to true, is it correct ?

Which message should I send to make the engine start pondering ?
is it these commands ?

Code: Select all

position startpos moves e2e4 g8f6
go ponder b1c3

And how can I stop the engine's reflection ? If I send "ponderhit" to the engines I have tested, none stops thinking....

Thanks in advance
Best regards,
Alain

[Mark Uniacke]

Hi,

I am trying to implement pondering in CEBoard when hosting UCI engines and I don't understand which dialog must take place :

let's say that I send to the engine

Code: Select all

position startpos moves e2e4
go movetime 1000

The engine answers after some time:

Code: Select all

bestmove g8f6 ponder b1c3

I understand that it does not start pondering immediately, even if I set the "Ponder" option to true, is it correct ?

Which message should I send to make the engine start pondering ?
is it these commands ?

Code: Select all

position startpos moves e2e4 g8f6
go ponder b1c3

And how can I stop the engine's reflection ? If I send "ponderhit" to the engines I have tested, none stops thinking....

Thanks in advance
Best regards,
Alain

Yes that is correct, no pondering is started until it is requested.

So you would give:
position startpos moves e2e4 g8f6 b1c3
go wtime 50000 btime 50000 ponder

then if ponder move (b1c3 in this case) is played by opponent you output
ponderhit

engine now switches to normal play mode and plays move when its ready.

If you did not specify a time when you told it to ponder that would explain why the engine did not move.

[Alain]

Thanks a lot Mark,

Best regards,
Alain