Installation

Installation Instructions: Extract the files from the zip into one folder. If your hardware does not support the SSE popcount instruction then use the nopopcnt version. From a command line type "help" for the engine commands.

Schooner is an xboard chess engine and is best used with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that can properly use Chess Engine Communication Protocol (CECP). Schooner has been successfully tested to operate with the following GUI's. Download one of the free GUI's from the list below and install Schooner by following the appropriate instructions:

1) Arena

2) Cute Chess

3) WinBoard

Although the GUI's support their own opening books, Schooner has a selection of book modes that can be changed in the sc.ini file.

book 0 - is the default condition. Set book 0 if using a GUI opening book.

book 1 - supports an optional polyglot style book named "book.bin". It can be installed in the same directory as the engine, or the path can be define with "bookname" in the ini file. By default, the best move will be selected from the book.

The "pickbest" command can override the default polyglot pick best move status.

The "bookname" command sets the name and path for the polyglot book. The default directory is the same directory that the engine in installed. For example:

bookname "C:\Program Files (x86)\Chess\books\Cerebellum_light_171101\Cerebellum_Light_Poly.bin"

The "bookdepth" command sets the number of half-moves to play for the opening book.

For polyglot book users, there is a "book_random" number which allows the polyglot pickbest/random mode to be toggled. This can be useful in matches to prevent continual losses to the same opening. Set the value to the number of random moves desired. For example, book_random 2 will randomly pick then first move ( meaning first two half-moves) from the polyglot book using its internal binomial-distribution formula. Subsequently, the best moves are selected in the book providing the pickbest flag is also set.

If you are not sure how book_random works then delete book_random from the sc.ini file, or set book_random 0.