DGT Pi and chessboard - what is in the logs vs. actions on the DGT Pi buttons

[Rafal D]

Hello,

my son is 13old y boy, which is using the DGT Pi and DGT chessboard for training.

Where do I find any documentation for logs for such events:

- move back a move 

- check the score on the DGT Pi (that shown in centipawns)

- pushing the engine to make a move (without letting him using it's own time).

I see the logging is now set on the debug level in the picochess. It's completly unreadable for me for that purposes.

I would like to ensure, that my son is doing a valuable trainign for him, without my control.

(and I would just control afterwards the logs for those events).

Thank you for your advices and assistance,

Rafal

[Scally]

Hi Rafal,

The logs found in /opt/picochess/logs/picochess.log.n  are for the developers use in tracking down any faults etc, granted you can change the value in the /opt/picochess/picochess.ini file to either debug, info, warning, error or critical but it’s not going to help in what you want. There is a log of all games in /opt/picochess/games/games.pgn. These can be set to email anyone in the picochess.ini file, so you can send his games to your email address.

When a player takes back a move and a new move is played, only the final moves played are shown in the pgn file. Takebacks are not shown in the pgn file.

You can check the valuation on the DGT Pi whilst playing a game but these are not stored in the games.pgn file. You can however either cut the game from games.pgn or the emailed game and paste it into a program to give you the information you want. I’ve installed Python-Chess-Annotator from a GitHub repository directly onto my DGT Pi and run it on a remote terminal. Chess-Artist is similar.

Here’s a game I played against Weakfish over the weekend (I blundered a piece but managed to win), and the associated output from Python-Chess-Annotator.

My Game:

[Event "PicoChess Game"]

[Site "Bermondsey, London"]

[Date "2021.08.28"]

[Round "?"]

[White "Scally"]

[Black "Weakfish XI-r3 (level     8)"]

[Result "1-0"]

[Time "18:16:16"]

[WhiteElo "1650"]

[BlackElo "1850"]

[PicoDepth "0"]

[PicoTimeControl "5 3"]

[PicoRemTimeW "162"]

[PicoRemTimeB "14"]

[PicoOpeningBook "books/HumanPower-v2.bin"]

[Opening "Caro-Kann: Classical, 6.Nf3 Nd7 7.Bd3 e6"]

[ECO "B18o"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. Nf3 Nd7 7. Bd3 e6 8.

O-O Ngf6 9. Bg5 Bd6 10. Re1 Qb6 11. b3 Bxd3 12. Qxd3 Bxg3 13. hxg3 O-O-O 14. c4

c5 15. Rac1 cxd4 16. Qxd4 Qxd4 17. Nxd4 h6 18. Bf4 e5 19. Bxe5 Nxe5 20. Rcd1

Rhe8 21. Nf5 Rxd1 22. Rxd1 Kc7 23. Nxg7 Rd8 24. Rxd8 Kxd8 25. Nf5 Kd7 26. Nxh6

Ke6 27. f3 Nfd7 28. g4 b5 29. cxb5 Nd3 30. Nf5 Kf6 31. Nd4 Nf4 32. g3 Ne6 33.

Nc6 Ng5 34. Kg2 Ne6 35. Nxa7 Nd4 36. Kf2 Ke6 37. f4 Kd5 38. g5 Kc5 39. Ke3 Nf5+

40. Kf3 Nd4+ 41. Kg4 Nb6 42. a4 Nd5 43. Nc6 Ne3+ 44. Kh5 Nxc6 45. bxc6 Kxc6 46.

g4 Nd5 47. f5 Ne7 48. Kh6 Kd7 49. a5 Nc6 50. g6 fxg6 51. fxg6 Nxa5 52. b4 Nc6

53. b5 Ne7 54. g7 Kc7 55. Kh7 Kb6 56. g8=Q Nxg8 57. Kxg8 Kc7 58. g5 Kb6 59. g6

Kc7 60. g7 Kb6 61. Kf7 Kxb5 62. g8=Q Ka5 63. Qb8 Ka6 64. Ke6 Ka5 65. Kd5 Ka4

66. Kc4 Ka3 67. Qb3# 1-0

Analysing it with Python-Chess-Annotator using Stockfish:

Al@RPi4-SSD:~/Engine-Source/Python-chess-annotator $ sudo python3 -m annotator -f Al-v-Weakfish.pgn -e /opt/picochess/engines/armv7l/stockfishDev -g 10 -t 4

{ Stockfish 230821 } 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 { B18 Caro-Kann Defense: Classical Variation } 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. Nf3 Nd7 7. Bd3 e6 8. O-O Ngf6 9. Bg5 Bd6 10. Re1 Qb6 11. b3 Bxd3 12. Qxd3 Bxg3 13. hxg3 O-O-O 14. c4 c5 15. Rac1 cxd4 $6 { 3.22 } ( 15... h6 16. Be3 { 1.93/21 } ) 16. Qxd4 $2 { 0.46 } ( 16. c5 Qa6 { 3.14/25 } ) 16... Qxd4 17. Nxd4 h6 18. Bf4 $6 { -0.45 } ( 18. Be3 { 0.75/26 } ) 18... e5 19. Bxe5 $4 { -3.76 } ( 19. Nb5 exf4 { -0.61/27 } ) 19... Nxe5 20. Rcd1 Rhe8 21. Nf5 Rxd1 22. Rxd1 Kc7 23. Nxg7 Rd8 24. Rxd8 Kxd8 25. Nf5 Kd7 26. Nxh6 Ke6 27. f3 Nfd7 28. g4 b5 $2 { 0.00 } ( 28... Nd3 29. Kf1 Nc1 30. Ke1 Nxa2 31. Kd1 Nc5 32. Kc2 Nb4+ 33. Kc3 { -2.43/32 } ) 29. cxb5 Nd3 30. Nf5 Kf6 31. Nd4 Nf4 $6 { 1.39 } ( 31... Nb4 32. a3 Ke5 33. Nc6+ Nxc6 34. bxc6 Nb6 35. Kf2 Nd5 36. g5 { -0.00/32 } ) 32. g3 Ne6 $6 { 2.00 } ( 32... Nd3 33. f4 { 1.10/28 } ) 33. Nc6 Ng5 34. Kg2 Ne6 35. Nxa7 Nd4 36. Kf2 Ke6 37. f4 Kd5 38. g5 Kc5 39. Ke3 Nf5+ 40. Kf3 Nd4+ 41. Kg4 Nb6 42. a4 Nd5 43. Nc6 Ne3+ 44. Kh5 Nxc6 45. bxc6 Kxc6 46. g4 Nd5 47. f5 Ne7 48. Kh6 Kd7 49. a5 Nc6 50. g6 fxg6 51. fxg6 Nxa5 52. b4 Nc6 53. b5 Ne7 54. g7 Kc7 55. Kh7 Kb6 56. g8=Q Nxg8 57. Kxg8 Kc7 58. g5 Kb6 59. g6 Kc7 60. g7 Kb6 61. Kf7 Kxb5 62. g8=Q Ka5 63. Qb8 Ka6 64. Ke6 Ka5 65. Kd5 Ka4 66. Kc4 Ka3 67. Qb3# 1-0

Or, you could also paste the game in Lichess.org and get the analysis plus more info:

Scally:

4 inaccuracies

0 mistakes

2 blunders

28 Average centipawn loss

Weakfish XI-r3 (level 8)

6 inaccuracies

1 mistake

2 blunders

40 Average centipawn loss

To answer your last question, once Picochess is out of book and thinking you can make it move instantly by pressing the the pause/play button in the centre of the DGT Pi clock buttons >|| 

Cheers,

Al.

[Rafal D]

Hello Scally,

thank you for dedicating your time for answering my questions.

About the pgn and mailing - I've already learned it from that forum, and using it for analysis of the games of my son.

I'm not a chess player, and my son is a club player. So the only way for me to assess his game is the engine analysis - I'm using for it lichess.

But for the purposes of the training - my son is seating near me, playing a game 30min each. But I'm not able to constantly monitor his moves - and while moving figures of the computer opponent, he is moving both sites and pressing the clock.

And as 13y old boy,  he might help his computer opponent to play faster, to finish his training faster. As adults, we all know, that this might be not beneficial, but for 13y old boy, who wants also play a football afterword's, it might be a temptation...

So having the logs from what was being pressed on the chess clock - would make me sure, for the quality of his training...

THank you,

Rafal

[RandyR]

Rafal,

There shouldn't be any need for your son to press the clock, just make the moves on the chessboard and PicoChess automatically switches sides. If you press the lever, you will change which side the computer is playing.

If your DGTPi is connected to your home network, you can observe the game using a web browser by typing the ip address of the DGTPi into the address bar of the web browser running on another computer.

As Al mentioned, you can lower the log level to info and it will capture less events, but if you can look at the debug log in a good text editor on, say, a Windows PC, it only takes a short time to see what's happening in a game (I usually just quickly scan the text-format board diagrams to follow the moves). 

Randy