As many readers of these pages are aware, the development of a chess playing program is no longer a trivial task. Both chess playing engines and their user interfaces are becoming increasingly complex. Because so much effort has to go into the development of a new program, it is becoming increasingly common for one group to develop a user interface for a chess program, while another individual codes the chess playing engine.
Such is the case with REBEL-Tiger, which is the result of a collaboration between Christophe Theron, who was responsible for the Tiger chess engine (with significant input from Ed Schroeder, author of Rebel), and Lex Loep of Lokasoft, who was principally responsible for database and GUI development. Lex also wrote the included Lokasoft Lchess engine. Contrary to some common misperceptions, Rebel-Tiger does not include a version of the REBEL engine that runs under the Lokasoft GUI. Instead, Rebel-Tiger includes both the windows version of the Tiger engine, running under the Lokasoft GUI, and Rebel 10, a very highly respected playing program that runs under DOS.
The GUI and database of REBEL-Tiger are both serviceable, and will meet the needs of many players, although database functions are mostly confined to header searches. There are a wide variety of 2-D piece sets supplied with the program, and there is support for variations in the game score. The program is reasonably easy to handicap, because it supports both the creation of books from databases, and multiple engines. However, you will have to be prepared to edit some initialization files if you want to adjust the parameters of any of the winboard engines.
REBEL-Tiger also includes an internet chess server (ICS) interface for playing games over the internet. In addition, the program includes a facility for playing chess directly between two computers over a TCP/IP network.
Any judgement that I could make about this engine would be nearly meaningless. I am not a GM, or anywhere close to one. I can say that this engine seems to exhibit a high degree of positional "understanding", and will mete out one severe beating after another. Clearly, the program is strong, as evidenced by its top place on the SSDF list. Since it is more of a knowledge-based program, many people will find it more useful for analysis than some of the fast searchers.
Overall, REBEL-Tiger is an example of a very nice engine married to a reasonably complete windows GUI. People that are not yet owners of Rebel for DOS may want to consider the package because of the inclusion of REBEL 10 on the CD. Fans of the Tiger engine will be interested for obvious reasons.
Strengths:
- You can extensively customize the display and easily resize various windows.
- There is audio announcement of moves, so the program is reasonably convenient to use with an external board.
- There are a wide variety of playing levels including sudden death, Fischer, fixed depth and fixed time per move. You can also disable thinking on the opponents clock.
- There are two engines shipped with the program - the first is Chess Tiger, of course. The second is the Lokasoft LCHESS engine, which is mostly suitable for handicap play (i.e. it's not very strong).
- The Chess Partner interface is compatible with many winboard engines. A configuration file is provided to allow you to run Ant, Arasan, Comet, Crafty, Fortress, GnuChess, Little Goliath, Phalanx, SSEChess, and The Crazy Bishop. You can add additional engines, but you will have to modify an initialization file with various engine commands in it.
- The program supports two modes of network play. You can either use the program as an interface to an Internet Chess Server, or Chess Partner can act as either a server or client for direct network games over any TCP/IP connection. This means for example, that you can play a game directly between two computers on the internet.
- There is support for Ken Thompson's endgame CDs, which are not supplied with the program. One nice feature is that you can use multiple CDROM drives (if you have them), so that you don't have to swap CDs in and out of the drive. Prospective purchasers should note that the endgame CDs are not used by Tiger, but are supported by the Lokasoft engine.
- Printed output is basic, but has fairly attractive pieces. One nice feature is that the current board position is printed along with the game score.
- When observing a game on ICC, it is very easy to save it to an external file. Don't laugh, but this ability is not always well implemented in other ICS interfaces.
- Playing games on ICC and FICS is fairly straightforward with REBEL-CP. While there is no seek graph (as there is in blitzin), there are context sensitive menus which allow you to fairly easily match players, observe games, etc.
- The program can perform automated analysis of a game, although the analysis can only be placed in the comment field of a move, and is not automatically incorporated as a variation.
- There are database search facilities, but only on the basis of header information (no position or material based searches).
- It is reasonably easy to edit the user book, and to construct books based on existing game collections (which uses an external utility).
- A bar graph showing the computer's evaluation of the game can be displayed. Clicking on any of the bars takes you to the corresponding move.
- Both PGN and CBF (old Chessbase) database formats are supported.
Weaknesses:
- You cannot use a "user" book with Tiger (i.e. a book that you construct yourself), but you can use it with the included Lokasoft engine.
- There is no facility for adding special characters when making game comments (i.e. no informant symbology).
- The program got player names mixed up when I attempted to observe multiple games at once on an ICS.
- Unfortunately, you can play a game on an ICS while the engine calculates in the background. While some people may consider this an advantage, I think it simply makes cheating easier.
- There is an included 3-D board, but it needs improvement. You can only look at it from a fixed position, and it is not as attractive as Genius or Fritz.
- There needs to be some way to make the font bigger in the engine analysis display window.
- The help files could use some improvement insofar as there are a number of unexplained features in the program.
Copy Protection:
Must be installed from the CD, no refueling.
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