Do You play Lucas chess on PC?

Hey,

Does anyone of you guys play Lucas chess on PC?

I always think that i am the only one lol, because it is not so popular program comparing to Fritz ...

for me, i play it regularly, starting from no.100 on the list and going down the line...right now, my opponent is no.56 on the list and has an ELO of 1911...ELO is not real but i am having too much fun playing it and spotting those small mistakes and capitalizing on them.

I use it frequently to play tabia positions to see how they envolve

I am interested in knowing more about it. Long ago I had tried installing (on linux) and had some difficulties. Also, I would like to know why the install script is 329 MB. Is it because of the several engines included? What all things does it include? Does it include endgame databases? Can it be trimmed down, for example, by uninstalling many engines or databases etc? I would appreciate some info about it.

@Tschesslee Could you explain this more? I know what tabia means. Does the program include a lot of them in various openings?

I have some programs that take much less root space, and I can install any number of engines, databases, and so on. I prefer not everything bundled together. Because if every GUI I want to try or even use for different purposes bundles everything, then it bloats my system too much. This is why I have stayed away from it. But I do want to give it a try sometime.

for the most part, it is perhaps one of the best pieces of software that I have ever used. I love the easy way of setting up engine leagues (for fun). The reason the installation is so large is because it includes many engines and puzzle databases. If I remember correctly, it also includes endgame table bases. You can remove them if you want, I don't have to remove them, so I have kept them.

Of course, you can always build from source like I did.

I used Lucas intensely for two+ years to play blindfold and also sighted games versus a ladder of engines including additional weak ones that I installed. I tried to create constrained engine opponents where I scored initially about 3 points out of 10 games. Sometimes, I had to handicap the engines with time or say a small opening book or even no opening book. If I won 2 games in a row, I would promote myself to the next level and if I lost 2 or 3 in a row well that meant demotion.
Sometimes, I would also play tabiya positions for an opening of interest.
I also did repetitions with sets of varied positions (800) where only about 15% are checkmate positions and the rest are varied. The level 4 and 5 positions can be rather challenging.
Lucas has an optional configurable Tutor option which can give immediate expert better move feedback during a game and you can take a number of takebacks that you preset. For example, you could try to play a 1800-2200+ Fide ELO engine starting with 3 takebacks allowed (roughly 400 increase in your strength) and see how you do. Mostly, I turn the Tutor off.
After a game you can get detailed analysis of a game and of the options available for each move.
Overall, I like Lucas!

@SaltWaterRabbit said in #6:
> I used Lucas intensely for two+ years to play blindfold and also sighted games versus a ladder of engines

I know it has some 60+ engines included. Are they marked by approximate Elo?

> including additional weak ones that I installed. I tried to create constrained engine opponents where I scored

I am trying to do this (not in Lucas) by trying to calibrate playing strengths of various engines, some of which come with playing levels. One thing I notices with Stockfish levels is that level 20 is default, so is very strong, and then to level 19, there is a huge drop in playing strength, and then 19, 18, 17 are somewhat equal. So the specified levels are not well calibrated. It seems that the playing levels in Igel are better calibrated. But I have thought about doing exactly what you did - increase the opposition when you win, decrease when you lose.

> I also did repetitions with sets of varied positions (800) where only about 15% are checkmate positions and the rest are varied. The level 4 and 5 positions can be rather challenging.

Are these 800 positions included? I have large collections of positions with tactics, combinations, endgames, studies, annotated games, and so on, which I have been collecting for a while. Is it possible to add them in Lucas Chess training module?

Does it import data (i.e., make another copy in its internal organisation) or can it read data from a location from your computer? Here data could be anything from epd, pgn collections, polyglot opening books, pgn opening books, etc. (This is like some ebook readers, which do not read a book from a location you specify, but import and make a copy somewhere. This is somewhat annoying.)

Njet

@kajalmaya said in #7:
> Are they marked by approximate Elo?
YES
Play > Play Against an engine
Internal Engines 61 from 800-3500
Tourney Engines 1190-2200
Engines with Limited ELO approx. 100 from 700-2800
Lucas ELO large number maybe 100 from 1102-2202

I am not sure if all these engines are from the standard 2.09b installation - could include extra ones that I installed. The ratings seem to be estimates and sometimes it seems that a particular engine does not match its rating.
******
Train > Learn Tactics by Repetition > 5 large (?7000?) position sets where you can select by type and difficulty and number of each type of position+ >Personal Tactics positions option
chessionate.com/lucaswiki/index.php?title=Find_best_move
I liked Train >Games > Blind plus I also liked Train > Resistance Test
Lucas is open source so there may be some clunk in the interface. The recent documentation is better but not great. (5 languages)
lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com/docs
lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com/index?lang=en
Cheers