Watching Engine Matches Online - Part 1

There are several people who broadcast engine versus engine matches online, most notably Oliver Deville (Chess War), Graham Banks of the CCRL, and Fonzy Bluemers, one of the authors of the chess engine Dirty. The following is a description of how to view these broadcasts:



1) Download Tom's Live Chess Viewer (TCLV), created by Thomas McBurney (author of the chess engine Kanguruh), and install it on your computer. For Linux and Mac users, you can try REGO, a viewer wrtten in Java by Andrew Fan (the author of the chess engine FireFly).

2) Find the host IP address and the port address used by each host. They can be discovered at each of the links provided above. These are the addresses being used at the moment:

Oliver (ChessWar): Host chesswar.dyndns.org Port 16043
Oliver (OpenWar):  Host chesswar.dyndns.org Port 16044
Graham (1):        Host GrahamCCRL.dyndns.org Port 16053
Graham (2):        Host GrahamCCRL.dyndns.org Port 16001
Graham (3):        Host GrahamCCRL.dyndns.org Port 16002
Fonzy :            Host fonzychess.dyndns.org Port 16189

3)Start up TCLV. This is what you should see:



Enter the host IP address in the section labelled "Host". Likewise, enter the Port address in the section labelled "Port". Then left click on "Connect". When I enter Graham's information, this is what I see:



A game in progress. Under the "Tournament" tab, you can click on "Results Table" to see a crosstable of the current tournament. Under the "Options" tab, click on "Chat" to chat with other viewers.

If you have trouble connecting with a particular host, you may have to open the port in your router and firewall. Read your manufacturer's instructions and/or search Google for instructions on how to open ports in your router and firewall.