Terra Help and Information

bullet1 Help!

bullet2 Draws and resigning

bullet3 The Terra way

Terra can be set to resign, offer draws and accept draw offers when the board situation is the right. In some theoretical draw situations like K vs K, K+B vs K, Terra will claim draw and just stop he game whatever value you have set to the draw option.

In order to resign, offer/accepting draws the following rules are followed by Terra.

Resign only if (resign=1 and ...):

  1. The evaluation is below -450 (1 bishop+pawn) during 4 consecutive moves.
  2. The material balance is bad enough (-350)
  3. Opponent isn't short of time (< 5s for each coming move)
  4. The opponent has no forced mate to execute
  5. The opponent isn't in check after my computed move
  6. The opponent has improved the evaluation with more than 75 (3/4 pawn) during the last 4 moves

If any of these rules are not fulfilled Terra will not resign


Maiking a draw offer only if (draw=1 and ...):

Rule 1:     No draw offer/accept before move number x (40 right now)

Rule 2:    No draw offers until y moves if one offer already

            is made. (decent behaviour)

Rule 3:     No draw offer/accept if it's a table base move

            and material is ahead. (not yet implemented)

Rule 4:     No draw offer/accpet if opponent time is very

            short and mine is not

Rule 5:     No draw offer/accept if any of the z previous

            moves had a score above contempt

Rule 6:     No draw offer if the computed move

            have a score below s (decent behaviour)


Accept a draw offer only if:

The same rules as above except 2 and 6.

bullet3 How to set it up

In Terra.ini there are three items that affects draws and resigning.

  1. resign=1 means that Terra will resign within the above rules, whilte resign=0 means that Terra will never resign.
  2. contempt=x where x is the value that Terra has to go below before accepting/making draw offers. set contempt negtive if you want to prevent Terra offering/accepting draws in good positions and high if you want Terra to play for a draw.
  3. draw=1 means that the draw function is enbled, while draw=0 means that Terra will not accept or offer draws.


N.B. The 50-move rule, 3-fold repetition and theoretical draw due to material will allways be detected whatever the values of contemp or draw are. The above draw parameters are only about draw by mutual agreements.

Please give your comments in WinBoard Forum or email me. This document was updated 2004-08-02.