pgn-tactics-generator

About

This is a python application dedicated to creating chess puzzles/tactics from a pgn file. Also it can download your games from lichess.org and use that file.

It's based on the great https://github.com/clarkerubber/Python-Puzzle-Creator by @clarkerubber

Things that I changed:

• Use a local pgn file with games as a source.
• Write results to a file called tactics.pgn
• Default engine depth to 8, so it's faster. Before it was nodes=3500000 this is a depth around 20. So it took several minutes to analyze a game. With depth 8 it takes seconds.
• You can use the depth argument to change the depth if you want more precision.
• chess.pop_count to chess.popcount, because it was failing

This is too complex, give something easy.

There is another option if you don't want to install and manage python scripts I created a more user friendly tactics generator and it's online http://chesstacticsgenerator.vitomd.com It uses a different approach to create tactics, so probably it will generate a different set of tactics.

Installation

This script requires the Requests and Python-Chess libraries to run, as well as a copy of Stockfish Is recommended that you use Python 3 and pip3. But it could work with Python 2.7 and pip (probably you will need to install futures pip install futures )

Please, take a look at development doc for details.

Install requirements

pip3 install -r requirements.txt --user

Setup

MacOS / Linux : sh build-stockfish.sh to obtain the current lichess Stockfish instance.

Launching Application

Downloading games for a specific user

You can download games from a specific user using this command: python3 download_games.py <lichess username>

By default, it will download the last 60 games from blitz, rapid and classical.

Arguments

You can use the max argument to get more games and use the lichess api token with the token argument to make the download faster. https://lichess.org/api#operation/apiGamesUser

It will save the games in the games.pgn file

Example to get 100 games using the token

python3 download_games.py <lichess username> --max 100 --token 123456789

Downloading games from tournaments

You can download games from multiple tournaments using this command:

python3 download_tournaments.py E14kHVwX tdntXNhy

The arguments are the tournaments ids separate by a space

It will save the games in the games.pgn file

Generate tactics

To execute the generator execute this command. By default it will look for the games.pgn file:

python3 main.py

Arguments

• --quiet to reduce the screen output.
• --depth=8 select the Stockfish depth analysis. Default is 8 and will take some seconds to analyze a game, with --depth=18 will take around 6 minutes.
• --games=ruy_lopez.pgn to select a specific pgn file. Default is games.pgn
• --strict=False Use False to generate more tactics but a little more ambiguous. Default is True
• --threads=4 Stockfish argument, number of engine threads, default 4
• --memory=2048 Stockfish argument, memory in MB to use for engine hashtables, default 2048
• --includeBlunder=False If False then generated puzzles won't include initial blunder move, default is True
• --stockfish=./stockfish-x86_64-bmi2 Path to Stockfish binary. Optional. If omitted, the program will try to locate Stockfish in current directory or download it from the net

Example: python3 main.py --quiet --depth=12 --games=ruy_lopez.pgn --strict=True --threads=2 --memory=1024

Tactics output

The resulting file will be a pgn file called tactics.pgn. Each tactic contains the headers from the source game. The result header is the tactic result and not the game result. It can be loaded to a Lichess study or to an app like iChess to practice tactics.

Problems?

Stockfish errors

• If you have problems building Stockfish try downloading Stockfish directly https://stockfishchess.org/download/

Want to see all my chess related projects?

Check My projects for a full detailed list.