Author: James T. Walker
Date: 07:58:40 10/11/03
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On October 11, 2003 at 00:57:53, Michael Agnos wrote: >On October 10, 2003 at 12:11:30, Tord Romstad wrote: > >>On October 10, 2003 at 05:36:02, ludicrous wrote: >> >>>CSTal 2 is the one program you CANNOT be without. >> >>Yes. CSTal is still the best (not strongest) chess program I have ever played >>against. Clearly a "must have" for any Windows computer chess enthusiast >>who actually likes to *play* against the programs, rather than just running >>engine-engine matches and using the programs as analysis tools. >> >>Tord > > >Yes! I completely agree. I have Fritz 7 and Chessmaster 6000, but for pure >playing pleasure, CSTal is the most fun because of its almost human style of >play. This is *not* to say CSTal is easy to beat, however. Without severely >crippling it, CSTal has beaten me every time, (except for a few draws by >repetition.) > >Here's an interesting essay by the developer of CSTal, Chris Whittington, >describing his programming methods: http://www.thorstenczub.de/complcss2.html >It seems to me that with more developement, CSTal could be a world beater! warm >regards, Mike in California That's what Chris wanted everybody to believe. I was one of his supporters and played CSTal-2 on an ICC computer account for a while. The problem is when his program was compared to the real programs of his time CSTal came up very short on producing wins. He is a self proclaimed genius and his way is the only way to go. I could live with that if he had stuck to his ideas and continued his work. He turned out to be a quitter when his program turned out disappointing results. Maybe he didn't have as much faith in his ideas as he claimed. I would have loved to see him prove his ideas by continuing to improve CSTal-2. It is still a fun program to play against but cannot keep up with the "Artificial Stupidity" based programs of even his own time much less today. Too Bad he quit. Jim
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