Author: Christopher R. Dorr
Date: 12:29:32 01/05/99
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On January 05, 1999 at 15:11:07, Komputer Korner wrote: >On January 05, 1999 at 13:48:09, Christopher R. Dorr wrote: > >>Based upond Komputer Korner's recommendation, I downloaded Chess Partner from >>LokaSoft's website. The program looks fantastic at first sight! Lovely, usable >>board and pieces, accessible controls, etc. >> >>But then I played it. I played it 10 games at G/5, and won 9-1. Now I am a >>decent player (USCF 2150+), and I am playing it on a rather slow machine >>(Pentium 75, 40 MB RAM), but I don't even beat the lower rate freeware programs >>(SSECHESS, ExChess) this badly on this machine. Certainly this is not in the >>class of any of the professional programs (even 8 year old professional programs >>like Zarkov 2.6 appear stronger). Crafty et al are much stronger. >> >>I used all the default settings. Unless there is something wrong with my setup >>or something got messed about in the english translation, it appears that this >>program is quite weak. Which is quite a shame, as the feature set and interface >>are quite admirable. >> >>Has anyone else used this program? What have your result been. perhaps I need to >>modify some setting somewhere. >> >>Chris Dorr >>USCF Life Master > >No it is weak on slow machines. Like Crafty it needs a fast computer. Even so it >is not in the same league as the top programs but it's feature set is so good it >has a good future for one important reason. It allows other engines like the >Fritz GUI does, so you should soon see Crafty as an alternate engine for it. I >doubt that you will win a game from the Crafty engine on computers faster than a >Pentium 266. >-- >Komputer Korner OK...I'll try it on my 266 at home. But Crafty has a significant plus score against me on this (slow P75) machine. Even on my P75, I'd have to rate crafty as a solid master in fast chess. Chess Partner doesn't even seem to be strong Class A strength. What bothers me on this machine is *how* it loses. It doesn't seem to have much chess knowledge; i.e. readily giving up open files, and opening up a and h files for me, giving up the 7th rank, etc. It reminds me greatly of an old version of Arasan Chess on this machine; it loses in very much the same ways. I agree that it has a very nice feature set; Even with it's engine weaknesses, I'm strongly considering registering it. If it can run Crafty at near-full strength (unlike Fritz does), then it's a no-brainer. But if I'm stuck with the engine that plays like it has so far, I still have my doubts. Thanks for the review. :) Chris Dorr
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