Author: Wayne Lowrance
Date: 21:37:32 11/19/99
After Patterborn i figure i have found the best of the current program offerings. That would be Shredder4 (Ferrit not avail). Its results at patterborn were fantastic ! Beating programs on huge computer platforms etc. Now I know that a Tournament result is based on very few games and as such taking the result as absolute is risky ! However it should be a very good indicator of playing strenth comparison. If the program is that good it ought to do well on the leader boards of other reputable Tournaments. So now comes along Thuringen Tournament ! Shredder4 is entered, so I follow the posting very closly because i say to my self that is the program i want to buy !. Surprise Surprise, Shredder4 appears to be not in the top class, its performance up till round 6 places it far arrears of the top. To me it does not even appear to be a strong program compared to the well known programs. Why is that ? . Is it because at Paterborn the programmar of Shredder had a different version than what is being marketed to me ? Is it that he created very special book openings for each of his opponents taking advantage of his knowledge of their strengths/weakness ? What ? I do not wish to seem to pick on Shredder4 or be predjusticed , far from it i stil have difficulty in believinfg the result difference, but which result is the most representative. I still have a open mind. There are Tournaments going on else where, private ones and etc. with results having nothing in common ! At the moment, for me, the only gauge is SSDF. Its results seem to stand up preety good. SSDF has said for a few years now that Fritz was the strongest program, and in general most of us who have it and played it often against other known programs on the chess servers agree with the assessment in general. Hiarcs has a excellent SSDF reputation and in fact is one of the very best programs at 5 min blitz with no increment and is better than Fritzy and others well know programs at that time control. Crafty ver 17.1 got my attention based on posts and its performance on a well known chess server, and as the man said in a recent post, "it is a gudd-on" I downloaded it and it is strong, very strong but It does not performe well against Hiarcs7.32 and other unknown programs on a well known chess server (in blitz time controls). I guess the program I really would like to have is Ferrit, Why ? cause Dr. Bob Hyatt said it is the program "He fears the most at blitzing !" in a rather recent post!, but I cannot have it (:. So I apoligize for this lengthy post, But i have had this frustration for a while. What I am slowly learning is, to place very little importance on a single tournament result (especially like those at Patterborn where the programmar has made special preparations for his program and special hardware that I cannot afford, wait to buy a program and see how the early bird buyers do with them, wait for ssdf results, and listen to Dr. Bob Hyatt when he is adressing topics of related importance. Thanks for reading my post Wayne
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