Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: SSDF Rating Irregularities

Author: James T. Walker

Date: 11:19:36 12/11/99

Go up one level in this thread


On December 11, 1999 at 01:03:58, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On December 10, 1999 at 18:27:51, Len Eisner wrote:
>
>>On December 09, 1999 at 22:58:28, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On December 09, 1999 at 22:11:00, Len Eisner wrote:

<snip>

>CRA _never_ used tournament time controls.  They played game/60 time controls.
>It was a _huge_ controversy at the time, where everyone felt that the USCF did
>this to inflate the ratings a bit.  This made the manufacturers happy since the
>CRA rating was always published on the outside of the packaging.  I can
>guarantee you that the Mach III was _not_ a 2265 player at 40/2.  I have one
>in my office.  The mach IV was somewhat faster but was _not_ 2300+ at 40/2.
>They were good.  But not that good.  I learned to thrash my Mach III pretty
>regularly, so long as I avoided games so fast that tactics were overlooked by
>human frailty.  :)
>
>
>Both were tactically not bad... but positionally they had problems, and the
>endgame was horrible compared to today's programs...  No clue about outside
>passed pawns, or majorities...  or king safety...  Once you learned the
>Stonewall as white, you wouldn't lose against them again with white...

Hello Bob,
I guess we will have to agree to disagree.  My memory is not good these days and
when I left Japan I threw away 15 years of Chess Life magazines because of the
extra weight in my shipping allowance so I cannot prove what I remember.  I
believe the Fidelity Mach 3 & Mach 4 machines were rated in a very large
tournament of 4 or 5 rounds.  Fidelity provided the necessary number of machines
to make 40 games and thus get a rating (8 machines for 5 rounds?).  They were
both awarded the USCF Master title for their performances of 2325 & 2265.  This
was printed on the box as I remember and a Certificate came with each machine
showing it was the first micro to be awarded the Master title by the USCF.
This was tournament time controls in a real tournament I think, not a CRA
created "Test".
Jim Walker



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.