Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 10:45:18 03/30/00
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On March 30, 2000 at 13:36:56, ujecrh wrote: > >It is surprising to see that different people can get a really different feeling >about a given program (no blame, it is probably very difficult to evaluate >positional understanding of an engine). For instance, look at the two following >summaries: > >---------------- >from WCCC pages: >SOS >Rudolf Huber >SOS is a program which focuses on calculating speed rather than programmed >chess knowledge. Since its author is not a chess player, the strength of the >program has to come from its speed to calculate the variations. Up to now SOS >has never won against a program which calculates faster, however there are not >too many of them. Still, the author believes that the above mentioned apprach to >computer chess delivers the best playing strength per programming effort ratio. >---------------- >from Franks's chess pages: >SOS plays a very positional and agressive chess game, which makes it an >interesting new addition to the winboard engines. The comprehensive amount of >chessknowledge is used efficiently. In games at tournament time control it can >beat anyone. A new favourite of mine. >---------------- > >Maybe it was two slightly different versions but it is still surprising. I used >to think that the main gap between commercial chess engines and amateur ones was >the amount of chess knowledge put into it (with some exception among commercial >engines that are known as really fast searchers). Is that still true or is there >any amateur engine that contains heavy chess knowledge ? You might be surprised at the knowledge even in tiny chess engines. Look at the very clever eval code in Phalanx, for instance. At any rate, I think Christophe Theron said it best -- the only real difference between commercial chess programs and ameteur chess programs is effort. To quote Van Cliburn, the famous pianist... After a concert a woman walked up to him and said, "I would give anything to play like you!" "No you wouldn't." he replied. "Yes I would..." she responded. "No, you're wrong." He said, "You would not give 20 years of study and 4 hours of practice each day, every day, for all of your life." So it goes, with the quest for excellence.
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