Author: Shanti
Date: 11:59:23 09/06/00
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Hi To get a very bad position in 2 out of 9 games is not a good sign. I beleive that the quality of the book can be measured by the evaluation of the program when it gets out of the book. I think the type of position is very important and if Shredder likes certain positions than the book should do its best to give Shredder those positions. Anyway, I watched Shredder openings during the Israeli Chess League and to be honest, I wasn't very happy with what I saw :-) I think its result might be EVEN better with a better opening book. Best regards Shanti On September 06, 2000 at 14:05:24, Stefan Meyer-Kahlen wrote: > >There has been a lot of discussion here recently about the quality of Shredder’s >opening book in London. Most people got the impression that Shredder’s book is >very weak, so I guess I have to correct some things here as I think that >Shredder’s book is very good and very well tuned to Shredder’s strengths and >weaknesses and I am quite happy with it. We played weak lines in two games in >London where we came out of book in a very bad or even lost position, but in the >rest of the games I was quite happy with Shredder’s opening choice. My >cooperation with Sandro Necchi has just started, so we knew that there might be >some holes in the book, but we have already achieved a lot and really are having >an excellent book now. I am looking forward to the commercial book of Shredder5 >and further tournament books in the future as I think that Shredder’s book is >already better than ever before. > >Here are some brief comments on the opening lines Shredder played in London from >my point of view: > >R1, white against Diep: >Out of book after 16…Kh8. One of the main lines in Sveshnikov where we knew that >Shredder usually knows how to continue, >R2, black against Tiger: >Out of book after 8…Nxd4. An inferior line by Tiger with an easy win for >Shredder, >R3, white against Fritz: >Out of book after 15…Nd6. I heard some criticism that this line is too harmless, >but we played this line on purpose as Shredder likes this kind of positions and >scores very well with it. >R4, black against Rebel: >Out of book after 26.Bf4. This was a weak line by Shredder. We knew that we had >some problems with the Belgrad Gambit. Actually the line with 14...Nxf3 was one >of the last lines we worked on before London. We thought we had fixed it, but >apparently we missed that one. >R5, white against Junior: >Out of book after 12…Nd7. Again we were criticized for playing harmlessly, but >in our opinion Shredder is very strong in this type of positions so we also >played this one on purpose. In this game Shredder didn’t find the right plan >though, so we got outplayed by Junior. >R6, black against Nimzo: >Out of book after 19.Rg3. We scored very well with this line in our tests so we >decided to play it in London. Unfortunately we overlooked 19.Rg3 which seems to >be very strong, so we came out of book lost. If you are playing sharp lines this >can always happen to you. >R7, white against SOS: >Out of book after 14…O-O. This was a very good line for Shredder. Shredder found >the right plan and won very nicely. >R8, black against Insomniac: >Out of book after 15.Ng3. Again a good line for Shredder with a nice win. >R9, white against Zchess: >Out of book after 6…Nd7. Again we wanted to play 3.f3 as we knew that Shredder >plays the resulting positions very strong and we had a very high score with this >line in our test games before London. This is the line I can understand the >criticism the least. We wanted to play 3.f3, we had good results with it and we >won this game, so why not playing it? There are even some grandmasters who >frequently play this line and I don’t see what should be wrong with it. > >There where also some discussions here about how to define the quality of an >opening book, so I will try to give you my opinion on that as well. Well, the >easiest and most important factor is certainly the result the program gets with >this book. It is very important that the program knows how to handle the >resulting positions and it is absolutely not important how human players judge >the positions or if grandmasters play it or if it is the favourite opening line >of Kasparov. That all doesn’t matter. This is true for a tournament opening >book, for a commercial book you also need some different points like a greater >variety, so the user doesn’t get bored by playing the same lines over and over >again. You also need to play modern and popular lines so one can test his and >the program’s skills in this positions as well. > >Stefan
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