Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 10:10:57 09/21/00
Go up one level in this thread
On September 20, 2000 at 20:15:36, odell hall wrote: >On September 20, 2000 at 13:11:27, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On September 20, 2000 at 10:56:33, Peter Hegger wrote: >> >>>On September 20, 2000 at 09:46:43, Gerald Grimsley wrote: >>> >>>>Hello, I have a chance to buy a "used" Novag Diamond. Is this a decent playing >>>>machine? What would be the estimated USCF rating at slower time controls? Is >>>>the newer Novag Diamond II significantly better than the original Diamond? >>>> >>>>Thanks in advance, >>>>Gerald >>> >>>Hello Gerald, >>>I used to own a Novag Diamond. It was a fun little machine to play against. >>>You can choose different playing styles, do analysis with it and choose between >>>easy and difficult levels. It loves to attack (often at the expense of king >>>safety) and is very tactical. After playing hundreds of games against it I would >>>estimate its strength at around 2000 USCF. The Novag Diamond II is a little >>>stronger (perhaps 30 to 50 points)which to me does not justify the extra >>>expense. >>>By the way, I hope there is an owners manual supplied with the Novag you are >>>thinking of purchasing. Otherwise it may be very difficult to figure out all the >>>features, levels etc... >>>I hope this helps you some. >>>Regards, >>>Peter >> >> >>I still have a diamond here. It is probably around 2000 overall, although it >>does have a few positional weaknesses. It is very aggressive. And for a >>simple comparison, crafty on an old P6/200 (pentium pro 200mhz) would rip it >>pretty badly. Of course I think it is only a 16mhz processor so to be fair, >>it was getting way over-powered with the P6/200. >> >>It didn't seem (to me) to be as strong as my old Mach III. > > > > I think you are underrating the Diamond a bit. My uscf rating is 1851 it >tears me to shreds game after game, I have a friend who is rated 2285 and he >reports that he plays about even with it at 40/2, it wins half the games and he >wins half. I would estimate the diamond to be atleast 2200. I don't believe it is a 2200 player, based on personal games I have played against it (many games when I first got it a couple of years ago). It might be a 2000 player if you play "normal" openings against it. But it succumbs badly to anti-computer play. If I had to characterize it in any way, I would say "aggressive" but "dumb". Somewhat like the old super-constellation, although much better than that program due to better hardware at least.
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