Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 10:40:17 05/06/98
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On May 06, 1998 at 09:36:37, Enrique Irazoqui wrote: >But... (there is always a "but", oh well...)on the other hand, it is a >bit tragic to see it lose won positions because fast searchers outplay >it in tactical complications. I guess this doesn't matter so much when >playing humans, but this is the pattern I saw when CST played Fritz 5 >and Nimzo 98. The 2 games I post are an example of positions that CST >should have never lost. Maybe after reaching such a strong advantage it >should switch to more "computer-like" play in order to materialize the >advantage. I think that it is obvioiusly good at finding active interesting moves. I rate this characteristic very highly. I don't think it is getting beat by brute force once it achieves interesting positions. In the first game it sacrificed material and the sacrifice didn't work out. You don't get a point for making your opponent have an ugly position, especially if you have to give material to get there. Pretty early on it was apparent the black was attacking down three minor pieces, since it sacrificed one and it had two others that it never activated. The position is dicey for Nimzo for a while, but eventually it activates everything and gets its own attack. In the second game, CST had a much better position than Fritz, and couldn't convert, but I don't think that its mistakes were mistakes made because the opponent had too much speed, rather it looks like it was trying to get too much out of the position, couldn't, and let Fritz consolidate. Perhaps if it were a human, and I were much better at playing chess, I would suggest that it didn't know when to stop attacking and start playing according to what was realistically in the position. Now back to my first paragraph. Playing computer vs computer is fun, but most people don't buy these programs for this. When you put CST against other computers, it is going to have some wonderful looking games, because it plays with a very speculative style. If you bet on a longshot, you will sometimes win a lot of money -- CST will win some of these games in brilliant style. It will also do some games like these: in the first game it speculated and ran out of gas, and in the second game it speculated, which worked, but then it kept speculating, I think, and this time it didn't work. You are going to have some others where it gets smashed, I bet. If you play against humans, it will be a different story. I bet that it will score very well against its customers. And furthermore, it will play in a way that they are not used to seeing, it will play with an attacking style, which humans are not accustomed to seeing from computers. Everybody wants their computer to play attacking chess, not oatmeal chess. They see a lot of attacking chess from other humans, so I bet it will help them in their play against people, and ultimately against computers, as they become more willing to take risks themselves. I'm all for anything that will help the customers play chess better. bruce
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