Author: Don Dailey
Date: 18:43:07 05/23/98
Go up one level in this thread
On May 23, 1998 at 16:11:04, Wayne Lowrance wrote: >I am seeking opinion information on the playing strength of Fritz 5. >I have ordered Fritz5, not yet received it. I have been reading internet >stuff that alarms me about Fritz5. Such as. > >Its current number 1 ranking ahead of nimzo98 and others is biased in >favor of fritz because of a testing platform that may be friendly too >Fritz, 100 meg of ram, not the version as the commercial version etc and >on it goes. I would ignore all this information. The only hard evidence available is the actual tests themselves and this favors Fritz. The postings are a natural response to people who are upset by a sudden change of guard. Most people take some time to adjust to change. If you look at a lot of the posts, they are laced with comments that make this pretty obvious. If it turns out that indeed Fritz had some unfair advantage, you will likely find this is not a big deal, Fritz will prove to be a very strong program and in the top 2 or 3 no matter how you slice it. Unless you are Grandmaster, you probably want to pay a lot of attention to features and other issues anyway. In this area Fritz is awesome compared to most of the others. In short, I don't think you have anything to worry about. > >A test of all the top programs is reported where all programs start at a >pre designated open position, all opening books are turned off. Fritz >finished 9th in this test which suggests to me that just maybe it does >not play as strong in endgame as other programs, like 8 others. I don't know anything about this result. It sounds like a way to isolate a program from it's opening book. Would you feel comfortable if we tested programs without playing the endgames? It might be useful in some ways but it wouldn't be a very valid way to measure a program's overall playing strength. I know a lot of human players who would not do nearly as well if their openings were chosen for them. And this has nothing to do with book fixing, it has a lot more to do with a program's playing style. Be really careful about conclusions people draw from any test or experiment. The test may be valid and useful but people will always pick and choose the results that confirm their suspicions and they will always believe everything else is somehow invalid. This of course applies to the rating list we are talking about but this has always been pretty much trusted (until Fritz that is) and has the merit of playing real games, not subsets of them. But every program has it's strengths and weaknesses. I don't have any evidence that Fritz plays a WEAK endgame although I beleive some other programs are somewhat better in this area. But it would be no simple matter to get close to the top (or on top) with a really weak ending so this is certainly more than adequate. It is known to be a very strong tactician and is incredibly fast. As far as the opening book stuff is concerned, most if not all the top programs work hard to "fix" their books and this is a hotly debated issue on this newsgroup. Since this is a technique grandmasters used, it's pretty hard to fault them for it. But my opinion is that Fritz has always been a really good program and until now has been handicapped because they were one of the last ones to NOT fix their book. Now that have payed attention to this, they are playing in a level field and this has inspired tremendous jealousy. > >The program, i learned does not come with a CD titled "powerbook" which >is apparently very important to its rating, at least I understand that >powerbook is used in all its games. > >I am pleased to say that I have been told that I may return the program >and purchase another program suchs as perhaps nimzo98 etc. > >By way of background I have been playing my oldest Son chess, program >and against program. We started out with him using Sargon 5 on MAC >g3-233 and I using CM5K on a laptop 100 meg pentium. cm5k usually won. >He purchased Hiarcs4 or 5 not sure as I write and I loose with cm5k all >the time ! I want to be the rascal, so i am looking for the best of the >best, iE; >Fritz5 >Nimzo98 >Hiuarcs 6.0 >Rebel 9.0 >Mchess Pro 7 >etc. > >I am as I said using a Toshiba laptop pentium 100, with 40 meg of ram >and lots of hard drive. > >Shower me with opinions please--I do not have but a couple of days to >decide wheather to send Fritz5 back when I get it or keep it. > >P.S. Are there plans that Fritz5 is going to fadeaway as implied in one >of the open letters this site titled "Fritz finds great move" or >something likek that. > >Thanks folks Wayne Lowrance
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