Author: Mike S.
Date: 14:39:51 02/03/02
Go up one level in this thread
On February 03, 2002 at 13:50:40, Gordon Rattray wrote:
>(...)
>I also disagree that getting computers to play Fischer random chess is a good
>way to test their strengths at *chess*.
True, if you are talking about the "complete definition" of chess including the
standard starting position. But I think, Fischer random and shuffle chess can be
a good way to test their *chess skills*, especially opening skills. It may
happen that if a program lacks basic opening skills (because the programmer did
rely on having an opening book always), it will often fail early in it's shuffle
chess games. IOW. there will probably not be much skill testing with such a
program after the opening. But I don't expect that this happens too often, or in
every shuffle position.
>For example, what if a program
>understands very well about the pros and cons of a fianchetto bishop. Such
>knowledge won't be so effective in Fischer Random chess because there will be
>less opportunities to fianchetto a bishop.
Probably not, but in practise of "normal" computer chess the books decide if
there is a fianchetto or not (and play 10 more moves from the book until the
engines start). Knowledge how to use the fianchetto bishop can come into effect,
but not a knowledge about developing the bishop like that (or at least very
seldom).
In f.r. or shuffle, there will quite often be positions, where the engine can
show if it is able to play a fianchetto by itself (or similar, i.e. sometimes a
g1 bishop is developed by h2-h3, g1-h2 etc.).
Some time ago, I let play a little shuffle chess tournament between old chess
programs and chess computers. If you are interested:
The games (PGN):
http://meineseite.i-one.at/PermanentBrain/oldies2/old2_pgn.zip
Description (in german language)
http://meineseite.i-one.at/PermanentBrain/oldies2/oldies2b.htm#modus
Includes the FEN of 18 shuffle chess positions which have bishops of different
colors and allow the standard castlings (one of which is the standard position).
Regards,
M.Scheidl
P.S. Shuffle Chess Oldies Tournament, results:
----------------- Novag Sapphire 4.0/6
| -------------- Mephisto risc 1 MB 3.5/6
| | ----------- Mephisto Lyon 16Bit 3.0/6
| | | -------- CXG Super Enterprise 0.0/6
| | | | ----- SciSys Turbo 16K 0.0/6
| | | | | -- CXG Sphinx Dominator 0.0/6
| | | | | |
1 Socrates 3.0 1 1 1 1 1 1 6.0/6
2 Sargon V 0 0 1 1 1 1 4.0/6
3 Kallisto 97 Aegon 0 1 0 1 1 1 4.0/6
4 Chessmaster 3000 1 0 0 1 1 1 4.0/6
5 Kasparov's Gambit 0 0 1 1 1 1 4.0/6
6 LChess 3.0 0 ½ 0 1 1 1 3.5/6
The board computers were running at 2h/40, the oldies programs were set at
20:00/60 moves on a PII/333.
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