Author: Slater Wold
Date: 20:34:47 03/23/02
Go up one level in this thread
I have been on ICC on and off (mostly on) for about 3 years. 3 years ago, !computer (C) users were pretty rare. Everyone *feared* Crafty, and the GM's were mostly king. A *lot* has changed. Crafty was automated 3 years ago, while Fritz 5.32 was not. Manual operators could not play 3/0, and had to sit at the computer at every minute. Therefore, they would play whoever/whatever they could. Hyatt's quad 550/700 was a "supercomputer" 3 years ago, but today, it's equivalant to about an AMD 1.7Ghz machine. Today, people can turn on their computers, walk away, and a month later they will still be connected to ICC. Therefore, they can play faster time controls, stay connected longer, play more games, and mostly, they don't have to make the moves. Therefore you can be a *lot* more picky about who you play. My guess is, people put !computer in their formula for one of two reasons: 1.) They truly are not interested in the performance of their program/computer against other computers/setups. They simply want to gauge their program/computers performance strictly against humans. 2.) They are scared their setups are not enough to be competitive against the other computers/programs on ICC. They want the higher ratings. Therefore, playing humans is their only option. To *me* !computer is silly. 90% of the games played on ICC are blitz, and everyone knows computers are the King of blitz games. So what's the point? Getting a 3500+ rating only playing humans is *not* an accomplishment. Play enough games, get enough GMs to play you, and it's that easy. HOWEVER, !computer accounts *DO* piss me off. For one reason. They cause the GMs to only play the !computer accounts. Why? Most GMs are there for 2 reasons: 1.) it's a free account and 2.) to make money. I personally know at least 4 GMs who make their _entire_ living off teaching and playing others on ICC. Well, to get their ratings higher, they have to play the computer accounts with !computer in their formula, because they have the highest ratings. Therefore, I end up getting FAR less GMs games, because I don't have a 3500 rating like they do. My 2 cents......
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