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Subject: Re: Power book vs. MCO

Author: Lawrence S. Tamarkin

Date: 08:51:38 10/07/02

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A chess program's opening book is often 'tuned' for the style or strenghts of
the particuler program.  I remember that the M-Chess program for example, had
some very deep lines in the Italian game, and the Sicilian Nijdorf.  In fact, I
bought one of the recent Shredder program's recently, because I thought the book
by Sandro Niechi (same author as for M-chess), would be useful for opening
research.

The Power book is a large database of Grandmast & IM games that have been
converted into an opening book for any of the Fritz family of chess programs.
It might have some very weak moves in it, but it will have EVERY move that was
played by the top-rated guys.  I doubt it is too useful (even though I do have
the 2000 version), for improving one's game.  However, it is useful for
annotating games, as it is very compleat, if you are checking to see if a move
has been tried in the game you are looking at.

MCO/NCO/ECO Have various strenghts; chief among them is that you might be more
likely to carry them to a tournament, then your notebook computer, or at least
you could feel more comfortable opening one of these up in the skittles room.  I
particularly like the Small Encyclopedia of Chess Openings for this purpose.

Of course the material will be organized and presented in a manner that is from
a human player/writer, recommending lines for your tournaments, many times with
symbols that are directly related to HUMAN OPINION about this or that line,
wheras a chess program opening book, will use many of these same notation
symbols to denote not how good or bad a line is, but rather how frequently it is
used in practice, or to tell the chess playing program which move to favor for
its settings.

This is how I understand the differences between Computer chess opening books
and Paper Opening books, though I could be wrong about some of my points...


Larry S. Tamarkin
Marshall Chess Club



On October 06, 2002 at 15:11:57, Joseph Merolle wrote:

>Out of these two (chessbase's powerbooks the cd. vs Modern Chess Oppening the
>book) which has  more oppening moves and what is the differnce between to two if
>any.  Really what I am asking,can I learn all I need to know from fritz or are
>there hidden opening lines that in MCO that should be reviewed.
>
>Sincerly,
>
>JAMerolle



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