Author: José Antônio Fabiano Mendes
Date: 05:52:27 02/26/03
http://www.chesscafe.com/REVIEWS/books.HTM
Shredder 7, Chessplaying Engine by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, 2002
ChessBase, $49.00
Chess players now live in a “brave new world” where computer chess programs can
defeat the very best OTB human players. Even correspondence chess has been
radically changed. It’s now assumed that most of the top correspondence players
use chess engines (the part of the program that analyses positions and generates
moves) to some extent in their games. And for better or worse, depending upon
one’s viewpoint, the influence of computer chess upon this formerly exclusively
human domain continues unabated. So with each successive generation, chess
engines grow in strength, independent of their computer platforms, which in
turn, grow relentlessly faster.
The latest edition of Shredder, version 7, just arrived in the marketplace.
Previous generations have won more world computer championships than any other
program: 1996 World micro-computer chess champion, 1999 World computer chess
champion, 2000 World micro-computer chess champion, 2001 World micro-computer
chess champion, and 2002 Blitz-chess world champion (it was leading in that
micro-computer championship too until it lost its last-round game to the
eventual winner, Junior). For the record, in these computer chess championships,
the competing programs play on uneven platforms. In short, some programs have
the advantage of teaming with ultra-fast computers or even multiple processors,
while others use “off-the shelf” computers. I mention this because Shredder
historically did not compete on the fastest processors, and yet still
outperformed rivals who were given a boost in computational speed.
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