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Subject: Re: ZX Spectrum chess algorithms !?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 13:56:02 10/06/98

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On October 06, 1998 at 13:16:50, Christophe Theron wrote:

>On October 05, 1998 at 17:10:07, Cristian Zaslo wrote:
>
>>Hi everybody!
>>One day I made a comparison between some ZX Spectrum chess programs (Colossus
>>4.0, Superchess 3.5) and some medium - level PC programs (K-Chess, Now, Gnu
>>Chess) and found that these ZX programs use a pretty strange searching algorithm
>>(for me) , as follows :
>> 1. It seems to me that entire searching tree is built round the PV which is
>>often longer than current depth and it may contain  positional moves  (no
>>captures or checks) everywhere including in the Q-search part.
>> 2. The other branches are cut-of very quickly, sometimes just from the root,
>>and so, can overlook. good moves.
>>
>>I now that many programs (mine too)  grow branches this way:
>>	(Depth + Extension) + Q-Search
>>I d like to now a little bit more about the search-engine (cut-off techniques)
>>used by these  old fashioned programs  and if this approach still (no)works on
>>any PC programs.
>>
>>Much obliged to you,
>>Cristian Zaslo
>
>Maybe we can try to answer this question.
>
>But first, can you please tell us who is the author of these programs? Or which
>company if the author's name is not mentionned.
>
>If it is Richard Lang, you have something like an old version of what is today
>called "Genius". To my best knowledge, it is the only program that shows this
>kind of behaviour (very deep quiet moves in the PV).
>
>This approach is known to be very good on very slow processors, but much less
>effective of today's fast computers.
>
>
>    Christophe



actually, I don't know of any program that can "roll up" genius tactically
today, still.  It is *very* strong.  Just has a suspect opening book by today's
standards... but definitely not a pushover.  You should try it on a PII/450...



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