Author: Telmo Escobar
Date: 23:10:46 10/15/03
Go up one level in this thread
On October 15, 2003 at 06:52:16, Torsten Schütz wrote:
>Hi!
>
>Which engine has which strength/weakness (tactical/positional play,
>middle-/endgame, analysis...)??
>
>Thank you in advance,
>
>Torsten
All top engines are fairly strong in all departments. Like humans, they usually
excel in some kind of positions, and didn't shine in others.
Tactics
I feel that Nimzo and Junior are the best tacticians.
Positional play
There is no thing like positional play, in my view. There are instead many
areas that don't make a whole:
i) understanding pawn structural weaknesses
Chess Tiger is the master here. Junior, by contrast, has a
relatively unsophisticated pawn play.
ii) understanding minor pieces' good/bad qualities
Shredder is superb in this. It displays particularly impressive
mastery playing middlegames with opposite colour bishops or bishop against
knight. As you probably know, people often compares Shredder with the late
Tigran Petrosian, and I think the abovementioned is the reason they feel there
is some analogy.
iii) understanding open files
I think Junior excels here.
iv) king safety
I feel Junior and Shredder are best in this area.
v) coordinate play
Several engines exhibit particularly elegant piece play: The
King, Chess Tiger, Hiarcs. In contrast, Junior and Fritz often play ugly.
Endgame play
No engine impress here, for the moment being.
"Analysis"
This is human exclusive land till now. Engines don't analyse: they just
calculate variations and evaluate positions.
My opinions are not only disputable, but also obviously fragmentary. For
example, reading the above sketchy obervations one could imagine that Fritz is
not a strong engine. Yet it is always a serious candidate to be regarded as the
absolute top. The reason is that Fritz makes almost everything fairly well.
Telmo
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