Author: Thom Perry
Date: 04:54:44 11/13/98
Go up one level in this thread
On November 12, 1998 at 09:34:05, Fernando Villegas wrote:
>On November 12, 1998 at 07:31:01, marvin bolden wrote:
>
>>if you have version 7.1 is it worth the upgrade price of $40 for version 8?
>
>Take a look at my article in WCCR
>Fernando
Fernando,
Yes, I enjoyed your review of MCP8, especially the clever ending, but I do
not agree that the inclusion of the "chess teacher" will prompt many people to
upgrade, unless someone is a relative novice or wants to use the program to
teach their children chess. I think the "chess teacher" would be more of an
attraction for first time buyers. However, I do plan to upgrade from 7.1 to 8
but for several other reasons. First, the program now allows you to
systematically reduce it's playing strength via the "set rating" feature and
several other options. And if you do tie or defeat or lose to it at a reduced
playing level, the player rating feature will take this reduced playing level
into account when calculating your new rating. So in effect, you get a better
estimate of your actual playing strength. For me, these are sufficient reasons
to upgrade. And of course I'm upgrading because I've enjoyed the previous
versions of MCP which I've primarily used to analyze interesting chess positions
and, occasionally, to solve chess problems. And believe it or not, one of the
things I really like about MCP is that it is spartan and elegant doesn't have a
lot of "bells and whistles" to contend with. There are literally millions or
maybe even billions of chess positions and problems out there to solve, yet it
seems as if this is not enough because some of the other programs offer yet a
hundred different ways to analyze each of them: Do I have anti this on or off?
Brute or selective search? Smart or expert mode? Sacrificial or positional
mode?....etc....etc. Frankly, I don't have time for all of this decision
making. I just want to fire up the program, enter the position, and run with
it. Since I'm just a serious recreational player, MCP suits me just fine.
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