Author: Mike S.
Date: 23:16:36 01/01/04
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On January 01, 2004 at 14:49:15, Ed Trice wrote: >I have seen many test positions with remarks like "Program X can see this Mate >in Y in Z seconds, whereas Program W requires V minutes...." Finding mates is only a small part of an engine's strength profile though. Except for special matesolvers, I'd say that The King 3.x and Tiger 14/15 are very good at this, in general. Also Nimzo 8, still. This is a general impression from long experience. In a single position, nearly every engine could be the fastest. (The number of moves given for the shortest mate may not always be 100% exact, when "playing" engines are used for this.) >Programs have their weak and strong points, and the nuclear versions that >recently participated at the WCCC may not be accessible to us mere chess >enthusiasts. Except for some engines which are kept "private," most of these engines are available either to buy (Fritz, Shredder, Junior) or as freeware versions even (Green Light, SOS, Chinito). Often, the hardware used in WCCCs is the main difference, like 4-way systems or the very latest expensive cpus etc. The engines are usually developed further, so even an improved or better tested version will be available afterwards. >So my question is: What program can actually be purchased and installed on a PC >that is the strongest? The strongest, the fastest or the best may be three different engines :-) >I know this is not 100% objective and opinions may vary widely, but I am >interested in hearing these opinions. As Kurt has already explained, it will depend on the purpose they are used for, and under which conditions in detail. - But as an overall guess, I'd say that Shredder 7.04 (8 upcoming), Fritz 8 / Deep Fritz 8, and Hiarcs 9 are the best engines. If you look at many ratings lists and results of large tournaments, you'll almost always find Shredder 7.04 on top currently (at short blitz time controls and unusual conditions like FRC, Fritz 8 and Hiarcs 9 may rank above Shredder 7.04 then and when). - In short tournaments, every engine out of the best 10 or 12 can win. The top engines are all within a narrow margin. For analysis, Hiarcs 9 is the best IMO, because the backward analysis function works better than with Shredder 7 or Fritz 7 (and I guess also better than with Fritz 8 which I don't use yet). This is a feature somewhat difficult to explain, but definetely crucial if you want to do manual analysis of games (which every chessplayer will want to do I suppose), comparable to multi-pv. Of course you can do that with any other engine too, but a little less effectiv. It's a matter of experience. Multi-pv is supported by all 3 of these (an engine which does not support multi-pv, is simply not state-of-the-art for analysis). As you have mentioned already, engines have different weak and strong points, depending from the type of the position too. So, in addition to the engines mentioned, others may come into consideration if you focuss on specific types of positions. For example, I found out that for easy to medium difficult combinations (and maybe even for very difficult ones), The King 3.12 and 3.23, Selectivity set to 12 each, are among the very top too. But recently, Hiarcs 9 has performed even better in my tactical tests. For the early endgame, I like to use Tiger 14 which seemed to provide realistic evaluations more often than other engines (this may be just an individual impression). For the late endgame I use Shredder 7 (7.SE), because I think it uses the tablebases more effective during calculation. If it's not so much about +/- 100 elo points and having the very top engines, you can find freeware engines which suit most purposes as well. Then, features like multi-pv mode and GUI usability will be more important, than if the engine is ranking #1, #7 or #13... For example (thinking of analysis again and of commentary), some GUIs don't support a proper notation display of game, variants and sub-variants at the same time, for viewing and to be saved too. Fritz and i.e. SCID can do this very well, but not Chessmaster nor Arena. This is a crucial usability feature, which I think is underestimated by programmers sometimes. For a new fan who is not so much into engine competition, it would be recommendable IMO to buy i.e. the older version Fritz 7 for a bargain price, update it from chessbase.com or playchess.com (which will give you a more up-to-date set of functions inlcuding UCI support), and collect some strong freeware UCI engines in addition to Fritz 7, which was very strong already. For some important URLs regarding all this, see http://www.computerschach.de/netguide/index.htm Regards, M.Scheidl
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