Author: Robin Smith
Date: 14:42:18 01/03/04
Go up one level in this thread
On January 02, 2004 at 23:58:38, Albert Silver wrote: >On January 02, 2004 at 18:51:16, Robin Smith wrote: > >>On January 02, 2004 at 18:25:29, Albert Silver wrote: >> >>> >>>>could make an equally strong case for Chessbase. There _is_ a reason most GM's >>>>use Chessbase. >>> >>>Yes, Chessbase got a Windows version in first, and despite being technically >>>inferior or equal at best in every single aspect to Chess Assistant, it is tough >>>getting people to relearn a newer system. That's why they continue to use it. >>>This has been the universal reason, not a single exception, given by the players >>>themselves when shown what Chess Assistant had to offer. They also like the >>>looks of Chessbase. However, if you are looking to study, prepare or improve >>>your game, CA is where it's at. Actually, to be fair, Chessbase has a wonderful >>>database, the latest offering of Mega2004 for example (though I only have >>>Mega2003, which I bought and use in CA). >>> >>>Try having Chessbase analyze a game. Try having Fritz turn on the engine and see >>>what it thinks of a move. >>> >>> Albert >>> >>>>But I digress. I think we can agree, as you stated above, that >>>>for the casual user a $50 program like Fritz is good enough. >>>> >>>>Robin >> >>Albert, >> >>I have both Chessbase and Chess Assistant (7.1). I personally, for what I do, >>prefer Chessbase. And not because of "the universal reason" you site above. >>While it is not the _only_ limitation of Chess Assistant, the _biggest_ is the >>lack of strong engine support, only Tiger and Shredder. Both of these programs >>do not handle interactive analysis as well as Hiarcs, Fritz or Junior, all three >>of which do a better job retaining hash table info when working interactively. > >I don't agree. In fact, CA 7.1 has a specific interactive analysis function, as >opposed to forcing you to simply go back and forth in a line as one would do in >CB, as well as normal background analysis in CA. Yes, it is a nice feature, but Shredder and Tiger don't do as good a job of retaining hash table info. Just try them on some positions! >Naturally, the Fritz GUI doesn't have any interactive analysis. Fritz does have some capability, although I agree it is not as nice as CA's. But for top level analysis you want to be there to control it anyway, and especially Tiger is very poor at retaining hash table info. >As to strength, the last I looked >Shredder 7.04 was still king of the hill, and it is very nicely supported by CA. Right, Shredder is highest rated. But just one high rated engine is not enough. There are many positions where Shredder gets very confused. >I use it and Chess Tiger 15 for my analytical purposes, and await Shredder 8 and >Ruffian 2.0 to see how they fare. One engine is not enough and like I mentioned Tiger is relatively poor at retaining hash table info when working interactively. >>Shredder and Tiger also have some evaluation quirks. > >Presumably, these quirks are unique to them as opposed to the engines you >mentioned. Could you be more specific? Sure. In many positions Shredder has an overly optimistic evaluation. _Extremely_ optimistic. Shredder will often show +3 pawns in drawn positions, where other engines show only a slight advantage. A +3 eval should = easy win, but in Shredder's case, much more so than with other programs, it often does not. Tiger has evaluation discontinuities. It will show one evaluation consistently and for very long time periods and then when you play 2 plies of the PV the evaluation can suddenly jump, sometimes by a pawn or more. Very confusing for analysis purposes. Fritz, Hiarcs and Junior do not have these quirks (they have others). >And try running an engine >>tournament from within Chess Assistant. These limitations of Chess Assistant are >>all severe for top level analysis. > >I have never heard a single master or grandmaster refer to or use an engine >tournament in either of the programs, nor can I see how this would affect their >top-level analysis. Engine tournaments can be a very good analysis tool in some circumstances. I have writen a book on chess analysis that will soon be published by Gambit that will talk about this, amoung other things. I also have correspondence IM and SIM titles, a correspondence rating in the world top 100 (and soon will have a correspondence GM title), so your above statement is no longer true. >>Of course Chessbase has limitations too. CA >>trees are much better than CB. Database searches are faster and CA has some >>search features not in CB. > >Actually, CA has a LOT more to it than that over CB with all due respect. I agree. And with all due respect, CB also has a lot more over CA. They each have strong and weak points. You talk almost as though CA is better than CB in every way. This is silliness. >The >tree work one can do in CA knows no competition and it is the single-most >powerful means of studying openings. We're not just talking about having instant >stats. Yes. I already mentioned that CA trees are much better. <snip> >It carries far more analytical functions for complete game analysis, with >control to the Nth degree. I depends on what you are doing. Some analytical capabilities are missing from CA. Other things CA does better. >It has the most powerful repertoire building tools >available as well, Yes CA is better than CB here. But I think Bookup is even better than CA for this. <snip> >It also has the most powerful (gets tiresome using the word, but true is true) >book building tools Book building is not much help for analysis, which was the original question of the original poster. <snip> >You enjoy adding colored arrows, squares and other visual markers on the >board? It goes without saying that CA has 10 times more than CB's offerings. In >fact, CB must have been very impressed with the annotation palette used in CA >since CA3, since as of CB8 they changed and copied CA's. They both (CA and CB) have far more arrows etc. than I personally use. >Of course, just to force users to buy both, Fritz users who don't have CB, >cannot enter their own games into it, and if they run analysis of a game, they >cannot ask the engine to show them what it thinks of a specific move. Ever. This is not true. Fritz can show you what it thinks of a move. There is even more than one way for Fritz to do it. >One >can certainly buy both and have the joy of flipping back and forth between the >programs, not to mention pay $165 for Chessbase 8, which comes with Fritz 5 BTW, >considerably weaker than Chess Tiger 15 and 14 IMO (both included in CA7), and >then pay an extra $53 for a good engine to use. Or you can pay $109 for Chess >Assistant 7.1 Right. CB is more expensive by far than CA. For the person on a budget CA is better than CB. And for the person on an even tighter budget Fritz and family is better than either, which was my original recommendation to the first poster. Robin
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