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Subject: Re: Will the first commercial program to support FRC be a big seler?

Author: Bob Durrett

Date: 16:20:55 02/06/04

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On February 06, 2004 at 18:27:36, Jorge Pichard wrote:

>On February 06, 2004 at 18:10:05, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>On February 06, 2004 at 17:57:48, Jorge Pichard wrote:
>>
>>>On February 06, 2004 at 17:35:31, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>
>>>>On February 06, 2004 at 17:24:35, Jorge Pichard wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>I believe that the first top commercial program that support FRC and win a match
>>>>>against Peter Svidler will be a big seler. What do you think?
>>>>
>>>>Who's going to buy it?
>>>>
>>>>Nobody plays FRC except for a few extrememly rare chess geeks.
>>>>
>>>>Ask 100 people on the street: "What is Fischer Random Chess?"
>>>>
>>>>If a single person of the 100 knows the answer, I would be astonished.
>>>
>>>I happen to be in a chess club when I wrote this and just asked 30 players and
>>>24 answered correctly.
>>
>>Did you take them out to the street first? ;-)
>>
>>Maybe the interest is greater than I think.  Chess variants in general are
>>uninteresting to me, but a lot of people here seem to like them.
>>
>>It's probably because I have enough trouble with the original game and don't
>>want to waste my time learning all the variants for me.
>>
>>Perhaps others are more up to the challenge.
>
>
>I also asked the same 30 people if they would buy Commercial programs that
>support FRC, 13 answered that if it was in addition to the standard
>chess program like Fritz 9 plus FRC or Shredder9 plus FRC they would buy it. But
>9 answered that they have problem beating amateur programs and to spend money on
>a program that is much stronger than they are (Like Fritz 8 or the latest
>version of Shredder 8 is for GM and IM. Only a few of them (8) answered that
>they already have a hard time memorizing most of the openings for standard chess
>and because of that FRC will become more popular in the future.
>
>Pichard

That was a very small sample and the survey was unscientific but the comments
received were very interesting anyway.

It is a sad but widespread misconception that chess-playing programs are only
for playing against.  That is, in fact, not their main usefulness.  All serious
chessplayers should do post-mortem analyses of their serious games and the top
chess-playing programs are very useful for that purpose.  Refusing to purchase a
strong chess-playing program because it's too strong is illogical if the program
is to be used to assist post-mortem analysis.

Having said that, I must express my hope that the amateur and professional
creators of chess-playing programs will soon rise to the challenge of making
truly realistic human-like programs which can play at all levels.  The use of
different personalities is a good idea but ideally they would be HUMAN
personalities.  Preparation for a [human vs human] Class Tournament using a GOOD
chess-playing program is a thing for the future but not currently available.  It
would be easy enough to randomize the choices of personalities [and strengths]
to simulate a real human chess tournament.

It's a pity when chessplayers choose not to play against a chess-playing program
because it's too strong.  That is a problem which can be solved.

Bob D.



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