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Subject: Re: How do you effectively dumb down an engine? (some suggestions)

Author: John Merlino

Date: 17:46:52 04/18/04

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On April 18, 2004 at 20:36:56, Steve Maughan wrote:

>This could be an interesting area for discussion as it has
>virtually no commercial value (IMO nobody is going to buy an engine that is
>weak).

Very incorrect. Probably the 2nd or 3rd biggest reason that Chessmaster sells so
well is that it can be scaled down to any ELO level and play reasonably
believable "bad chess". Nobody wants to get beaten by a GM every game, and the
ability to play anywhere from GM to truly horrible (and anywhere in between) is
a major selling point.

Probably the top two reasons that CM sells so well is its strong engine coupled
with good analysis features (people want to be able to spot and learn from their
mistakes), and the incredible amount of teaching material, much of it with audio
(people want to learn how to play better).

Any engine that implements this ability well will have a very nice "bulletpoint"
if it is a commercial engine (or plans to go commercial in the future).

jm



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