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Subject: Re: was About Marty...Now about CSTAL

Author: Thom Perry

Date: 06:08:07 12/16/98

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On December 15, 1998 at 18:56:54, Fernando Villegas wrote:

>Hi:
>You asked me in an email some thoughts about CSTAL and I gladly do it here just
>in case anybody else could be interested. Besides some pals here were so
>disappointed with that program that offered a trade of it.
>Well, this is my view about CSTAL in few words: if you are one of those amateurs
>that love to play computer Vs computers and expend almost all his chess
>computing time doing that, surely CSTAL is not for you. It was not programmed
>for that kind of chess and so you will find it weak. But if you are like me and
>purchase programs for the old, incredible absurd idea to play againts them,
>CSTAl is worthy the 50 bucks it cost. Maybe is not the strongest even againts
>human kind, BUT his wild play, his daring attacks, his weird moves finally
>create such a pressure in the board -not in the post mortem desk where is so
>easy to find refutations- that sooner or later, if you do not win the game very
>quick, you will ve overwheelmed. It seems to me that the CSTAL algorythms are
>not the usual maximin based in what is deemed best in opurely chessic sense, but
>lines are chosen according to its degree of pressure, even if threretically they
>are wrong. At last, many games are won and lost along wrong lines. Not always
>you can find the refutation of a fake attack, specially if you get tired after
>rejecting one after another. So Cstal keeps you over your toes and so it is an
>exciting game you always can get from it.
>Cheers
>Fernando

I enjoyed this "review" of CSTAL!



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