Author: Sune Fischer
Date: 05:28:08 06/05/04
Go up one level in this thread
On June 05, 2004 at 06:40:48, Tord Romstad wrote: >On June 04, 2004 at 18:39:13, Jorge Pichard wrote: > >>Since computer can hold and remember more Opening than any Human and they are at >>the level of the very best human players such as Kasparov, Anand and Kramnik' >>the need for Fischer Random Chess will become more popular in the next 5 years. > >I don't see why the computer's perfect memory would contribute to the popularity >of FRC. Of course humans and computers have different skills. The computer is >obviously superior at remembering concrete and exact information, and at >calculating >quickly. The human is superior at pattern recognition and long-range planning. >There are some games where the computer's strengths are the more important >(like othello), some where the human's skills are more important (like go), and >some which are somewhere in between (like chess). Why does the fact that >computer >players are competitive in chess make the game less attractive for humans? I agree, programs are weaker when playing without book but so are humans. >And by the way, I don't think FRC is any more difficult to play for computers >than >classical chess. If some of the top programmers spent some time implementing >FRC, the top engines would be just as competitive there as in classical chess. I think so too. If the desire is to make a game where humans can still beat computers then FRC is not hard enough. That's not the idea with FRC however. >I personally find FRC to be one of the least interesting chess variants I have >ever >seen. If you want to abandon classical chess, why not switch to some of the >many more complicated chess variants which really add something new to the >game? With FRC you don't really want a new game, you want the old familiar chess game, only without the need to spend countless hours memorizing long opening lines to become a good player. FRC can be played the standard chess pieces and it takes very little getting used to. I have tried other variants and I find it really hard to adjust to new pieces and picture how they move. You just don't "see it" like you do with normal pieces, without that it's impossible to calculate tactics so you have to invest a lot of time and basicly start from scratch in a whole new game. >There are lots of such variants, including Chess with Different Armies, >shogi, hexagonal chess and Gothic chess. And unlike FRC, all of these chess >variants really *are* more difficult for computers than classical chess. FRC was never designed to be an anti-computer game :) >>Even a player such as former world champion Garry Kasparov who has incredible >>memorization capabilities, complained that he could not always remember his >>opening preparation. Therefore, it will become justifiable to match the very >>best human against the very vest FRC program. > >Neither Kasparov nor Kramnik would be very interested in such a match, I >think. Leko would probably be willing to play, though. They go where the money go, for them it's business. >>Probably very soon Shredder and Hiarcs will also be available in FRC. > >Why do you think so? There is currently no market demand for a professional >FRC engine. Right now, there are several hundred engines which play classical >chess, and less than ten which play FRC. It's a small hack to most engines, so a better questions is "why not do it?". >I happen to be one of the few engine >authors which have written engines for both games. Every week, I get about >50 e-mails from users with feedback about my classical chess engine. I get >almost no feedback at all about the FRC engine. Richard Pijl and Volker Anuss, >who have also written FRC engines, have been kind enough to play a few >games and send them to me, and you played a few games which you posted >here, but that's all I have received so far. It took more than a week after the >release of my FRC engine before anybody could even confirm that it worked >(I couldn't test it, because I don't run Windows). > >The truth is that there is almost zero interest in FRC. From a commercial >point of view, adding FRC support to Shredder or Hiarcs would be a complete >waste of time. Well so is adding SMP support, and unlike FRC that's not a small hack at all. :) -S. >Tord
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