Author: Jorge Pichard
Date: 08:23:50 06/05/04
Go up one level in this thread
On June 05, 2004 at 10:13:03, Tord Romstad wrote: >On June 05, 2004 at 08:28:08, Sune Fischer wrote: > >>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 agree, but it seems that Jorge does not. I was arguing against Jorge's >statements >in the first post in this thread, where he claimed that we "need" FRC because >computers are too good at remembering opening theory. > >>>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. > >But you don't need to spend countless hours memorizing long opening lines to >become a good player. In fact, I am fairly sure man players never become strong >precisely *because* they spend so much memorizing opening lines instead of >studying games, practicing tactics and improving their endgame knowledge. > >In the hundreds of tournament games I played during my time as an active chess >player, only one was decided by opening knowledge (I lost a game from the >white side of a Scotch opening in only 19 moves, and the whole game turned >out to be known theory). It probably happens more often for players who >insist on always playing the most fashionable opening lines, but this is their >own choice. > >>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. > >I agree, but to me this is one of the charms of more exotic chess variants. :-) >A matter of taste, of course. > >>>>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. > >To a certain extent this is true, but I think Kasparov would demand more money >to play an FRC match than a normal match. I'm just guessing, of course. > >>>>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?". > >That's why I did it, of course. :-) > >I just hacked the new castling rules, removed some parts of my evaluation >function, and changed my make_move and unmake_move functions to >calculate the piece lists from scratch every time a castling move is made >or unmade. > >But even if it is not a lot of work, why do it if nobody cares? Jorge is the >only person who has expressed any kind of interest in my FRC engine. > >>>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. >>:) > >SMP support is much more useful. It makes it easier to win tournaments >like the WCCC, which is nice for advertisement purposes. I think more >customers are interested in buying a program which is marketed as >the "computer chess world champion" than a program which is marketed >as being "stronger than Frenzee and Gothmog at FRC". >:-) > >Tord But what if a version of Shredder FRC plays against the World FRC Champion Peter Svidler, then it could be advertised as being stronger than the World FRC Champion :-) Jorge
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