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Subject: Re: U2600 Club Dec 21 Rating List

Author: Peter McKenzie

Date: 02:46:00 12/21/98

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Great report from Will!

On December 21, 1998 at 03:09:07, Peter Kappler wrote:

>On December 21, 1998 at 02:19:08, Will Singleton wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>>Reaching new personal blitz bests were PostModernist (2580), Hossa (2454),
>>XXXX2 (2635), Grok (2425), and InmiChess (2267).  Excellent work, great
>>job to all.
>>
>>Grok has gone to version 1.0.  Don't know if this means it's now available
>>in some form.  Note that Grok is written in Java!

This is very cool

>>
>
>Grok may become freeware in the future - I really have given this very little
>thought.  The neatest thing about Grok is that it is pure Java with no native
>code, so it should run on any platform that supports JDK 1.1 or higher.
>
>Lots of people have asked about Grok's search speed, probably wondering if
>reasonable performance is possible with Java.  Grok averages around 25 knps in
>most middlegames on my K6-300.  Give credit to Microsoft for writing a very fast
>Java VM and "just-in-time" compiler.  I was using Sun's VM + Symantec's JIT
>until a couple of months ago, when I finally tested Microsoft's stuff and
>realized it was 30% faster.
>
>25 knps is still not too great, but I can live with it.  (Grok is ~50% faster on
>a PII-400, presumably aided by the faster L2 cache.)
>
>How about the rest of the U2600 members?  How fast do you search?  Am I the
>slowest in the group?

Of course, LambChop only searches at about 8K nodes/sec in the middlegame...

>
>>
>>Can anyone answer the following question?
>>
>>I have taken to seeking with an "f", rather than specifying a rating
>>range, in order to make the formula active for both seeks and matches.
>>But without the rating range, I get a bunch of attempts from lower-rated
>>players, who don't meet the "rating > myrating - 300" criterion.
>>Is there a way to show the true rating range in the seek (relative to
>>my current rating)?
>>
>
>
>Not that I'm aware of.  I have the same problem, and I wish ICC would do
>something about it.
>
>
>>I want to mention that most member programs now do not discriminate
>>against fellow computers.  Thanks to those who switched!  It will make
>>more direct competition possible.
>>
>
>
>Grok still has !computer in its formula - but I am almost always watching when
>Grok is online, and if I see a challenge from an U2600 member, I'll be happy to
>accept.  I'm just not interested in playing lots of Crafty clones.

Crafty clones can be a pain, UNTIL you start grabbing rating points from them!
What I really want to see is a feature, either in winboard or the server, that
prevents someone from playing more than a specified number of consecutive games
against my computer.  It gets kind of tedious if one opponent hogs more than
about 4 or 6 games in a row.

>
>
>Thanks for organizing this club, Will - it's a lot of fun!
>
>
>--Peter
>
>>Will Singleton
>>Stat-Keeper and Member for Life
>>Under 2600 Club

A prisoner of the club :-)



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