Author: John Merlino
Date: 09:27:32 11/29/04
Go up one level in this thread
On November 29, 2004 at 12:00:36, F. Huber wrote: >On November 29, 2004 at 10:54:04, Heiner Marxen wrote: > >>On November 28, 2004 at 17:43:44, F. Huber wrote: >> >>>On November 28, 2004 at 17:17:30, John Merlino wrote: >>>... >>>>The King is undoubtedly the best mate solving engine available, sometimes being >>>>even faster than programs dedicated to these kinds of problems. >>> >>>Yes, ´sometimes´ might be correct. ;-) >>> >>>But ´undoubtedly´ is _undoubtedly_ wrong - at least _I´m_ in doubt about it! >>>Did you ever hear about ´Gustav´, ´Chest´, ´ChestUCI´, .... ? ;-) >>> >>>Regards, >>>Franz. >> >>Hello Franz, >> >>I'm sure John knows quite well about Chest. We both compared results of >>Chest and ChessMaster numerous times for mate positions. >>And CM is really amazing at it. While there is no guarantee that CM >>will find the shortest mate, it very frequently does so, and faster >>than Chest most of the time. >> >>The terminology is a bit confusing at times. >>While Chest (and Gustav) are "mate provers", >>CM (and most playing programs) are "mate finders". >>The term "mate solver" is a bit ambiguous, so I would like to see used >>the former two terms... well. >> >>Cheers, >>Heiner > >Hello Heiner, > >of course I´m also sure, that John knows Chest - therefore my smilie ";-)" at >the end of my ´question´. > >It were only these two words ´sometimes´ and ´undoubtedly´ which caused me to >answer to his posting at all: > >From my test suite of mate problems I could easily give you 100 positions >where Chest would be absolutely the fastest, or another 100 where the same >is true for Gustav - and of course I´ll also find 100 for TheKing! >So _who_ of them is really ´the best´? > >And therefore the statement "The King is undoubtedly the best mate solving >engine available" is simply an exaggeration IMO. >(if he would have said "... one of the best ..." - no problem! ;-)) > >BTW, in its default mode also Gustav is _not_ a "mate prover" - >it uses similar restrictions as my additions in ChestUCI (e.g. flight squares >and mate threats), and so there´s no guarantee for a shortest mate. >This is only the case, if you switch Gustav to ´brute force´ mode - >but in this mode Gustav is not really fast at all. > >So my (quite general) conclusion in short: >Alybadix, Chest, GoliathMate, Gustav, King, Popeye ... (in pure alphabetical >order!) is undoubtedly ;-) _the_ best group of mate finders/solvers/provers! :) > >Best regards, >Franz. Franz, I meant no offense to any of the great and popular "mate provers" (to use Heiner's term). I meant to say that, of all the "mate finders" (i.e. chess-playing engines) I believe that The King is undoubtedly the best at solving mates quickly and accurately. I was not making any direct comparison between The King and programs like Chest, since I have no experience with any from the latter group (other than reading posts on this board). Once again, my apologies for any confusion, jm
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