Author: F. Huber
Date: 10:13:04 11/29/04
Go up one level in this thread
On November 29, 2004 at 12:27:32, John Merlino wrote: >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 Hi John, there´s absolutely no need for you to apologize for _anything_ - I really didn´t understand your statement as ´offense´ at all! ;-) And - to say the truth: I like TheKing very much, also as a mate finder! :) Whenever I get a mate problem with an unknown number of moves (or even if it´s not sure to be a mate at all), TheKing is my first choice to analyze such a dubious position. And most of the time he´s doing very well in such cases ... :) Well, it would be fantastic, if we could combine all those mate solvers (I´ve mentioned above) to _one_ single engine - this would really be ´The absolute mate engine´! (maybe I´ll give it a try and write an interface for all of them ... ;-)) Best regards, Franz.
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