Author: Djordje Vidanovic
Date: 10:07:17 02/12/99
I have just read this review, and I find it just as shallow and inaccurate as the couple of lines posted by KK on AlexS at his homepage at gambitsoft.com. I found AlexS just as spartan as L. Kaufman described it, however its playing strength and intelligence are simply not to be underestimated. I am quite sure that it at least at 2300 SSDF, it is fast, knows a lot both about the middlegame and the endgame, its opening-book is well chosen for its style of play. If you are one of those people who cannot live without extra-features and who care much more about little dinky things such as sound/no sound, change colour schemes, 3 D this or that, E.T.'s as Rooks, etc., then you should not try AlexS. And yes, both KK and Larry Kaufman are right about it not having comfortably designed levels, not properly set time controls and not caring much about preset time in general. But I tried it, first calibrating its strength by letting it solve the WAC epd suite. When I found out that at two seconds per move it should play at 2100 (not quite sure now) on my PII-350, then I tried playing against it. I was in for a nasty (and pleasant) surprise. The thing plays excellent chess! I can hold my own in blitz games against IMs quite handily (at FICS when I really tried hard I reached 2300 -- more than 800 games played, and on ICC I am about 2250, but not really trying), but AlexS was more than a handful! Fernando (Villegas), you promised to try AlexS, what were your findings? Regards, Djordje
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