Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 13:01:04 08/24/05
Go up one level in this thread
On August 24, 2005 at 15:21:55, Christos Gitsis wrote: >On August 24, 2005 at 12:38:28, James Constance wrote: > >>http://www.chesscafe.com/mig/mig.htm >> >>"Some people asked me why they should spend forty or fifty bucks for a chess >>program when they can download the top world championship programs free..." > >"...The marvelous Linux operating system, at least various versions of it, is >free and offers many free and open source programs that cover most of what you >do with your Windows machine. But as the saying goes, “Linux is free only >if your time is worth nothing.” Windows is far easier to use and has >countless features we have come to depend on, no matter how much we may resent >making Bill Gates’ mountain of gold a tiny bit higher. > >So it goes with chess software..." > >There is some truth in that. I played in an open tournament last week and spent >some time talking to some fellow chessplayers about free software, but most of >them initially would not believe that it could be as good as commercial >programs. > >In the end they were convinced, but I understood that most people have not yet >heard that there are strong engines outside ChessBase and I realized that >we, computer chess fans, are a small minority. In particular, I got the >impression that most, if not all, titled players (IMs, GMs) will never give up >their ChessBase software, with which they are familiar. Unless Fritz drops to >being _much_ weaker that other engines, ChessBase need not worry very much. There are about 500 GMs, and so that part of the market is very much a tiny niche. I don't think that the software companies target GMs except maybe for endorsements or something like that. I guess what matters most is shelf space and advertizing (assuming that the product doesn't stink). After shelf space and advertizing will come features and ease of use. Probably, most good pro software packages have one some significant tournament somewhere like WCCC, WMCCC, Paderborn, French Championship, or whatever. So they can always put that on their box and impress people. Or maybe they have topped the SSDF at some point or won the CCT or something. So strength is good, but you don't have to be the strongest to impress most people, I imagine. Probably any very strong chess engine could play in a few tournaments against GMs on fast hardware and win one of them, and then put that on the box. At any rate, chess engine strength is a small part of the overall package. To a few geeks like the CCC crowd, it might be important. To the average chess software buyer -- they would not know if a win at Paderborn was better than or worse than WMCCC or topping the SSDF list or whatever.
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