Author: Darrel Briley
Date: 17:22:21 09/01/05
Go up one level in this thread
On September 01, 2005 at 12:40:50, Stephen Ham wrote:
>On September 01, 2005 at 11:20:51, Greg Simpson wrote:
>
>>The source is available for both, they are not entirely the same.
>>
>>I tried to see whether Toga 1.0beta2 was better head to head against Fruit 2.1
>>in two minute/40 games, but after hundreds of games I couldn't reach a reliable
>>conclusion. Toga II 1.0 quickly showed itself to be better.
>>
>>Of course, the unreleased version of Fruit could well be better still.
>
>Dear Gentlemen,
>
>As a reader who's ignorant regarding chess programming, I was shocked and amazed
>that these amateur programs, Fruit and Toga can be the equals, if not superiors
>to Shredder 9, a commercial program that dominates all other commercials.
>
>But I've downloaded both Fruit 2.1, and subsequently Toga II, and was astounded
>by the results.
>
>I began by creating a double round-robin tournament with extremely long time
>controls (e.g. 6-hours/40-moves, 2-hours for the next time control, and then
>1-hour to finish) on a very fast AMD computer with 708 MB's of RAM. It consisted
>of Shredder 9, Junior 9, Hiarcs 9 and Fruit 2.1. My Fruit didn't have an opening
>book, so I gave it one that I created to test my correspondence chess opening
>ideas/novelties (lots of Dragons and Gruenfelds for Black, and my 1 d4 opening
>lines for White).
>
>The result was a clear win for Fruit, followed by Shredder, then Junior, and
>finally Hiarcs. I noticed that Fruit, while very strong, doesn't play sharply
>and that my opening book may not have been an ideal match for it. So I gave it
>the Nimzo 7.32 opening book for the next tourney.
>
>By this time, I'd downloaded Toga II and gave it my correspondence chess book.
>My next tourney was another double round-robin with classic FIDE time controls
>and the order of the finish was: Shredder, Toga, Junior, Fruit, and Hiarcs
>(scoring only 1.5!).
>
>I still see this as a great result for Fruit and Toga. But, I think that Fruit's
>use of the older Nimzo book may not have been ideal, since it didn't like many
>of the openings it got. So I "upgraded" to a modified Fritz 7 book (modified
>with data from recent opening theory and corrections of some book errors). I
>felt this book was solid enough to match Fruit's sold style. So in my last
>double round-robin tourney at standard time controls, the result was: Shredder,
>Fruit and Toga just a 1/2-point behind, Junior, and Hiarcs.
>
>Some observations from the above minimal data:
>1) Fruit showed great strength in the endgames.
>
>2) It also has a realistic evaluation function that's much superior to
>Shredder's. While it doesn't generally engage in aggressive play like Junior or
>Shredder (Toga seemed sharp too), it's not tactically weak at all.
>
>3) Toga seemed more variable in performance, while Fruit was universally
>steady/solid. It's my perception, based upon too little data, that Toga is a
>fine tactician but seems a little weaker in the endgame than Fruit (again based
>upon just these games).
>
>4) Hiarcs is a great program, but it was hurt by some awful stuff in its opening
>book. I've been gradually improving its book lines as I come across faulty
>lines. But clearly there's much more work to do. Hiarcs performs much better
>when I give it my modified Fritz 7 book. But I'll never get the Hiarcs book
>fixed unless I play more with it. Hiarcs was thus hurt by beginning games
>against superior engines, at long time-controls, from generally poor starting
>positions after its book ended. For the record, the bad Hiarcs book actually
>seems to help Hiarcs in speed games though, since Hiarcs scores very well (often
>coming in first) in my few short time-control tourneys. I've yet to test Fruit
>and Toga at fast time controls, since I'm really not interested in these
>results.
>
>I've subsequently tried using Fruit to test my opening novelties, but it doesn't
>perform the "Deep Position Analysis" properly. For example, if it's White's turn
>to move after 15-moves, it begins its search by skipping White's move and then
>looks only at the position as if Black were to move. It also fails to display
>the options other than the PV.
>
>Anyway, I'll test further. But I'm impressed. So while I see no dominance over
>Shredder's results in my tests, it's indeed possible that Toga and Fruit are
>superior to Shredder at long time controls.
>
>Again, these are just the observations of a computer dummy who knows a thing or
>two about chess in general, based upon too few games at long time controls.
>
>All the best,
>
>Steve
Steve,
Thanks for your report; more information is always good. By the way, you
wouldn't be willing to post these LTC games would you....?
Hopeful Regards,
DB
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