Author: Neil Schemenauer
Date: 10:10:57 09/14/05
My friend and I played these games against CSTal with the "reduce strength"
option set to 1 (out of 50). Although that's the weakest setting, the engine
still plays a pretty strong game. James T. Walker says:
``I'm afraid it's hard to weaken CSTal2 any more than the "1" setting. I tried
an
experiment on ICC several years ago with my computer account running CSTal2 on a
K6-3/450Mhz at level 1 and 2. It only searched a few hundred nodes/second but
carried a blitz rating of over 2000. I don't believe it was really that strong
but many people seemed intimidated by playing the computer.''
I ran a few games against Chess Tiger on my palm set to "Trainer level 7".
According to the documentation Chess Tiger should have a rating of around 1950
at that setting (I have have my doubts since I can bet it often on level 5 and
my ICC rating is about 1350). Chess Tiger did not win any games (I played about
4 or 5).
Anyhow, here are the games with a little annotation from me. As mentioned, I'm
a novice player and my friend is only a little stronger (around 1580 on Yahoo).
Since we won both games, we are going to play our next game at a higher level.
So far we are having lots of fun with this old program. I do wish the user
interface had more features. I bought my copy of CSTal from
http://www.aifactory.co.uk/ and I wonder if other versions had user interfaces
with more features.
[Event ""]
[Site ""]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Mehdi & Neil"]
[Black "Chess System Tal"]
[Result "1-0"]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f6 4.d3 d5 5.O-O Bc5 6.Nc3
{We decided that a closed game would be better and hoped for e4.}
6...d4 7.Ne2 Be6 8.a3 a6 9.Bxc6+ bxc6 10.Ng3 Rb8 11.Nh4 g6 12.Nf3 a5 13.b3
Qc8 14.h3 $2
{Made as a defensive move but probably just gives black something to
attack.}
14...h5 15.Kh2
{Bxh3 looked dangerous.}
15...h4 16.Ne2 g5 17.Neg1
{We wanted to keep the f3 knight where it was so we made this move
instead of waiting for g4.}
17...Ne7 18.Nd2 g4 19.f3 g3+ 20.Kh1 Ng6 21.Nc4
{Some distraction before we deal with the pawns on h4 and g3.}
21...Qa6 22.f4 Bxc4 23.bxc4 Be7 24.Qg4
{At this point we felt pretty confident in winning the game. Black
seems to be stuck on the queenside without a counter-attack.}
24...Nf8 25.Nf3 a4
{We missed that fxe5 wins a pawn. Still, after f5 black seems to be
lost.}
26.f5 Qa5 27.Bd2 Qa7 28.Nxh4 Rb2 29.Rfc1 Bc5 30.Qxg3 Rh5 31.Ng6 Nd7 32.Nh4
Nf8 33.Be1 Rg5 34.Qf3 Nd7 35.Bd2 Rg8 36.Ng6 Qa6 37.Qh5 Kd8 38.Qh7 Re8 39.
Be1 Kc8 40.Bh4 Qa5 41.Qf7 Rd8 42.Bxf6 Nxf6 43.Qxf6 Bd6 44.Qe6+ Kb7 45.Rab1
Rxb1 46.Rxb1+ Ka7 47.Ne7 Qa6 48.f6 Rh8 49.f7 Rd8 50.Qf6 Rf8 51.g4 Ka8 52.
g5 Bxe7 53.Qxe7 Qc8 54.Kh2 Rxf7 55.Qxf7 Ka7 56.g6 Ka6 57.g7 Ka7 58.Qf8
Qxf8 59.gxf8=Q c5 60.Qb8+ Ka6 61.Qa8# 1-0
[Event ""]
[Site ""]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Chess System Tal"]
[Black "Mehdi & Neil"]
[Result "0-1"]
1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 $2
{A poor move, in our opinion. We decided that white probably gave up
his advantage here. After solidifying our position we planned to
chase the white queen around.}
2...Nc6 3.Bc4 Qf6 4.Nf3 Bc5 5.b3 d6 6.Bb2
{We thought a long time in this position. We seriously considered
Nh6. However, a bishop trade seemed to be to our advantage and
castling queenside looked like an option.}
6...Be6 7.Bxe6 Qxe6 8.d3 Nf6 9.Qh4 O-O-O 10.Ng5 Qd7 11.O-O $2
{A poor move, we thought. Black can quickly get the pawns rolling.}
11...h6 12.Nf3 g5 13.Qg3
{A queen trade looks good. Our attack will be well underway while
white's doesn't have anything going yet.}
13...Nh5 14.Qh3 Qxh3 15.gxh3 Rhg8 16.Kh1 Nf4 17.Ng1 Rde8 $2
{A silly move, we decided after making it. We were thinking of
lifting the rook to f6. Opening the file with f5 is better.}
18.a4 Ref8 19.Nd2 f5 20.Nc4
{White seems to be lost at this point. The kingside is coming apart
and a counter-attack does not seem likely.}
20...fxe4 21.dxe4 Ne6 22.Rad1 Bxf2 23.Kg2 Bc5 24.Kh1 Nf4 25.Rf3 Ne6 26.
Rff1 Ncd4 27.Bxd4 Bxd4 28.Ne2 Kd7 29.b4 a6 30.b5 Bc5 $4
{Oops, we missed the fact that the pawn is pinned. Losing the e5 pawn
hurts.}
31.Nxe5+ Ke7 32.Nc4 Nf4 33.Nxf4 Rxf4 34.Rxf4 gxf4 35.Rf1 axb5 36.axb5 Ke6
37.c3 f3 38.Na5 $4
{White moves into mate. With the reduce strength setting, CSTal sees
to be very weak in the endgame (probably because of limited search
depth).}
38...f2 39.Nc4 Rg1+ 40.Rxg1 fxg1=Q# 0-1
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