Author: Christopher R. Dorr
Date: 10:33:20 03/29/99
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I think it is important to look at several things here: 1. I am not convinced that the best programs really *are* thet much better than Crafty. In computer-computer tests, the others may well fare better, but in playing humans, I think it may be a different story. I for one (A weak USCF Master) honestly feel that Crafty is about as strong as Fritz5. I can't tell the difference, perhaps because they are both so much better than me. And if they are that much better than me, imaging how much stronger they *both* are to the average player (c. USCF 1400-1500). To a 1500, there is *no* strength difference between a 2500 and a 2550. 2. Even on a single processor machine, Crafty is better than just about all the other programs (and humans too) at speed, on ICC. Mofongo (A single processor Crafty 16.6 running on normal, albeit somewhat high-end equipment) is currently rated 3072 at blitz. This is higher than CM6000, Fritz 5.32, Ferret, etc. At least at blitz, Crafty can make a very good claim for being as strong or stronger than everything else in the world. 3. Crafty is designed to be SMP. To say it's not fair to state that Crafty on a Quad Xeon is better than Fritz on a single PIII is the same as saying that it's not fair that Deep Blue runs on a specially designed computer. If the question is what's the best, a very valid way of looking at is to measure their performance on their optimal machine. Crafty's optimal machine is a Quad Xeon or PIII, while Fritz's is a single PIII 500.On these optimal machines, I honestly doubt Fritz's superiority. In short, I believe the premise of this thread is somewhat flawed. Crafty has not (against humans) been demonstrated to be significantly weaker than anything else, especially at speed. If this question is rephrased as "Why is Crafty weaker than Fritz (or Rebel or whatever) at 40/2 on a single processor system agains humans?" or "Why doesn't Crafty fare as well against computers as it's anti-human blitz rating would suggest", I believe that we can answer these questions. As the question is currently phrased, I don't think we can answer this well. Chris Dorr
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