Author: Dave Gomboc
Date: 18:25:14 05/23/99
Here's a section of http://www.chessbase.com/products/engines/Hiarcs/index.html:
Playing Characteristics
At first glance, the Hiarcs engine is strikingly slow in terms of nodes
per second. Hiarcs calculates at roughly a tenth of Fritz' and Junior's
node speed. However the 'look-and-feel' of Hiarcs in practical analysis is
that of a very, very fast program. Its speed in solving tactical positions
is at least in the league of the fastest searchers, if not better. Its by a
This claim, I can live with. People here seem to think Hiarcs is pretty good in
this department.
far margin the strongest 1min-Blitz player in the world. But on the other
But where does this audacious claim come from? Did somebody decide to test a
bunch of programs on ICC at 1 0? This claim doesn't even seem to be completely
testable: Ferret has won what, the last 3 blitz championships at the WMCCC? Two
of the last three, at least. But it's tough for anyone but Bruce to play a 1
minute match between Hiarcs and Ferret, and as far as I know, Bruce hasn't
reported any results for such a match.
If it really IS "by a far margin the strongest 1min-Blitz player in the world",
great!, congratulations... but saying it doesn't make it so: where's the
evidence?
hand you immediately feel its extraordinarily profound chess knowledge in
the middle- and endgame.
Hiarcs shows a highly attractive, strategical and goal-oriented playing
style which makes it an enjoyable opponent for humans. Mark Uniackes work
is more than a valuable enrichment for the world of chess programs since he
achieves supreme playing strength by a different paradigm.
This is no different from claims made by other chess software professionals. So
what is the "different paradigm"? How is this testable? Hiarcs is not an
open-source software project. People blab about how CSTAL does it differently,
but it's not verifiable by third parties. No difference here.
From the program description given to the ICCA for WCCC 1999:
HIARCS searches around an order of magnitude less positions per second
(av. 18,000) than most of its competitors. However, it makes up for this
apparent slow speed by clever searching and accurate evaluation. HIARCS
uses many selective search extension heuristics to guide the search and
incorporates a sophisticated tapered search to resolve tactical
uncertainties while finding positionally beneficial lines.
This description is more useful, thank you. However, I will not hesitate to
point out that one of the great things about the "sophisticated tapered search"
sentence is that it is concrete enough to give the impression that some
disclosure is being made, and abstract enough to allow every individual to have
their own interpretation of precisely what it means. <grin>
Dave
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