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Subject: Engine ratings review

Author: Aloisio Ponti Lopes

Date: 21:20:15 02/01/00


I really enjoyed playing against Shredder. Nice interface, strong engine. Very
nice boards/pieces collection. As I am rated <2000 ELO, I just can't dream of
beating it, I think; an excellent teacher for my 3 year-old-son!
I like to play Blitz, and Shredder plays it very well, although it's not the
best at Blitz, I think. In general, I like Shreddder's more than Rebel's
GUI(DOS). I just can't imagine how there are people complaining about such a
well-made program. It really makes my CM 5500 looks like a toy.

I have Hiarcs 7.32 and Fritz 5 (old 16 bit version). ChessBase GUI is really the
best in my opinion. I tryed the demo version of ChessPartner, did not like that
GUI. My next buy: Junior. Version=? (I'm just curious and waiting the result of
that C. Theron- Amir Ban's personal match! ).

About Genius 6.5: nice program, but the GUI is not what I expected. NIMZO 2000:
nice blitz player, just that.

My congratulations to Stefan Meyer-Kahlen for such a nice program. I don't think
 luck was all that made Shredder the World Champion. Karpov was lucky when
Fischer did not play the match for the FIDE title, but he played many
tournaments since then and won most of them, just like Kasparov is doing
nowadays. I think maybe the problem with Shredder is that it is well-tuned for
tournament play, not for faster play. In the SSDF list we see Shredder 2, but
not Shredder 4. The k6 processor is not the best to use with Shredder, and SSDF
uses K6-450; so for those Shredder results it doesn't seem to be as reliable as
Karpov's wins or Kasparov's wins at tournaments. Rebel is also a very nice
engine and it isn't listed (yes, I know why). I know it is very difficult to
play those matches manually, with so many games, and the AUTO232 protocol seems
to be old and does not run with all the engines. In the years to come, there'll
be more engines. So how reliable will this "rating method" be?
I think playing against IGM is a great way to rate an engine, just what Rebel is
doing very well. That comp-comp rating is in my opinion, inflated and not
reliable. I just can't imagine Anand beating Leko 12 games with the same opening
in double games and inflating his rating! That will _never_ happen! (even a
child would not loose 12 games in the same opening to an engine with the same
moves).
So, this is the way I see the list:

Engine general strengh (CompxComp):
#1. Tiger 12 (with some future(?) improvements: better book learning)
#2. Junior 6 (one processor)
#3. Shredder 4
#4. Rebel

Engine general strengh (against humans):
#1. Rebel
#2. Shredder
#3. Junior 6

Blitz:
#1. Nimzo 7.32
#2. Tiger 12
#3. Junior 6

Endings:
#1. Shredder 4
#2. Junior 6

Tactics:
#1. Fritz 6
#2. Junior 6
#3. ChessMaster 7000

Strategy:
#1. Rebel-Century
#2. Hiarcs 7.32
#3. Shredder 4
------------------------------------------------------------
A. Ponti



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