Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 20:53:35 02/15/00
Go up one level in this thread
On February 15, 2000 at 23:39:08, D Ridge wrote:
>Greetings All!
>
>I have just finished a fairly extensive test and comparison of ChessGenius for
>the Palm Pilot and thought I would share my findings with you in the form of a
>mini-review.
>
>ChessGenius has just been released for the Palm Pilot and is definitely a
>welcome and much needed addition to that arena. It has a pretty serious pedigree
>as the author is none other than Richard Lang, who’s programs have won numerous
>computer chess world championships.
>
>It’s inevitable that initial comparisons be made to Pocket Chess, since it
>appears to have been the only game in town for Palm Pilot users for quite
>awhile, so let’s get that out of the way first.
>
>I would estimate ChessGenius is approx. 300 to 400 points stronger than
>PocketChess running on my Palm Pilot Professional. The difference in playing
>strength is so great there really no point in discussing it further. So the main
>comparison really lies with the features and user interface.
>
>About the only area I would say the Pocket Chess is superior to ChessGenius is
>the actual chess piece graphics but ChessGenius is certainly more than adequate
>in this area.
>
>Features I was surprised and delighted to see on ChessGenius are:
>
>-Three different board sizes
>-An analysis line showing score, ply depth, and current best line of play
>-A partial move list on the screen beside the board
>-Chess clocks
>-Popular time controls
>
>Things I was annoyed about:
>-There appears to be no convenient way to shuttle back and forth through a game,
>once played. You must either go to the command menu and select Take Back or
>Forward for each move or use a Command Stroke for each move. The scroll buttons
>should have been used for this.
>
>-There’s no way to save a game and reload it at a later date, although it does
>remember the game in progress.
>
>To get a feel for it’s rating, I played a series of short matches against
>popular dedicated computers of known strength I have in my stable. Richard
>estimated the playing strength at around 2000 elo so I decided to start by
>pitting it against the Saitek GK2100 which is generally felt to play between
>2100 and 2200 USCF.
>
>At game in 5 minutes, the GK2100 crushed ChessGenius 4-0. At game in 15 minutes
>GK2100 again crushed ChessGenius at 4-0.
>
>OK…let’s move down the rating scale a little. The next machine down the food
>chain in my arsenal is a Karpov Grandmaster, generally felt to play 2000 USCF.
>
>At game in 5 minutes the score was 3 ½ - ½ for the Grandmaster. Hmmm…not looking
>good for ChessGenius. At game in 15 minutes however, things changed. ChessGenius
>defeated Grandmaster 2 ½ - 1 ½.
>
>Of course I have been around computer chess long enough to understand that this
>relatively small number of games between two computers is not conclusive in any
>way but I believe you can draw a few generalizations from the result.
>
>There were a few common themes in all the games that ChessGenius lost. It lost
>all it’s games in the endgame. It was very competent in the opening and middle
>game tactically and often entered the endgame even or with a slight advantage.
>It’s attention to pawn structure was very inadequate. ChessGenius’ position
>often contained 2 sets of isolated-doubled pawns.
>
>Another thing you could possible extrapolate from this is that is plays
>comparatively better at faster time controls.
>
>So, you can probably conclude from this that the rating is somewhere around 2000
>USCF at time controls above 5 minutes per game and I freely admit that this is
>nothing more than a guesstimate. I lack the time to play a 40/2 match which
>would provide a far more accurate picture.
>
>The thing I have to stress here, of course, is that this thing plays pretty damn
>well for something the size of a deck of cards!!
>
>A demo version with limited capability can be downloaded at ChessGenius.com and
>$25.00 U.S. will get you the fully functioning version.
>
>Check it out. It’s the best thing out there for the Palm Pilot!
>
>David Ridge
Thanks for this review, David.
I have downloaded ChessGenius for the Palm and tried it for a while recently
(actually when I was in the plane).
I wonder about what Richard says on his site. He says that this program is based
on the Mephisto Roma dedicated chess computer. But it seems that it is not as
strong as expected.
Maybe I'm wrong. I would like owners of the original Mephisto Roma to compare
ChessGenius for the Palm with the Roma.
CG for Palm shoud be stronger than the Roma (the modern processor of the Palm is
more powerful than the one in the Roma). But somehow it looks like it is not the
case, and your tests seem to confirm it.
BTW, have you overclocked your Palm? Mine is, and I think it disturbs
ChessGenius time management. Time passes faster on my overclocked Palm (which
sounds logical, but for the programmer there are ways to avoid this problem).
Anyway I'll pay to get the full version of ChessGenius. My Palm wants it. :)
Christophe
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