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Subject: Re: How to beat Junior6a

Author: Frederic Friedel

Date: 10:59:45 02/24/00

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On February 23, 2000 at 22:04:04, Timothy J. Frohlick wrote:

> Dear CCC,
>
>I accidentally found an easy way to slow Junior 6a down by a factor of 100.
>Before you start Junior 6  just start Winboard and let it run in the background
>with the autoplay on.  You can beat Junior just by letting it run out of time.
>Do this a few times and then clear out of Windows 95/98 on a restart or reboot
>and then play Junior 6 unfettered.  You will see an astronomical difference.
>This would be a good level for a kid just starting out in chess.
>
>Instead of 14 ply searches Junior will only do 5 to 8 ply searches.  Not very
>brilliant, but it still plays a fair game.  When you have a bad headache or are
>drunk use the Winboard in the background technique to give you an additional
>handicap.
>
Poor Junior. It has so many different sophisticated handicap levels built in and
you are advocating this complicated method. Have you tried unplugging the
machine? According to my test that reduces the playing strength by 2600 to 2700
points.

If you want an opponent for kids and amateurs you should try Handicap, which has
drunks, dare-devils and morons; or Friend, where Junior tries to exactly match
your playing strength; or Sparring, where it uses its full computational power
to try to set up tactics for you (and taunts you if you miss them). You can even
program your own handicap levels. Easier and more satisfying than overloading
the computer or starving the program for resources.

BTW I saw someone perform vigorous activities with the mouse to reduce the
search depth during a game against another program which he wanted to win. It
actually worked, though I'm not sure exactly what he did with the mouse.



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