Author: pavel
Date: 19:14:04 02/24/00
Go up one level in this thread
On February 24, 2000 at 19:18:07, Pete Galati wrote:
>On February 24, 2000 at 18:59:48, Graham Laight wrote:
>
>>Hi Everyone,
>>
>>I've dropped myself in the soup, but there may still be time to rescue the
>>situation.
>>
>>My friend and I are both about 1600 Elo. I challenged him to play Bringer with
>>the computer a queen down, and the computer having only 5 minutes on the clock
>>(to his 55). He accepted, and the game will take place on Monday.
>>
>>I assumed I had just set myself up for an easy 1 GBP, but I was in for a shock:
>>compared to us, Bringer is a brilliant player - but it has a blind spot for this
>>particular situation. It doesn't realise that when you're down you must
>>
>>* avoid trading material
>>
>>* mix it tactically
>>
>>I have found that, under the stipulated conditions, even I can very easily beat
>>Bringer, because it plays quietly, and easily allows exchanges. My opponent
>>would have to make a relatively obvious blunder to get any trouble from this
>>program.
>>
>>In my quest for more information, I have played 3 other machines under the
>>stipulated conditions.
>>
>>1. The version of Chess Tal ('96) I am using has some interesting ideas, but is
>>ultimately not strong enough for this challenge. Also, it keeps trying to
>>resign!
>>
>>2. Rebel Decade 2 threw its pawns forward and immobilised my position, making it
>>very difficult to play against, even though it remained a queen down! However,
>>it does not run under NT.
>>
>>3. Travel Champion 2100, as ever, created tactical mayhem from a quiet looking
>>position. It made me panic, it made me lose material, and generally made a
>>mockery of me. Another advantage is that if I can persuade my friend to use this
>>machine (my NT portable could develop an untimely "fault"), the pieces are
>>rather small and dark, thus placing the human at a further disadvantage. The
>>drawback of this machine is that if one can somehow survive the Tyson-style
>>middle game, there is a very easy end game to follow - I'd rather my
>>representative had strong end game skills (though the inevitable loss of morale
>>from the middle game frights may throw him off his game (witness DB V GK '97
>>game 2)).
>>
>>If anyone has some suggestions for programs which I can easily download,
>>configure, and run under NT, and which have both a strong end game and a
>>tactical middle game, I'd be very happy to read your suggestions!
>>
>>Thanks for your help with this.
>>
>>Graham
>
>What kind of tablebases were you allowing Bringer to use? Bringer's a very cool
>little program, but on it's own without any tablebases, I don't think it plays
>such a great endgame, it is stronger than me however.
>
>Try Winboard, the Winboard Comet, and Crafty, and if you don't have them yet,
>get yourself a collection of endgame tablebases at
>ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/ There's also several other Winboard engines
>that are stronger than Bringer, try SOS, AnMon, Little Goliath, and The Crazy
>Bishop is such a tactical masterpiece yet it doesn't get mentioned often enough,
>I didn't use it for the longest time because I didn't understand how to set up
>TCB, this was a mistake on my part, TCB is great.
>
>See the Winboard page for some of the download locations for these programs
>http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/personal/Tim_Mann/chess.html
>
>Pete
hi pete,
finally i have found someone who shares the same point of view about
TCB. I too found TCB a very impressive little beast. even without an opening
book it takes on crafty and any other winboard programs any day. but my
astonishinbg finding is that it plays better fast games then long games. try
playing it with crafty some 1 min games and you will know what i am talking
about :)). But the saddest part is that the programmer is not thinking of
releasing any new version of the program in any near future :((. he is busy with
his thesis. but he may come up with a new version for the next computer world
cup tourny (long long time).
anyways nice to know that you feel the same.
thanks
pavel
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