Author: Graham Laight
Date: 03:20:17 02/25/00
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.
I don't have a problem with Bringer's endgame - I think it is very good in this
respect.
In fact, Bringer is really very good in general. However, in the situation of
being a queen down, it's strength seems to be a handicap - it prevents it from
playing aggressive looking (but unsound) tactical moves that might induce panic
in the opponent.
If you want to see a bad endgame, try playing Travel Champion 2100! TC-2100
really relies on having the game already won before it gets to the endgame. This
it can achieve against most of us - Franz Morsch seems to have programmed it to
tactically "mix it" like crazy! However - if you can survive the middle game
mayhem, the endgame is astonishingly easy to win.
>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.
I have tended to avoid Winboard programs because of comments I have read on this
forum.
The impression I get is that the interface precludes access to many features
(e.g. mainline analysis).
With a Winboard program, is it possible to set the clocks for a program to G/5?
Is it possible to set different times for each player?
-g
>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
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