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From: lb2e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Louis Blair)
Newsgroups: rec.games.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,rec.games.chess
Subject: Re: Chess program recommendation wanted (for IBM)
Message-ID: <0avEinC00VpOAHSkh5@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 11 Sep 90 16:07:15 GMT
References: <1399@pedsga.UUCP>
Organization: Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 37
In-Reply-To: <1399@pedsga.UUCP>

>I am looking to buy a good chess program for my
>IBM PC. The 2 I am currently considering are
>Chessmaster 2100 and Sargon IV.  If anybody can
>recommend one over the other, or knows of a program
>which is better then those two, please let me know.

rec.arts.movies has something called the Frequently
Asked Question List which is regularly posted and
updated.  If rec.games.chess had a similar regular
feature, this would certainly be one of the first items
on it.  Opinion seems to be near universal that
Chessmaster 2100 is a stronger player than Sargon
IV, but there is also a growing number of reports
from people who say that there are other programs
available that are superior to either of these:  Rexchess,
Gnuchess, Zarkov, AI chess, M chess, etc.  I understand
that Stuart Cracraft has some involvement with those
last four and I will let him give you the details for them.
Rexchess is being developed by Larry Kaufman and
the main distributer seems to be ICD (1-800-645-4710).
I'm afraid that, at least as far as I know, there is no
truely independent source for information on the
relative strengths of all these programs.  A typical
problem that one encounters is illustrated by Computer
Chess Reports that does undertake to report on the
latest developments in chess-playing machines and
programs.  It is published by ICD and written by
Kaufman.  Another thing to keep in mind is that the
performance of any one product will depend very
much on the type of machine that is running the
program.  I understand that in the case of some of
the programs like Sargon and Chessmaster, the
program for the Mac, for example, may be completely
different from the program sold under the same name
for an IBM machine.  This is why you will sometimes
hear contradictory word-of-mouth reports about some
of these programs.