Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mailrus!ncar!noao!arizona!shack
From: shack@cs.arizona.edu (David Michael Shackelford)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Chess program recommendation wanted (for IBM)
Message-ID: <426@caslon.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 1 Oct 90 02:08:20 GMT
References: <1399@pedsga.UUCP> <6302@hub.ucsb.edu> <85.26ff813b@inland.com> <1990Sep27.121239.5258@cs.rochester.edu> <103.2703c1f5@inland.com>
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 25


In article <103.2703c1f5@inland.com> pals@inland.com writes:
>
>  2. CHESSMASTER 2100.  My biggest gripe with CM 2100 is that I already 
>     had CM 2000 and (quite justifiably) expected an improvement in 
>     playing strength.  I didn't get one.  To quote Kaufman, CM 2100 is 
>     "an improvement of only 25 points or so over CM 2000".  His rating 
>     of CM 2100 on a 10MHz XT is 1825 (USCF rating points), and 2010 on a 
>     25 MHz 286.  Kaufman says "to reach the 2100 level would probably 
>     require at least a 33 MHz 386 machine with cache". [...]

You (and the other posters who complain about strength) must be very
strong players indeed!  I have no complaints about CM2100's strength
relative to my own (it is about 250 points higher -- perfect for now),
and for me the REAL reason to go from CM2000 to CM2100 was obvious --

CM2000 had a nasty habit of CRASHING my system, and even when it didn't
CRASH, it required me to boot from floppy because it was incompatible
with several TSR's I run with.  I have not observed either of these
problems with CM2100.  Additionally, I find CM2100 easier to use, and
its opening library is much improved.  When the predecessor program is
difficult to keep running, I can accept a failure to substantially
improve strength if the new program WORKS.

David Shackelford  | shack@cs.arizona.edu  |  USCF member