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From: c315-25@cs.UAlberta.CA (Huisman Kenneth M)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re:      Which is the best chess game?
Message-ID: <1991Apr10.185408.18931@cs.UAlberta.CA>
Date: 10 Apr 91 18:54:08 GMT
References: <1991Apr10.125126.23100@ssd.kodak.com>
Sender: news@cs.UAlberta.CA (News Administrator)
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Lines: 101

In article <1991Apr10.125126.23100@ssd.kodak.com> hoffmann@acl.kodak.com (marty hoffmann) writes:
>I have seen ChessMaster 2100 on an IBM PC and I own Chessmaster 2000
>for the Amiga.  If the Amiga version of CM2100 is like the IBM version,
>I'm going to have to buy it.
>
>I find ChessMaster's style of play quite solid.  The Coffee House mode is 
>nice too.  In that mode, CM won't necessarily make the best move it finds, 
>but it won't make brain-dead moves either.

I haven't seen CM2100, but I found CM2000 to be rather dull and repetitive.
As a sort-of semi-serious chessplayer, I find that CM2000 does not give
enough variety within any set position.
>
>The interface to (the IBM version of) CM2100 is very nice.  There is a
>"war room" mode, that displays the board on one part of the screen and
>lots of useful information on the other side of the screen (like what
>the computer is thinking about).  This is a great improvement over CM2000,
>where the information screens covered the board.

But is the information that it gives the same kind of info that CM2000 gives?
I found CM2000's information screens rather useless.  The trouble with
computer chess is that computers generally know little (or nothing) of
positional play.  All CM2000 gave you in its info screens was its heuristic
evaluation of each line it was thinking of.  It is of absolutely no help
if you are trying to learn positional chess concepts.

<stuff about timed games deleted>

>I haven't seen Checkmate, but I am a little concerned.  A while back, I
>bought a program called "Chess Player 2150".  It claimed to be the best
>chess program around, and it supposedly won some British Chess Open for 
>computers.  Anyway, the magazine ad description for Checkmate is almost 
>word-for-word the description on the back of the box for Chess Player 2150.
>Here's my opinion of that program (not Checkmate):
>
>	- User interface was terrible (mouse moves very sluggish)
>	- Graphics were not very good
>	- "What if" feature very difficult to use (to the point of being
>	  useless).
>	- Display of move analysis suffered same problem as CM2000.  I.e.,
>	  you can't view the board at the same time.  In fact, I liked the
>	  information displayed by CM2000 better (and CM2100 even better).
>	- Play levels went from brain dead to very good, with little
>	  inbetween.  I didn't do a head to head comparison with CM2000,
>	  but I got the feeling that CM2000 was a better player (just my
>	  opinion)
>	- Irritating digitized voice (you could turn it off, but you always
>	  had to here that first "Hello, I am chess player.  Would you like
>	  a game?" -- like I would boot the damn thing up and then say "no"?).
         ^^^^^^^^
A friend of mine who has an atari ST has CM2000 and it has a voice like this
too.
>	- Program supposed to learn as you play it.  I am very sceptical
>	  about programs that "learn".  CM2000 doesn't learn, but it started
>	  out smart enough to beat me and remains smart enough to beat me.
          ^^^^^
What is it supposed to 'learn'?  I agree with this somewhat.  Although it is
really easy to 'learn' a chess opening (you just type it in and the computer
has 'learned' it :-)

>	- Program includes a ratings test based on a fixed set of chess 
>	  problems -- some people swear that this gives a good feel for 
>	  where you might stand in the real ratings -- yeah sure.
>
>Even if Checkmate is a repackaging of Chess Player 2150 (anyone care to 
>comment?), I'm sure Interplay would have at least improved the user interface.
>As for bells and whistles like "learning" and a "ratings test", these are
>not as important as how it works in a normal game.  Checkmate is supposed to
>let you add lines to its opening book, via a text file.  This is another 
>whistle (or is it a bell), unless you are so into chess, that you often play
>obscure openings not already included in every program's opening book.
>
I really think that allowing you to add lines to its book is an
*excellent* feature.  If you play tournament chess (like I do occasionally),
you find that you have to learn one or two opening systems rather well in order
to excel.  I wanted to use CM2000 to learn an opening once but its opening
book is *pathetic* for that purpose.  It generally only knew one line in
any particular opening to any reasonable depth.  At least with this feature
you can make an inadequate opening book into an adequate one.  It would be
nicer even if you could have some sort of opening learning mode where you
could play a move and see all the possible replies from its opening book.

>Both Chessmaster and Chess Player could easily beat me at higher levels of
>play, so I would say the one with the better interface is the one to go with.
>I like to play the computer and use it to analyze chess problems, so how well
>these two features are integrated is very important to me.  My advice is to
>look before you buy, and if you can't do that, buy Chessmaster 2100 -- 
>probably the safer bet.
>
I want to use my Amiga to learn chess openings, and play against an opponent
that knows and understands those opening systems.  Unfortunately, they don't
make ChessBase for the amiga, so I have to look at these other programs and
hope that they offer at least some of the same features.

>(BTW, hard disk installability would also be an important issue to me.  Does
>anyone know whether either CM2100 or Checkmate are hard disk installable?)
>

Ken Huisman

c315-25@cs.ualberta.ca