Yesterday I tried out ROCE. On the CCLR 40/40 list ROCE (Roman's Own Chess Engine) is ranked in 374th place with a rating of 1825. I played it several 5 minute games and found out that you have to take this engine seriously! After bumping the time limit up to 10 minutes for two games I did better. In the first game I managed to establish a won position only to fall victim to a tactical trick and lose. The second game was a variation of the Sicilian with which I'm not familiar, got a bad position and eventually lost that game, too.
Even though I lost both 10 minute games, the engine was a challenge and was fun to play against. Unlike a lot of weak engines it does not make silly moves and it's mistakes are more subtle.
Then I came across one that sounded promising called Feuerstein that's named after US Master Arthur Feuerstein that was supposed to play human-like. I also discovered a warning that the engine contains malware. On one post it was claimed that the reason why some virus scanners find this engine suspicious is that packing an EXE means that the executable manipulates its own code at runtime, which is also a typical behavior of malware. Plus that, depending on whether the virus scanner knows the packer, it can be used to conceal the actual code, which is also typical for malware. In other words, it should be safe. But, I scanned it with Webroot and got the warning that it contained malware and rather than take any risks, I deleted the download.
During my search I came across an interesting site called Computer Chess which claims to be a site where you can “discover hard-to-find information about how to download, set up, and run chess engines – both free and commercial – in various chess GUIs such as: Winboard, Arena, Chessbase, etc.”
Main Sections of this site are:
Computer Chess Wiki - by and for computer chess enthusiasts
Winboard and Chess Engines FAQ
Tournaments - tournaments pages
Engines – tons of downloads in alphabetical order
Lists - about computer chess covering everything from engines, engine logos, tutorials, lists of clones, opening codes, endgame tablebases, list of older engines, some of which cannot be downloaded anywhere else, GUI list, online databases, and more...worth browsing.
I've familiarized myself with some of your post content, which pleasingly to me, tends to be well researched. That is, the posts I've read. I have even linked to some, relevant articles. I only wish I could say the same for much of the content found on the web regarding chess players from the past, consisting of a lot of fiction and mythology and fail to actually research reliable source material, hence misleading chess enthusiasts to believe absurd and fictitional biographies.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, as per your historian-studies, I have been culling not only historical articles about Bobby Fischer, but any of the early chess columns I find.
I've completed the vast majority of the 1927- Cliff Sherwood/1933- Herman Steiner/1955- Isaac Kashdan column from the LA Times up till 1975. I plan to get the entire column made available to the public. Unfortunately, I have not actually spent time reading most of the newspaper clippings, as much as "clipping" from the Newspaper archive. The reading will come from historians like yourself to review and share whatever you learn, with chess enthusiasts.
Tonight I've worked on 1922 Pittsburgh Post "Chess" by Howard L. Dolde, clippings, so that these old columns are available to the public. He was the writingnest chess columnist I've encountered, and he left no stone unturned.
I'm culling the Larry Evans, Reno Gazette series, and the Nebraska State Journal's “Nebraska Chess” column published weekly from 1902- onward... Hartford Courant's 1910- onward “Chess” by David A. Mitchell, Emanuel Lasker, et al.
A single column per year contains around 50 Sundays... so its a lot of clippings.
I wanted to let you know about this work I'm doing as a tribute to Bobby Fischer, -- it's a credit to honor his memory -- he loved Chess History.
I thought you might be interested in reading some of the old chess columns. I liked your article on Cliff or "Clif" Sherwood as he called himself... and shared that story on the Bobby Fischer True Story, Facebook group, along with additional articles on Newspapers Archive about the Sherwood tragedy.
If you know of any good historical chess columns of olden time, I can either search Newspapers archive, and cull the series... or ask Newspapers to acquire the Newspaper.
Sorry so long a comment...
I like what you do for chess history, and hoping to contribute material for chess history guys like yourselves!
steiner-kashdan + blogspot
Tied in with the Bobby Fischer archive.
Will be adding more columns as there are MANY, but will surely come across many more. Found a most interesting story tonight how Reshevsky met Morphy's kin... lots of cool stories in those old chess columns.
Very ambitious...good luck! I assume they will be available online? I use the online Brooklyn Public Library's archive of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle a lot. They date from 1895 to 1955.
ReplyDelete