Chess Tiger for Palm
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Chess Tiger for Palm 1.0
Updated 08/31/01
Several months ago, Christophe Theron, the author of the PC chess
engine Chess Tiger (CT), released a version of his engine for Palm OS
handheld computers. Christophe has long been a fan of handheld
computers, and was just itching to port his very successful PC engine
to this platform. This first Palm version of CT only ran via the
command line, and so people have been waiting patiently for a point
and click version of the program, which recently arrived. A demo
version can be downloaded at www.chesstiger.com.
My overall impressions of this program are quite favorable. It
competes well against the only other currently existing professional
engine for the Palm (Chess Genius). It has all the most-used features
that a playing program needs, including things like PGN import/export,
a wide variety of time controls and multiple skill levels. The playing
engine is one of the best available, and has many fans.
From an interface standpoint, CT has all the bases covered, even going
so far as to incorporate a button bar down the right hand side of the
screen. This button bar has all the most used functions for doing
things like changing the playing levels, flipping the board, etc. This
is a nice touch, once you figure out what all the buttons do. It
definitely saves you some pen strokes and makes game play quick. The
button bar can be eliminated by simply resizing the board, which can
also be done via the magnifying glass button (a clever touch). Another
nice feature is the “restore previous” function, which can
restore a game that has been changed. This is a helpful feature when
you want to examine a variation, but don't want to change the game
score.
For those that tire of getting trounced by their playing program game
after game, CT has a set of “training levels”. These
levels are un-timed, but are engineered to be much weaker, and hence
much more fallible than the untamed Tiger engine. In fact, on the
first training level, CT almost plays suicide chess – giving
material away left and right. Overall, this is a welcome feature,
especially for a program that will primarily be used as a playing
opponent.
In addition to the training levels, Chess Tiger also has the ability
to select between a total of eight different engine
“personalities”. These personalities have settings that
enable things like the propensity for the engine to attack or
sacrifice material, and how strongly the engine pursues an open game
(anti-human mode).
It is difficult to evaluate playing strength of a program like this.
Suffice to say that this engine is identical to the PC version with a
few exceptions. First, hash table size is limited, so this slows down
the engine a bit. The opening book is also smaller, and of course,
there are no tablebases due to memory limitations. Other than that,
the engine is identical to its PC counterpart. While the above
limitations do weaken the strength of the engine, it will still be
strong enough to challenge most serious players. The program is
definitely at least expert strength, which would make it the strongest
Palm chess program available today.
From a purely subjective standpoint, I would have to say that Tiger is
one resourceful opponent, especially in gambit mode. More often than
not, I was giving myself dope slaps because I fell for yet another sac
that I did not see. And I have not even had the courage to turn on the
“anti-human” setting yet.
Comparison to Chess Genius for Palm
Chess Tiger is now the second professional chess playing program for
the Palm (Chess Genius (CG) has the honor of being first). And of
course, many people are interested in how these two programs compare.
Both programs support all the core features that will make any chess
player happy. But CT does have a few more bells and whistles than
Genius. For instance, there is a wider choice of time controls, and
engine personalities. CT also has things like a button bar, and a nice
auto-off setting feature. With CG, it was necessary to use a separate
freeware utility for this. In terms of play, CG might be a little
stronger at bullet time controls, but for blitz and standard, Tiger
has the edge due to more efficient tree pruning and better knowledge.
CT also has the advantage in terms of positional play and endgame
ability. Both programs are about equal in terms of opening play.
Even though this is the first version of CT for the Palm, the program
never crashed. People reticent about purchasing version 1.0 of
software should not be concerned about program stability.
Copy Protection
User must obtain unlock code from manufacturer, code is keyed to
specific machine. Replacement unlock codes are provided free of charge
if the user upgrades his/her hardware.
