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Last 10.4th mini-update: Wednesday, 05/03/03 |
| Next 11th full update: coming soon ... |
news.
[New update soon ...]
[ Thanks for your interest ! ]
2 links updated in the Acknowledgements Section
Still pending for the next mini-updates:
Many results for Chess Master 5500,
MChess Pro 5, MChess Pro 7, Rebel 9,
Many results for non-commercial Patzer 2.99,
and several Crafty vers., courtesy of Kai Luebke,
Many results for Rebel 8, courtesy of Howard Exner,
New results for Chess Genius 5.0, courtesy of Ed Panek,
Many results for the Fritz family, courtesy of Mike Cooter,
Special Section: My extended analysis for Gosling's November Tournament,
A new Section dedicated to analyze deeply the most interesting positions taken
from several selected games of the second Kasparov vs. Deep Blue 1997 rematch,
and new additions to the Sections Book reviews,Amazing Problems,
Chessboard Problems.
Till the next mini-update. Bookmark main site and all mirrors ! .
There are many sites on the Web were you can find chess positions and problems,
In most cases, that means the problems are quite easy for computer programs,
and so are of very little use as a test of a program's abilities.
So I've decided to put up a WWW site where I can include a collection of
quite difficult positions for you to try your favourite
programs on them.
They range from very difficult
mate-in-many problems,
to the most subtle endgames
where a program needs to be very good to see the solution through many many plies.
There are even some positions that seem to be unsolvable with
present computer chess technology,
because they require understanding the position rather than just mindless calculation.
They will be useful to test new ideas in the field.
All of them include results when trying them with several programs, including all relevant
data, such as main line, depth of search, size of the hash tables, and of course, times,
as well as full comments on the positions and the
programs' performances.
This site also includes a large selection of the most
amazing chess problems to be solved by you.
Each of them is guaranteed to let your jaws wide open, promised !
Also, a section on geometrical and combinatorial
chessboard problems has been included,
to let you sharpen your understanding of the geometry of the board
and of the powers and ranges of the various chess pieces.
To better round the deal, you'll also find here a section on
Chess Bibliography,
where a number of very interesting chess books are fully reviewed,
including a detailed description chapter by chapter
and a sample position quoted from the book.
Finally, what would a site be without a
Links section ? But this one isn't just a list of addresses,
but a comprehensive list of just a few very, very
selected links to chess sites,
plus several topics of my interest, all of them
fully commented.
In a near future, I'll expand these pages to include many new tests,
as well as other topics related to computer chess, among them:
Techniques to write a chess program
Actual source code to implement chess routines
Analysis of current tournaments
Computer chess trivia
etc, etc.
This time, featuring:
: Since Thursday, 05/03/98
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Basic suite, Pag. 01: _tests 01 to 05_
_06 to 10_
Basic suite, Pag. 02: _tests 11 to 15_
_16 to 20_
Basic suite, Pag. 03: _tests 21 to 25_
_26 to 30_
Basic suite, Pag. 04: _tests 31 to 35_
_36 to 40_
Suite Extension: ___Bizarre Positions___
Suite Extension: __The "Never" Concept
Suite Extension: __Unsolved Positions__
Book Reviews sample positions: B0101 B0102 B0103 B0104 B0402 B0403
Then, within 24 hours if possible, I'll send you an E-mail with the resulting analysis,
including suggested move, evaluation and main line at a minimum,
and last but not least, absolutely FREE of course !
I'll also publish in this page the most interesting positions sent, with the solutions.
But you will !
Every one of them has been selected to surprise you, to really make you appreciate the beauty of chess.
DO NOT try them on your computer, don't spoil your fun !
Should you find any of them untractable, you'll find the solution in the next update.
Solutions to last week's problems
Solutions to previous week's problems
These little puzzles will put to work new parts of your chess mind,
far from variations and tactics,
but demanding that you think deeply about the most basic parts of the game:
its board, its pieces, its rules.
Or, if you are a really accomplished programmer, and not just another duffer,
you can try your hand at writing little programs to find the solutions.
Remember to bookmark this page !!
This has not been because of a lack of good free, chess specific source code, far from it.
There are many excellent chess programs with full source code freeely avaliable,
such as Crafty,
GNU Chess, and many others, at every level of performance.
The problem is, most of the source code available is highly complex, heavily optimized,
and featuring the latest state-of-the-art advances in chess programming.
these advanced features are not very useful or adequate when it comes down to learn
basic chess programming, specially for fledgling,
wannabe chess programmers.
Enter the new Chess Code Section.
Here you will find bits and pieces of basic, didactic chess programming,
usually in the form of complete routines and utilities, always chess specific code.
(286, 386, 486, Pentium, etc) and as commented source code,
for you to download, study and use.
Due to their intended didactic purpose, the C language has
not been used.
While certainly it's the language of choice (apart from assembler) to write chess
programs,
its own powerful, optimizing characteristics usually make the source a little hard to understand.
So all code in this Section will be written as either Turbo Pascal source code
As all source code featured will be no-tricks, no-gimmicks, fully commented,
in the case of DOS routines, or MS Visual Basic source code, in the case of
Windows routines.
with long, descriptive names, conversion to other languages will be very easy, if needed.
MATER: A simple Mate Searching Program
Implements all chess rules, including full legal castling, en passant captures,
underpromotions,
Please note that apart from making freely available the code in this Section,
and heavily commenting both source code and executable (including examples where appropriate),
I cannot give any further support, specially via e-mail, so please don't ask any questions
about this software nor advice about how to integrate it with your own programs, and such.
I simply do not have the time. Thanks for understanding.
All the code in this section has been written by myself specifically for it, I am the copyright holder,
but you can download and use it, either in executable form and/or source code, in all or in part,
as you wish, including its use as part of your own programs, be they freeware or commercial,
absolutely free.
The only thing you should not do is claim you wrote my routines.
Apart from that, use them as you wish. Credit would be appreciated, but not required.
Of course, no warranty of any kind is given at all. NO SUPPORT OF ANY KIND IS OFFERED.
I don't claim the code is suitable or adequate for any purpose whatsoever, nor that it's bug free.
I shall not be held responsible of any damage their use can do. You use it at your own risk.
Your using the code indicates acceptance of these terms. If you are not willing to accept them,
do not use the code.
Themes of a regular nature already have their own Sections, such as Amazing Problems, Bibliography, etc.
For all those other interesting chess matters which are not so regular, such as
one-of-a-kind events,
I have created Special Sections, where I'll place
all future Sections dedicated to them.
The first two Special Sections will be:
Brian Gosling's November Tournament Analysis
Kasparov vs. Deep Blue Critical Positions
I give a description of the book's contents, a review on what I like more about the book,
and a relevant sample position quoted from the book.
All links are very selected, no run-of-the-mill, and fully commented.
Besides, all of them are checked in each and every update,
and broken ones are removed.
times