levin@world.std.com (Levin F Magruder) (01/03/91)
Soliciting opinions on most amiga-friendly chess game. I saw something in a store called "Checkmate" that looked good, but couldn't tell if it was multitasking. The only things that are important in a chess game, to me are: * Never crashes * Has a chess clock * Multitasks In particular, I don't care if it's not the best player in pc-dom - I'm lousy myself. Anything out there that meets those criteria?
amiga-relay@ee.udel.edu (01/03/91)
From: fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
The new Chessmaster 2100 is now out, and, from what I saw at a store, looked
just dandy. It certainly multitasks, has a clock, didn't appear to crash, and
seems to play very well indeed. It also plays at a "relaxed" level for
poor suckers like you and I who aren't worth a damn in face-to-face play.
I actually achieved a Fool's Mate (just like in the books) once...
--Rick Wrigley
fhwri@conncoll.bitnetjason@cbmami.UUCP (Jason Goldberg) (01/03/91)
This brings up an interesting point about Chess programs for the Amiga. I was at the store the other day and saw both CheckMate and ChessMaster2100, both made the following claim on the backs of their box: "The strongest playing chess program in the world (and the easiest)" Is it possible that they both have the same chess alogrithm in them? They are both distributed by Electronic Arts but CheckMate is from Interplay (battle chess) and ChessMaster2000 is from Software Toolworks (chessmaster 2000). ChessMaster 2100 claims a USCF rating of 2250, while CheckMate does not give a rating. CheckMate seems to have a much richer opening library than does ChessMaster 2100, and CheckMate allows you to play any opening of defense you want. I have not been able to determine if ChessMaster 2100 has this feature or not, CM 2000 didn't. Also CheckMate claims to add "strong moves" to its library, I consider this a gimmick, it already has almost the whole Modern Chess Openings library, and I don't think a chess alogrithm can add moves to its middle or end play, not to mention that a its unlikely a 2250 rated player will find too many moves from most of us ;-) On a side note, I am a little dubious of the USCF computer ratings, ChessMaster 2000 was supposed to be rated at close to 2100, I am rated at 1650 and I didn't find it to be that strong. I would like one that could play any opening I requested, but I would also like to know which truly is stronger. -Jason- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jason Goldberg UUCP: ucsd!serene!cbmami!jason Del Mar, CA
tjf@lanl.gov (Tom J Farish) (01/03/91)
In article <1991Jan2.204928.4525@world.std.com>, levin@world.std.com (Levin F Magruder) writes: > Soliciting opinions on most amiga-friendly chess game. I saw something > in a store called "Checkmate" that looked good, but couldn't tell > if it was multitasking. > The only things that are important in a chess game, to me are: > * Never crashes > * Has a chess clock > * Multitasks > In particular, I don't care if it's not the best player in pc-dom - > I'm lousy myself. > > Anything out there that meets those criteria? Checkmate is a very nice program...It is strong even at short times, has a wide range of strength levels, a large, user-programmable book and lots of features. Digital Clocks for both players. I like it a lot. It multitasks just fine if you startup from the workbenck and THEN run the program from the CLI. If you run from an icon...no multitaking. Also, You can pull down the screen to get back to workbench ala VLT. However, If you pull it down all the way, you can't get it back! It won't pull back up! This must be a bug. Also, the pieces in 3-d mode are very hard to use (distracting) except for Staunton and Futura modes. On the other hand, my daughter Loved the "playroom" set. BTW this program claims to have easily beaten Chessmaster 2000 and Colossus on equivalent machines. .
tjf@lanl.gov (Tom J Farish) (01/04/91)
In the manual, Checkmate claims to have beaten Chessmaster 2000 9 1/2- 1/2 in a ten-game match and rates itself about 200+ points higher. No mention of Chessmaster 2100, but Checkmates manual estimated the strength of 2000 to be about 1850 ELO (~1950 USCF). Chessmaster 2100 is supposed to be ~100 points stronger than 2000, so.... If anyone buys Chessmaster 2100 and has a plain vanilla 2000, we can have a head-to-head match! The machines should be identical for fairness and the time per move about 2 min to simulate a "real" game (30/1). We can also institute sudden death time control after that.