HIARCS Chess Forums

spacious_mind · Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 2:03 pm Post subject: Kneel to Johan your King

I have started this post for some King Johan tests.

SAITEK RISC 2500 V. 1.04 128K ROM & 2048K RAM

http://www.spacious-mind.com/html/risc_2500_2mb.html

Someone emailed me and asked me the other day what version King my Risc 2500 was, ooops I thought, that's embarrassing as I didn't know. So I took out my Risc which I haven't touched for over a year to check. Well by scrolling left and right with the arrow keys I quickly found out.

Mine is a 1.04, therefore obviously there has to be more than 1 version of King inside a Risc 2500. So what do you all have?

TEST GAME 1 RESULTS - 15TH CENTURY MASTERS

Saitek Risc 2500 is a very interesting computer with a lot options. It has 5 built-in styles as shown above. The above test was played on the EXPERT setting. Generally speaking most people consider the Expert/Offensive setting as the strongest setting. The above test seems to confirm this opinion. But then again here are the results of Test Game 2:

TEST GAME 2 RESULTS - THE TURK

In Test Game 2, the NORMAL setting clearly came out on top and this time the OFFENSIVE setting was clearly last. I think this nicely shows that ALL the settings are interesting and who comes out better mostly depends on the type of opponent you are playing. Which makes all these setting really interesting for human players to test their skill across a chess board on the living room table. Play a defensive opponent today, and tomorrow an aggressive opponent.

SCORE AFTER 2 TEST GAMES

NORMAL setting comes out on top after 2 test games. But this could change very quickly again and is very much dependent on the style of your opponent. Probably this is why the old pre high speed computer tests with fixed evaluated positions were suitable for some computers and not for others. A limited amount of hand picked positions by humans made it tough to find the right balance to suit every computer from the lowest skilled computer to highest skill computer. It just wasn't possible to do back then, because of a lack of suitable technology.

So in a nutshell, its time to embrace some new methods of testing as you continue to enjoy the old methods.

Well Saitek Risc 2500 v 1.04 overall did not score as well as Mephisto Montreaux's test results that Steve posted here:

http://hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6835&start=15

Now another thing that makes Risc 2500 interesting for human players besides the 5 built-in style settings, is the ability to select the skill level of your opponent starting from NOVICE and progressing through MODERATE and STRONG to the strongest setting which is EXPERT.

This effectively gives you 20 Style settings that should be suitable for beginners to Master strength.

If this is not enough you can also turn on the EASY setting which removes the computer's ability to think on opponent's time which effectively would give you another 20 style settings under the EASY mode, making it a total of 40 style settings.

But it doesn't ender there either. Turn the HASH off and you now have 80 style settings.

And there is more! Do you want to play SELECTIVE or BRUTE FORCE? You have this option as well, which finally gives you a total of 160 Style settings to experiment with.

What a versatile computer! For curiosity's sake, I am going to stay with Risc 2500 a little while longer and test the NOVICE, MODERATE and STRONG styles as well, just to see if they are truly suitable for novice, moderate and strong players as well.

PS. The settings that I am using are EASY off, HASH on and SELECTIVE on.

So what is your version of RISC 2500?

Best regards,
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Nick

Mach2000 · Member Joined: 30 Sep 2007 Posts: 8

Hi Nick,

I was the one who asked Very Happy

I have version 1.03 and 1.04. I've heard of a version 1.02 but have never seen/gotten my hands on such a version.

Regards Mike

spacious_mind · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 10:30 pm Post subject:

spacious_mind · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 10:50 pm Post subject:

I had mentioned that I would try to test the other strength styles, therefore I played through game 1 under Novice/Normal setting and came to this position below:

In this position Risc plays Bxe6 taking the black pawn that's in front of the King. I thought at the time that this looked disappointing but I continued to play through the game which Risc 2500 finished under Novice/Normal setting 2033 rated score.

So I started the second test game where this position was reached.

In the above position Black's Queen played Qxc2????? With this position I decided that I have seen enough as it is pointless because the computer is not playing Novice or Beginner chess, what it is doing instead seems to be carrying out instructions to sacrifice a piece here and there.

This does not teach a Novice player anything.

best regards
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Nick

Fernando · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:34 am Post subject:

Johan is another chess programmer that retired silently without a hush. Same with C. Theron, the Tiger father, who disappeared just like that. Looks like Shredder author is gone too. Ed went for good, though still giving us some software but without ambitions to get the first place. The list is long and will only grow.
The field is over. No more commercial endeavours, exception made of our sponsor, but hey, how much time he will be on this?
Chess is not solved, but chess programming seems to be...

Fern
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Festina Lente

pr1uk · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 5:21 am Post subject:

Fernando · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 3:20 pm Post subject:

Yes, not that interesting NOt to see real pieces, real board or a machine that offer all that.
But the worst part of software is that they are too much strong.....

Fern
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Harvey Williamson · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 6:28 pm Post subject:

Fernando · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 6:55 pm Post subject:

Harvey Williamson · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 6:58 pm Post subject:

Fern,

Your ideas are always welcome. Post them in a new thread in the Help/support section or email them to Mark or me.

Harvey
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www.Hiarcs.com

Fernando · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 7:01 pm Post subject: