Laska King Element.

Celadus · Post by **Celadus** » Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:33 pm

The King program is no longer being discussed. Perhaps it is now old hat!
Was this chess machine purchased only by collectors?

If not chess players are no longer discussing playing ability,variety,books,ease of use etc.

Would the King element be on a par with the new Centaur?

Wood vs plastic. 120V vs battery.

The King is dead. Long live the Centaur.

Post by **Steve B** » Sun Jul 21, 2019 10:52 pm

Celadus wrote: Would the King element be on a par with the new Centaur?

.

There was a match posted here for that

http://hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9545

Centaur pretty much ate the King's/Lasker's ....
Lunch Regards
Steve

Celadus · Post by **Celadus** » Mon Jul 22, 2019 10:58 am

Steve B wrote:
Celadus wrote: Would the King element be on a par with the new Centaur?

.

There was a match posted here for that

http://hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9545

Centaur pretty much ate the King's/Lasker's ....
Lunch Regards
Steve

Very interesting. Thanks for the reply Steve

mclane · Post by **mclane** » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:33 am

Millennium chess genius exclusive and millennium chess the king element were not build to play against stockfish.

They are dedicated chess computers and were made to play against humans and other dedicated chess computers.

They are classical dedicated chess computers with all advantages this gives.

BillT · Post by **BillT** » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:43 am

From my point of view the strength of King Lasker is way above mine and I would hazzard a guess quite a lot of chess players requirements so the fact that the Centaur beats it is of no real interest.
What I can tell you is that Im just really enjoying mine (admittedly apart from having the pain of the connections and packing it away and unpacking) so I dont feel the need to keep posting about it on here......of course if there were problems or issues with it then no doubt there would be more posts.......
Quietness = contentedness?
Regards
Bill

Post by **Steve B** » Mon Jul 22, 2019 1:41 pm

BillT wrote:Quietness = contentedness?

Yes I guess no news is good news Bill
I am totally happy with my King+Lasker modules and I don't own the Centaur
new posts on the Centaur have slowed up quite a bit since its initial release and I imagine will slow to an occasional post here or there when a new dedicated computer comes along(hopefully a wooden version of the Centaur)

15 Minutes Of Fame Are Up Regards
Steve

Celadus · Post by **Celadus** » Mon Jul 22, 2019 5:06 pm

mclane wrote:Millennium chess genius exclusive and millennium chess the king element were not build to play against stockfish.

They are dedicated chess computers and were made to play against humans and other dedicated chess computers.

They are classical dedicated chess computers with all advantages this gives.

Re-reading my post now it does seem a little ambiguous.

I was not so much interested to know if the King or Centaur was the strongest but rather
to know what owners of the King program thought of it as a chess opponent.

BillT · Post by **BillT** » Mon Jul 22, 2019 5:49 pm

Well in my humble opinion it plays an excellent exciting and dynamic game.it is comprehensively featured and incredibly flexible in terms of strength. It is on a beautiful wooden board with nice wooden pieces and the proper piece recognition is fantastic.
Only downside (if it is a downside) is the multi connection needed to play but I guess it's not too bad and it takes.a.bit of packing away when your finished.I always do this as.I hate it when wooden boards get light spots.
I also hope that there will be a firmware update to enable the display to show the.name of the opening being played
Great board regards
Bill

Eric Wainwright · Post by **Eric Wainwright** » Mon Jul 22, 2019 9:03 pm

Hi,

The Millennium King Element is my new favorite chess computer. It has all the features that I'm looking for in a chess computer, along with extremely dynamic and variable playing styles. There are a few minor things that could be improved, but overall I'm very pleased.

There's a long thread (38 pages) about the King Element on the German Schachcomputer.info site:

https://tinyurl.com/TheKingElement

I also heard a rumor somewhere that Johan de Koning was working on an firmware update, but it's only a rumor.

-Eric

Yarc · Post by **Yarc** » Tue Jul 23, 2019 7:42 pm

Now that mine has been completely repaired I am really liking my King Lasker.

Not had much time to play with it recently due to moving to a temporary abode and now busy looking for a place to buy. Hopefully will get some more time to try things out such as creating personalities.

The things I really like about TheKing Lasker - in no particular order - are:

1. A nice wooden board with piece recognition.
2. The King engine which has a very exciting dynamic playing style.
3. The King has so many useful features.
4. Very strong grandmaster strength which is beyond my strength but it also
has many beginner levels and ways to adjust its strength including
adjusting the CPU speed.
5. I can easily transfer a game to my PC via a cable for analysis and or for
storing in a database.
6. It's the type of dedicated machine I always dreamed of owning, and now I
do!
7. New modules can be bought and connected to the board.

It does have a few bugs but there is a pending software update. Don't know when this is due for release, but is sure to improve it even more. I also read that new opening books could be made available.

It may have gone quiet on the forums because of the Centaur post explosion but in my opinion has plenty of life left in it.

I think the Centaur is a good concept and can see how it appeals to many. However, for me TheKing Lasker (or non Lasker edition) wins because it has it's roots in the traditional dedicated machine. It's not another SF-based system, but has a newer version of the King engine especially developed by de Koning. It impresses because with just a 300Mhz processor it has tremendous playing strength which would beat most people and give stronger players a really tough time, but also its strength can be significantly reduced. I also like that I can take back moves and try other tactics to see if I could have played any better. So for me, it provides plenty of opportunity to improve my game.

Just for fun I pitted CS Tal 1 running in the DOSBox emulator against TheKing at a time control of 40m/20 minutes (30 sec avg) to test my repaired King Lasker. I believe running on my Intel i7 4GHZ machine this would make the emulated DOS machine a minimum of a PIII running at 500MHz.

Here is the game:

[Event "40m/20mins"]
[Date "2019.07.21"]
[Round "1"]
[White "CSystem Tal"]
[Black "TheKing2.61"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B80"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nc3 cxd4 5. Nxd4 e6 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Bb5+ Bd7 8.
Bxf6 Bxf6 9. Bxd7+ Nxd7 10. Ndb5 Qb6 11. Nxd6+ Ke7 12. Nf5+ Kd8 13. Nd6 Qxb2
14. Nxf7+ Ke7 15. O-O Qxc3 16. Nxh8 Qxa1 17. Qh5 Qc3 18. Qf7+ Kd6 19. Rd1+ Bd4
20. Qxg7 Qe1+ 21. Rxe1 Bxg7 22. Nf7+ Ke7 23. Rd1 Rc8 24. Rd2 Nc5 25. Nd6 Rc6
26. e5 Bxe5 27. Nb5 Rb6 28. c4 a6 29. Na3 Bb2 30. Nb5 axb5 31. Rxb2 Rd6 32. Kf1
bxc4 33. Ke2 Rd4 34. Rd2 Re4+ 35. Kf3 b5 36. Rb2 c3 37. Re2 Rc4 38. Rc2 Nd3 39.
Ke2 Nb4 40. Rc1 Nxa2 41. Rc2 b4 42. Rxa2 c2 43. Rxc2 Rxc2+ 44. Ke3 b3 45. Kd3
Rc8 46. f3 b2 47. Kd4 b1=Q 48. Ke3 Qe1+ 49. Kd3 Rc3+ 50. Kd4 Qe3# 0-1

TheKing easily one this, gaining an advantage from move 7 onwards. According to analysis on my PC, TheKing played with a move accuracy of 92% whilst CS Tal only obtained 24%. However, CS Tal is a program from the early nineties and as pointed out in another thread, is a very good DOS chess program with numerous features. I think the age of CS Tal showed, and even though it was looking several more moves ahead in the endgame just couldn't see what was happening. I don't think there is much point in playing a ten game match between these two, I only played one game for fun and to test my Lasker board.

TheKing is not dead Regards
Ray

Celadus · Post by **Celadus** » Tue Jul 23, 2019 7:54 pm

Yarc wrote:Now that mine has been completely repaired I am really liking my King Lasker.

Not had much time to play with it recently due to moving to a temporary abode and now busy looking for a place to buy. Hopefully will get some more time to try things out such as creating personalities.

The things I really like about TheKing Lasker - in no particular order - are:

1. A nice wooden board with piece recognition.
2. The King engine which has a very exciting dynamic playing style.
3. The King has so many useful features.
4. Very strong grandmaster strength which is beyond my strength but it also
has many beginner levels and ways to adjust its strength including
adjusting the CPU speed.
5. I can easily transfer a game to my PC via a cable for analysis and or for
storing in a database.
6. It's the type of dedicated machine I always dreamed of owning, and now I
do!
7. New modules can be bought and connected to the board.

It does have a few bugs but there is a pending software update. Don't know when this is due for release, but is sure to improve it even more. I also read that new opening books could be made available.

It may have gone quiet on the forums because of the Centaur post explosion but in my opinion has plenty of life left in it.

I think the Centaur is a good concept and can see how it appeals to many. However, for me TheKing Lasker (or non Lasker edition) wins because it has it's roots in the traditional dedicated machine. It's not another SF-based system, but has a newer version of the King engine especially developed by de Koning. It impresses because with just a 300Mhz processor it has tremendous playing strength which would beat most people and give stronger players a really tough time, but also its strength can be significantly reduced. I also like that I can take back moves and try other tactics to see if I could have played any better. So for me, it provides plenty of opportunity to improve my game.

Just for fun I pitted CS Tal 1 running in the DOSBox emulator against TheKing at a time control of 40m/20 minutes (30 sec avg) to test my repaired King Lasker. I believe running on my Intel i7 4GHZ machine this would make the emulated DOS machine a minimum of a PIII running at 500MHz.

Here is the game:

[Event "40m/20mins"]
[Date "2019.07.21"]
[Round "1"]
[White "CSystem Tal"]
[Black "TheKing2.61"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B80"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nc3 cxd4 5. Nxd4 e6 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Bb5+ Bd7 8.
Bxf6 Bxf6 9. Bxd7+ Nxd7 10. Ndb5 Qb6 11. Nxd6+ Ke7 12. Nf5+ Kd8 13. Nd6 Qxb2
14. Nxf7+ Ke7 15. O-O Qxc3 16. Nxh8 Qxa1 17. Qh5 Qc3 18. Qf7+ Kd6 19. Rd1+ Bd4
20. Qxg7 Qe1+ 21. Rxe1 Bxg7 22. Nf7+ Ke7 23. Rd1 Rc8 24. Rd2 Nc5 25. Nd6 Rc6
26. e5 Bxe5 27. Nb5 Rb6 28. c4 a6 29. Na3 Bb2 30. Nb5 axb5 31. Rxb2 Rd6 32. Kf1
bxc4 33. Ke2 Rd4 34. Rd2 Re4+ 35. Kf3 b5 36. Rb2 c3 37. Re2 Rc4 38. Rc2 Nd3 39.
Ke2 Nb4 40. Rc1 Nxa2 41. Rc2 b4 42. Rxa2 c2 43. Rxc2 Rxc2+ 44. Ke3 b3 45. Kd3
Rc8 46. f3 b2 47. Kd4 b1=Q 48. Ke3 Qe1+ 49. Kd3 Rc3+ 50. Kd4 Qe3# 0-1

TheKing easily one this, gaining an advantage from move 7 onwards. According to analysis on my PC, TheKing played with a move accuracy of 92% whilst CS Tal only obtained 24%. However, CS Tal is a program from the early nineties and as pointed out in another thread, is a very good DOS chess program with numerous features. I think the age of CS Tal showed, and even though it was looking several more moves ahead in the endgame just couldn't see what was happening. I don't think there is much point in playing a ten game match between these two, I only played one game for fun and to test my Lasker board.

TheKing is not dead Regards
Ray

Very informative post Yark. Thanks for the reply.

A question. Do you think the square lights should be more discrete?

Yarc · Post by **Yarc** » Wed Jul 24, 2019 7:24 am

Celadus wrote: A question. Do you think the square lights should be more discrete?

I'm quite happy with the brightness of the square LED's. When I first tried the ChessGenius Exclusive the brightness was very apparent compared to my older machines. However, I think the brightness make it very easy to see when a move has been made. Some of my older machines have quite dim LED's which is likely due to age.

The King is not dim Regards
Ray

Celadus · Post by **Celadus** » Mon Jul 29, 2019 4:54 pm

BillT wrote:From my point of view the strength of King Lasker is way above mine and I would hazzard a guess quite a lot of chess players requirements so the fact that the Centaur beats it is of no real interest.
What I can tell you is that Im just really enjoying mine (admittedly apart from having the pain of the connections and packing it away and unpacking) so I dont feel the need to keep posting about it on here......of course if there were problems or issues with it then no doubt there would be more posts.......
Quietness = contentedness?
Regards
Bill

I have a DGT board with a DGT pi.
Two years ago I contacted DGT and asked the question: would leaving chessmen always on the board be the cause of light spots. Answer. No. The cause of light spots on the board is bright light. Sun or otherwise.

I am lucky that I have a table where I can leave the DGT board connect to the pi box. I unplug the main power when not in use and cover the board with a heavy towel like material. The pieces are stored in a box by the side.

Two years later no light spots.

fourthirty · Post by **fourthirty** » Tue Jul 30, 2019 12:41 am

BillT wrote:I also hope that there will be a firmware update to enable the display to show the.name of the opening being played
Great board regards
Bill

I’m also hoping for this enhancement Bill.

Greg

BillT · Post by **BillT** » Tue Jul 30, 2019 4:26 am

Hi Greg
Actually whilst on the subject ...another firmware enhancement i would like to see would be to be able to name the 3 user defined personality settings....(unless i missed something in the manual that enables you to do it.)
Maybe someone from Millennium visits here and takes note......actually perhaps there should be a seperate thread for this topic....
Firmware regards
Bill

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