Sean Evans wrote:rabbits23 wrote:I am a chess enthusiast and like to play programs against one another.
Currently I have all the Stockfish engines ( up to 8 ) Deep Hiarcs 13.2
Komodo 10 and Houdini 4.Am I missing out on anything?
Cheers Allan
Hello Allan,
There are different ways to classify chess engines. The whole chess community is polluted with lying, disinformation and copyright violations.
You forgot to mention "bitter".
The computer chess community has to be the most bitter subculture of hobbyists I have encountered in my life.
Indeed it seems in the CC community that newbies like Allan (and me as well not too long ago) can't come and ask the "experts" about chess engines without being dragged into the swamp as well.
Being polluted with lying, disinformation, copyright violations AND bitterness is probably putting it mildly.
There are programmers (I ADMIRE) who have
absolutely brilliant minds in their own right, who 10-15 years later still despise each other at a stage of life when they should be sitting back to smell the roses.
It's very sad, but I don't see the point of dragging Allan into it.
Let's focus on the positive.
On another note...
Personally, I believe that any reasonable engine could be dominant (commercially, not in terms of ELO) by repackaging/repositioning their product and using the marketing strategy of "hit em where they aint" (aka niche down and specialize).
The ELO race is a race you can't win, but making your engine play in a very special, different way, add some bonuses and do some smart marketing (or partner with a smart marketer like me
) and you'll definitely carve out a niche.
I know that engines like Vitruvius
tried this, but their marketing was rubbish and they too faded away.
Chessmaster didn't become the biggest selling chess franchise in history by selling The King 3.23 as a downloadable .rar file.
And even without the capital investment of an Ubisoft (to create that BEAUTIFUL GUI), I think a savvy programmer could make a commercial success of their engine with good MARKETING/positioning and a good offer, others who plagiarize their engine source code will fail and fade away quickly.
To quote Ben Shapiro: "capitalism is blind"
If anyone disagrees with me, remember to be civil...
I'm happy to share perspectives.