"SMIRF".......Snifff.......Coff coff

[smrf]

Hi Fernando,

... I thinks perhaps it would be not a bad idea to include a book. ...

well, not surprising, I disagree. Because that depends on your goals. If you would like to have the XX-th Crafty clone, an early playing strength through tournaments might be interesting. But to experiment with new ideas would mean to watch its results, not to overule that ideas by introducing a supervising library. I prosume that a lot of existing chess programs will not be able to navigate through the opening stage on their own as well as compared to SMIRF (bonus version) when playing Chess960. Adding table knowledge should be a very late task to complete a chess programming idea, which has been able to grow on its own before.

Reinhard.

[gerold]

Hi Fernando,

... I thinks perhaps it would be not a bad idea to include a book. ...

well, not surprising, I disagree. Because that depends on your goals. If you would like to have the XX-th Crafty clone, an early playing strength through tournaments might be interesting. But to experiment with new ideas would mean to watch its results, not to overule that ideas by introducing a supervising library. I prosume that a lot of existing chess programs will not be able to navigate through the opening stage on their own as well as compared to SMIRF (bonus version) when playing Chess960. Adding table knowledge should be a very late task to complete a chess programming idea, which has been able to grow on its own before.

Reinhard.

Thanks for the nice program Reinhard. I like the graphics and
the playing style.

Gerold.

P.S. I play a little weak so it beats me sometimes. :

[Uri Blass]

Hi Fernando,

... I thinks perhaps it would be not a bad idea to include a book. ...

well, not surprising, I disagree. Because that depends on your goals. If you would like to have the XX-th Crafty clone, an early playing strength through tournaments might be interesting. But to experiment with new ideas would mean to watch its results, not to overule that ideas by introducing a supervising library. I prosume that a lot of existing chess programs will not be able to navigate through the opening stage on their own as well as compared to SMIRF (bonus version) when playing Chess960. Adding table knowledge should be a very late task to complete a chess programming idea, which has been able to grow on its own before.

Reinhard.

Hi Reinhard,

I think that chess is a tactical game and an opening book is not very important(it can give something to playing strength but book is not what makes the difference between strong player and weak player and it may make maybe difference between rating 2500 and rating 2600).

If your program is good in chess960 there is no reason that it is going to be extremely weak in normal chess.

I did not try to play with smirf but if somebody who is not a strong player can beat it and claim that it played weak there must be a problem not in the book(I understood that fernando did not win by some known opening trap).

I do not know the problem and maybe he downloaded some version that is limited in the depth that it can search.

Uri

[smrf]

Hi Uri,

... If your program is good in chess960 there is no reason that it is going to be extremely weak in normal chess. ...

there are some parts in SMIRF, which need to be improved. As I have stated already, it is based on own methods. And thus it is not a surprise, that SMIRF is not establishing at the top of the scene. This is true especially for the SMIRF introducing donationware version.

Whether it does make sense or not to measure new approaches merely comparing it to the playing strength e.g. of actual grown up engines is open, nevertheless qualified detecting weaknesses is always necessary and helpful.

A big portion of the time put into writing SMIRF benefitted its GUI, because there still is no other GUI available supporting both 8x8 and 10x8 chess using compatibly extended protocols. I hope for SMIRF to become better slowly nevertheless.

Reinhard.

[George Tsavdaris]

Fernando, obviously you have been able to install, use and experience SMIRF's donationware release without any problem. But just that is, for what that introducing release has been intended for.

I"m not quite sure he played Smirf without the depth limitation Smirf has, if you don't enter the license keys correctly.
So a question to Fernando is if he saw Smirf calculating to depths 10-12 for example. If not and played instantly then he needs to enter the license keys.....

Also 2 personal observations:
-First a thing that you repeat often, is that Smirf is not good at all at blitz time controls and at longer time controls of at least 1.2 minutes per move for a 2.0 GHz machine at least, is needed to perform "normally" meaning strongly.
-Secondly Smirf frequently enough, plays some bad, dubious, inexplicable moves.

[fern]

Just to put it exact, I am 2100 player. Thats is not weak, neither is strong. It is a data to take into account with respect to that game.
Nevertheless, as I pointed elsewhere, Smif played very weird moves, very weaks moves like pushing his h pawn to h5 and then moving the rook to h6 and then coming back, etc.
Many as those.
Clearly there is some problem in the code.

My best
Fernando

[smrf]

May be I still do not understand the intention of your postings. Because there still have not been some reported examples or details e.g. like the used SMIRF engine version.

Thus, hoping for more qualified feed back I try to motivate the few SMIRF users by providing two new engine versions SMIRF BC-167h (donationware, GUI bundled) and SMIRF MS-167h (optimized bonus engine for supporters, personal keys required).

http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html

Reinhard.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Hi Reinhard,
A good approach by releasing the BC version for free,you'll have much more feedback this way....
Cheers,
Dr.Wael Deeb

[smrf]

Hi Dr.

... A good approach by releasing the BC version for free,you'll have much more feedback this way....

because doing that for at least half a year without raising that much echo, I rather would be surprised, if there would come back more but grumbling on SMIRF not being as strong as a grown up engine. But we will see (or not).

It is an intermediate stage of SMIRF, because it needs to be completely rewritten. Thus currently I am rethinking my concept and design targeting both: a better performance and supporting additional variant elements.

Regards, Reinhard.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Hi,
Wishing you a good luck in your future projects
This version will enter my rating list which is a private one for now and had been constructed since the year 2002.....
Is it a UCI Capable engine or...!?
Cheers,
Dr.Wael Deeb