Impressive - Star Beryl finds Marshall Levitsky Queen sac

[JonP01]

And now Beryl gets her revenge in the third game. The match is 1.5 each after 3 games. In this case, a classic situation of Maestro missing a critical continuation to what it thought was a winning combination. Looks like these two machines are quite well matched


[Event "40 in 2 Blair Athol"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2007.05.13"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Novag Star Beryl"]
[Black "Saitek Maestro"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D21"]
[PlyCount "57"]
[EventDate "2007.??.??"]

1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. c4 dxc4 4. e4 Bb4+ 5. Bd2 Bxd2+ 6. Nbxd2 Nc6 7. Nxc4 Nf6
8. e5 Nd5 9. Bd3 Nf4 10. g3 Nxd3+ 11. Qxd3 O-O 12. O-O-O Nb4 13. Qd2 Nxa2+ 14.
Kb1 Qd5 15. Qe2 Nb4 16. Ng5 Rd8 17. Rhe1 c5 18. dxc5 Nd3 19. Nd6 Nxe1 20. Rxd5
exd5 21. Qxe1 f6 22. exf6 Rf8 23. Nxc8 gxf6 24. Qe6+ Kg7 25. Qe7+ Rf7 26. Qxf7+
Kh6 27. h4 fxg5 28. Qf6+ Kh5 29. Qxg5# 1-0

[Steve B]

hi Jon
it seems almost unbelievable that the little Beryl can take on the Maestro like this

thinking of getting one regards
Steve

[JonP01]

Hi Steve,

Well as you might know, for me it is critical that when two machines play against each other, I don't want the result to be easily predictable. And for me, it's all well and good having the Fidelity Excellence, Chessmaster Gameboy Advance, Miami and Amber battle it out at the top end with each other, but honestly I just don't understand the moves they make much of the time. Even my Mephisto Europa and Excalibur Deluxe Talking Touch Chess are a bit stronger than I am as a player and the reasons for some of their moves are not easily obvious to me.

For those reasons it's often more fun to have machines play each other that are close to my own standard. At the moment, I seem to have a nice selection of machines each capable of taking full and half points off each other and which fall into that latter category:


Saitek Sensor XL
Excalibur Chess Station
Chessmaster Gameboy Colour (not the Advance version which is about 350 - 400 points stronger)
Saitek Maestro
Novag Beryl


All I need is a Mephisto II and that will make 6 machines - all probably ranging from around 1400 - 1500 ELO.


We should have kept the Sargon all those years ago Regards


Jonathan

[Steve B]

Hi Steve,

Well as you might know, for me it is critical that when two machines play against each other, I don't want the result to be easily predictable. And for me, it's all well and good having the Fidelity Excellence, Chessmaster Gameboy Advance, Miami and Amber battle it out at the top end with each other, but honestly I just don't understand the moves they make much of the time. Even my Mephisto Europa and Excalibur Deluxe Talking Touch Chess are a bit stronger than I am as a player and the reasons for some of their moves are not easily obvious to me.

For those reasons it's often more fun to have machines play each other that are close to my own standard. At the moment, I seem to have a nice selection of machines each capable of taking full and half points off each other and which fall into that latter category:


Saitek Sensor XL
Excalibur Chess Station
Chessmaster Gameboy Colour (not the Advance version which is about 350 - 400 points stronger)
Saitek Maestro
Novag Beryl


All I need is a Mephisto II and that will make 6 machines - all probably ranging from around 1400 - 1500 ELO.


We should have kept the Sargon all those years ago Regards


Jonathan

Hi Jon

of the Mephisto I II,III the best is probably the II
when the III was first released it was actually rated LOWER then the II
some collectors even today insist that the II is STILL stronger then the III

Hallsworth has them pretty even though with the the II at 1470 and the III at 1479

the III 's main claim to fame however is that it was the foundation for the Excalibur..the first chess program EVER to be released with a 68000 processor:

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/cpaa2@sbcgl ... 6842157/39

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/cpaa2@sbcgl ... 6788534/38

Hall Of Fame Regards
Steve

[klute]

We should have kept the Sargon all those years ago Regards

Ah yes...trading in my AVE ARB 2.5 with factory carry bag back in the '80s is one of my regrets. Even sadder, I can't remember what computer/s I got for it in exchange.

Still mourning regards

Cameron

[klute]

it seems almost unbelievable that the little Beryl can take on the Maestro like this

thinking of getting one regards

It would seem the Star Beryl contains the strongest 4K program in the history of dedicated chess computers and would be a worthy addition to the Steve B collection for this factoid alone. After a quarter of a century, Danielsen must now surrender the 4K crown to Kittinger.

Small is beautiful regards

Cameron

[Steve B]

it seems almost unbelievable that the little Beryl can take on the Maestro like this

thinking of getting one regards

It would seem the Star Beryl contains the strongest 4K program in the history of dedicated chess computers and would be a worthy addition to the Steve B collection for this factoid alone. After a quarter of a century, Danielsen must now surrender the 4K crown to Kittinger.

Small is beautiful regards

Cameron

hi Cameron

leave it to the Brothers Parle to uncover a real gem like the Beryl

Dosent Surprise Me In The Least Regards
Steve

[JonP01]

Plus I think what Cameron says about the 16K programs holds true with the Star Beryl too - namely that it is a better opponent against a similarly rated human than it is against similarly rated computers.

I agree that defeating the Maestro like that is pretty impressive, since the Maestro has a very aggresive, open, tactical game that reminds me very much of the Mark V (and is probably around the same strength too).

I don't know that Beryl can achieve an even score in this match, but who knows - the Maestro is prone to the occassional, very odd blunder - not to mention the ocassional stalemate in won positions - plus it is it's own worst enemy in terms of the horizon effect (since it is such a tactical, aggresive machine).


Jonathan

[nczempin]

I was amazed, however, to find that Star Beryl solved this position in a mere 12 seconds! Yes, that's 12 seconds for a mere 4K program running on an incredibly modest processor that can't even hope to compete with a 6301Y, let alone a 6502

Out of sheer curiosity, what processor does it run on?

[Steve B]

I was amazed, however, to find that Star Beryl solved this position in a mere 12 seconds! Yes, that's 12 seconds for a mere 4K program running on an incredibly modest processor that can't even hope to compete with a 6301Y, let alone a 6502

Out of sheer curiosity, what processor does it run on?

it is not so clear exactly the processor
it is a single chip but Novag does not say which single chip processor

since Novag likes to utilize the H8 processor my guess would be a single chip H8
http://www.novag.com/Web%202006/USA-CAN ... able-E.htm


as i have now received a Star Beryl from a dear friend as a gift i will do intensive and exhaustive analysis of the computer
in the next weeks

Steve B(eryl) Regards
Steve