Biggest changes in past 3-4 years

[ardee]

I've been mostly away from computer chess (and from this forum) for 3 or so years. Back then, Shredder (v7, I think) had recently surpassed Fritz as strongest, with Chess Tiger having recently fallen into decline. ChessBase was still battling with Chess Assistant for best database.

Now I see that new engines like Rybka and Zappa have apparently surpassed Shredder and Fritz.

Would somebody be so kind as to write a very brief history of the major developments of the past 3-4 years? (And: are Shredder, Fritz, Junior, Nimzo, and Tiger all relics?)

Thanks in advance!

-Roy.

[Le Fou numerique]

I've been mostly away from computer chess (and from this forum) for 3 or so years. Back then, Shredder (v7, I think) had recently surpassed Fritz as strongest, with Chess Tiger having recently fallen into decline. ChessBase was still battling with Chess Assistant for best database.

Now I see that new engines like Rybka and Zappa have apparently surpassed Shredder and Fritz.

Would somebody be so kind as to write a very brief history of the major developments of the past 3-4 years? (And: are Shredder, Fritz, Junior, Nimzo, and Tiger all relics?)

Thanks in advance!

-Roy.

Hi,

I think the biggest change was Fruit.

The first free engine who played in the same level than the commercials.

Many (all ?) engines had from one day to the next big improvement
Rybka 1.5.32 in 2005 had a rating by 2200 (Le Système du Suisse - Saison n°3) and Rybka 1.0 beta ...

Regards,
Patrick

[Dann Corbit]

Of course, fruit was the big bombshell. Being open source up to 2.1, anyone who wanted to could learn to write a world-beater.

Glaurung and Scorpio are also very innovative and strong and open source. These are SMP programs and so by study of them (and the SMP learning program VIPER) it has become much easier to write an SMP program.

The most interesting idea is probably late move reductions, which can bring the branching factor down to a value around 2 (considerably better than before) without tossing out the good moves as well.

[ardee]

Ah, thanks. I did not realize that Fruit was the basis for most of the big changes.

So Rybka is based on Fruit, I take it? (And Zappa too?)

Do you think Fritz, Shredder, Tiger, Junior, or Nimzo will ever be top-level contenders again?

[ardee]

Thanks!

So Rybka 1.0 beta came AFTER 1.5.32, and was a rewrite based on Fruit?

[David Dahlem]

Do you think Fritz, Shredder, Tiger, Junior, or Nimzo will ever be top-level contenders again?

Yes, if they will include some ideas from Fruit!