Whether Deep Hiarcs is Worth £69.95 / €83.95 / $99 ??

[Vinvin]

Deep HIARCS Chess Explorer £69.95 / €83.95 / $99.99

I never tested Chess Explorer, so it's difficult to judge ...

[IanO]

The one that is completely overpriced is Shredder. Still €100 for a five year old engine? Crazy.

[Jeroen]

Those interested in a strong and intelligent chess program will buy it. Komodo and stockfish are strong chess programs. But they are not hiarcs.

You REALLY have no clue what you are talking about.....

[elpapa]

The poll is not representative...

Agreed, if anything a poll at CCC would be skewed in favour of Hiarcs, but still people are agreeing it is over-priced. If this was asked at say Chess.com where people are not Computer Chess enthusiasts it would be much worse for Hiarcs!

Cordially,

Sean

But asking people who are not interested in the first place is rather pointless, as they would probably say no even at a lower price. For example, if you asked the ladies at the local knitting club if would like to buy a Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer they would probably decline even at a generous 50% off.

The question you need to ask (or the Hiarcs people rather), is 'How many of you would buy this if it were 25% cheaper' or something along those lines.

Edit: Typo

[hgm]

How many of you would buy this if it was 25% cheaper, and how many would buy it at the current price. And then hope that at least 33% more would buy it at the lower price, otherwise the latter would be a stupid business move. And even this assumes the production cost is zero. While in fact the production cost could be significant, even on an on-line sale. (Extra administrative work, providing service...) So more likely you would have to sell 50% more to break even after a 25% price reduction.

[IanO]

Is it still promoting like world champion?
Then along with the price I think you can make a case for fraud.

Yes, the Hiarcs program is claiming "The World Computer Chess Software Champion", they left out the detail that was 25-years ago That is like saying Crafty is the WCCC!!

But it is the World Computer Chess Software Champion... since 2011! Just like Junior is is the World Computer Chess Champion since 2011.

If you have an issue with either of those titles, take it up with the world's official title giver, the ICGA. They've been happily selling titles for marketing purposes since 1980!

[elpapa]

How many of you would buy this if it was 25% cheaper, and how many would buy it at the current price. And then hope that at least 33% more would buy it at the lower price, otherwise the latter would be a stupid business move. And even this assumes the production cost is zero. While in fact the production cost could be significant, even on an on-line sale. (Extra administrative work, providing service...) So more likely you would have to sell 50% more to break even after a 25% price reduction.

Exactly, and in this case my guess is they wouldn't.

[S.Taylor]

Deep HIARCS Chess Explorer £69.95 / €83.95 / $99.99

To me it is worth Zero, if it is not atleast as good as Hiarcs 6. And Hiarcs 14 was CERTAINLY no where near as good as Hiarcs 5, 6, or 7.

I am very disappointed that i waited so many years to get a really good upgrade from hiarcs 7, and all i got was a useless collection of virus-like contraption called Hiarcs 14b, even with all the parts and updates.

Even if i forgive the money i paid and all the heartache i endured, i would still need gurantees that the next one will be good for personal use.

[APassionForCriminalJustic]

Is it still promoting like world champion?
Then along with the price I think you can make a case for fraud.

Yes, the Hiarcs program is claiming "The World Computer Chess Software Champion", they left out the detail that was 25-years ago That is like saying Crafty is the WCCC!!

But it is the World Computer Chess Software Champion... since 2011! Just like Junior is is the World Computer Chess Champion since 2011.

If you have an issue with either of those titles, take it up with the world's official title giver, the ICGA. They've been happily selling titles for marketing purposes since 1980!

Actually they are both false-champions, as we all know . And there continues to be false claims pretty well everywhere in the world; heck some people CLAIM that they are the next prophet or that they can speak with ghosts (ghosts of loved ones who have died). ICGA is running a tournament no more credible than a talking lama. Fortunately, nobody needs to take anything up with the ICGA as the organization will more than likely perish. They either adapt to the Internet world and actually involve the STRONGEST chess engines in the world into their tournaments or continue to slowly die. And history will continue to repeat itself as both organizations and businesses are very capable of failing or filing for bankruptcy. In this case, without the computer-chess community, and without computer-chess enthusiasts truly believing in and supporting the ICGA's tournament, it will not have the support to sustain itself. For instance, look at the turn-out ratio for the more recent ICGA computer-chess tournaments (this is what they should be called); the participant turnout is deplorable.

I continue to not understand what some people do not get here. The ICGA tournament is clearly not a world championship any longer, just like both Hiarcs and Junior are the champions of tournaments that are weak, and falsely claimed. I see nothing but sheer disrespect towards both the strongest computer chess engines in the world, and to Martin's TCEC tournament(s) - a tournament that produces real computer-chess champions.

Heck, even look at not only how massive Martin's tournament is, but just how DIFFICULT it is to actually win the tournament. For example, the super final ALONE between only the two last remaining engines is close to 70 games played at 120/30 minute time control. And then of course we can also say that the openings are picked fairly as not to favor only some of the participants - and everything is played on EQUAL hardware, etc,. What it is not is some dinky little tournament with massive error bar margins proclaiming false WORLD champions. If you want to be the best then you need to beat the best. Please tell me that some people understand the logic in what I had just said. Do not proclaim to be a champion of the world unless you have actually beaten the best competitors on the planet (TCEC is easily the best at doing this right now whether unofficially or not is not the point). Anybody with any sort of reasonable intelligence can see just which tournament really is representative of a TRUE world computer-chess championship. Go get any world-elite grandmaster and show them the differences between both tournaments; I think that the chosen tournament is quite obvious. TCEC does not rely on its history, official status, and procedures to run its world championship tournaments as they do not quite exist. It solely relies on not only having the support from a large sector of the community, but also it relies on it actually having the best competitors, and producing a very extensively-run FAIR tournament to then produce an actual champion engine.

If you want to blow your hard-earned money on weaker engines hundreds of ELO below the best then go ahead. HIARCS is no more intelligent than it simply being software like the rest. One should think, and make the smart choice - if anything support Komodo because for its price, and the fact that it won two recent TCEC tournaments makes it a real engine to buy in my opinion.

"They've been happily selling titles for marketing purposes since 1980!"

Oh boy, so you were just being sarcastic? Hahahahahahaha. And I reread the post one more time after writing my novel here. Hahahahahahaha.

[S.Taylor]

A million times more important than whether they are real champions or not is, that i should be able to set up a positions on infinite, or play moves up to a certain point in the game and then put it on infinite and watch it calculate a few top lines and see it change its mind as it thinks deeper.

Then i should be able to move a move forward or back and see what it is calculating about that, too.

I don't think this is possible with hiarcs 14.

It was possible with hiarcs 5, 6 and 7 and most other programs from those days.

INDEED IF ANYONE KNOW HOW I CAN GET THAT TODAY, WITH ANY ONE OF THE TOP ENGINES, I'D BE VERY THANKFUL IF YOU LET ME KNOW, AND HOW I CAN SET IT UP.