Origin of Chessbase engine "Junior X.4"

[Juan P. Naar]

I found this engine lying within my old file collection. It appears to be similar to Junior 6, but I'm not so sure. I've seen it in old rating lists from CCC archives, but I've been unable to find further info. Do you guys know anything about it? Thanks

[Ajedrecista]

Hello Juan Pablo:

I have not found exact information about 'Junior X.4', only some brief mentions here and there in random rating lists. Just speculating: could it be an intermediate version between Junior 5 and Junior 6? Or even a successor of Junior 4 prior to Junior 5.

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I found a thread at rec.games.chess.computer forum dated from July, 1998, where the title says 'Rebel X - Junior X testmatch', while PGN tags contain "Junior 5.0 (exp), PII-333.", this is, an experimental version. This match was played by Rebel for preparing against the Anand man-machine match on the same month. There are more threads at CCC covering that Rebel - Junior test match:

Rebel - Junior LIVE game on next Wednesday

[...]

Junior 5.0 (in testing) is the successor of Junior 4.0 which became World Champion last year in Paris. Junior 5.0 will be released by ChessBase soon.

[...]

Comments on Rebel vs. Junior

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I also found other mention to JuniorX at CCT2 tournament on November, 2000, though I think that I have seen many times adding a letter X to the end of the engine name at those ICC-like tournaments for some unknown reason for me. There was even some controversy with JuniorX at CCT2.

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There were other times where Junior released intermediate versions, like in Deep Junior 8 (first and second links in Spanish):

https://es.chessbase.com/post/la-pista- ... p-junior-8

Three engines are provided with the Deep Junior 8 CD: Deep Junior 8 itself, Deep Junior 8.YY and Deep Junior 8.XZ. These last two are the ones who faced Kasparov in New York. Specifically, YY was the one who played the last game. The Deep Junior 8 engine is an improved version of them, after the lessons obtained with its operation.

https://es.chessbase.com/post/la-pista- ... n-junior-8 (A time management patch).

Deep Junior 8 engines?

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Here is an early Junior timeline without citing Junior X.4 at all.

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"Junior X.4" search with the TalkChess search engine might retrieve some results, but I am unable to search right now:

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Regards from Spain.

Ajedrecista.

[bdeane]

I've no idea if this is accurate or not, but I asked Bing Chat about Junior X.4 and this was its reply:

"Junior X.4 is a chess engine by primary programmer Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky. It is part of the Deep Junior UCI series, which are six times winner of the Shannon Trophy from the World Computer Chess Championship and two times winner of the World Microcomputer Chess Championship. Junior X.4 is also known as Deep Junior Yokohama UCI, which was the 2013 World Computer Chess Champion². You can download Junior X.4 for PC Windows from the HIARCS site¹, but you will need a license key to unlock the full capabilities of the chess engine. Junior X.4 is compatible with Windows 7, 8, 10 and 11 and requires an external GUI supporting the UCI protocol. Junior X.4 is known for its entertaining, dynamic and sometimes speculative playing style².
."

Brian