On Sep 4, 2:56 am, Sanny wrote:

Much to my surprise, the old "Advanced" level is back;
So now I am playing against the toughest, meanest,
baddest level of the most "improved" program there
ever was!

Do not play with Advance It takes 30min - 60 min/ move.

It's a (v-e-r-y s-l-o-w) Sicilian Defense, and already I
had one opportunity to get clobbered tactically, but I
managed to avoid it; a neat trick after White's Nxd4 is
...Qc7, Re1+ Be7, Bg5 O-O?, Nxc6!, as my Queen
would be overworked. Maybe I should have played
another Caro-Kann instead? Will I be able to handle
all these tactics and get to a Rook ending (where
stupidchessprograms really strut their stuff)? Stay
tuned... .

I am sure you will loose the Battle against Advance Level.

I thought you will play with Master level with your 30% winning
chances.

For Advance your chances of winning is just 20%. But Advance will take
2-3 days to complete.


This sounds about right, as the program was taking
f-o-r-e-v-e-r to move, but at least it does move. I was
having some difficulty in the late opening, because
although I "won the minor exchange" (as Bobby
Fischer called it when you trade your Knight for a
Bishop), I had some weak squares, like c5 and d6 and
even d4, since I could not safely kick the Knight away
from there due to nasty tactical problems (...c5?, Rxe7!
Qxe7, Nxd5 -- bam, I am pinned, forked, and
embarrassed, all in one fell swoop!).

But now things have changed, and I still can't figure
out why the program allowed me to capture a Knight
for free, even if it had a sacrifice on d5 which it thought
would regain some material later. There were several
different ways to defend the loose Knight on d4, but it
just let me take it; very odd. It's as if it does not see
tactics against itself, but only attacking moves which
strike the opponent (like some weak human players).
I am a full piece up now, at something like move 20.
(That's another miniature, but of course it will not
resign until mate-next-move, so it looks like a normal
length game. I did not see ...B-g4 in advance, but
would have taken the Knight on d4 in any case.)

The number on screen which I took as an indication
of the depth of search, "Thinking on Queen (17)", is
obviously not, unless that is a *selective* search. The
back rank mate should be seen at ply five or so:

1) Rd1??
2) Bxd4
3) Rxd4
4) Qe1+
5) shucks, I have no legal move!


-- help bot